1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,000 Every year in Europe, an estimated 10,000 European citizens are arrested and placed in pretrial detention in a member state other than their country of residence. 2 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,000 80% of them could be transferred. 3 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:24,000 The European Commission has just adopted a proposal that will enable European citizens who are arrested in another state to return to their country of origin pending trial. 4 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,000 The measure would have changed Lesz Cierpinski's life. 5 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,000 I was arrested in Gdansk in August 1998. 6 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:37,000 I was brought to the police station and then put in prison in pretrial detention. 7 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:45,000 Then I was transferred to Biala, where my detention was prolonged until December 1998. 8 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:50,000 That was until the end of 1998. 9 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:33,000 This situation was incomprehensible, especially because for three months I had no hearing and was never interrogated. 10 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:48,000 The sordid and rather rustic side of certain prisons makes detainees want to tell their side of the story and sometimes to ask the judge for an early release in exchange for information. 11 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:58,000 Placed in a cell with eight Polish detainees, he did not suffer from a language barrier, but was not able to contact a lawyer until three months after being arrested. 12 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:02,000 Pretrial detention of a suspect is justified by three main criteria. 13 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:07,000 The fear that the suspect will take flight, destroy evidence, or be a threat to law and order. 14 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:14,000 On average, pretrial detention lasts less than six months, but the way it is implemented can sometimes be controversial. 15 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:21,000 The only criterion for very important cases is what is referred to as a reasonable time in the European Convention on Human Rights, 16 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:27,000 which states that a suspect must be tried within a reasonable time or released pending trial. 17 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:34,000 In the case of Lesz, the months of pretrial detention ended without a trial or release, but by a ban on leaving Polish territory. 18 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:37,000 The authorities confiscated his passport. 19 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:43,000 The long period of judicial supervision that followed was described by the Swedish press as Kafkaesque. 20 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:51,000 After two or three years, if I was a judge in a court in Poland, I would say to myself, 21 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:57,000 OK, I don't think this man will run away from this process. 22 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:05,000 And in this case, if they would have let him stay in Sweden, he would also have the possibility to earn his living. 23 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:15,000 Since he could not work or find housing in Poland, Lesz looked for help, in particular from the Swedish embassy. 24 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:19,000 The message what we have done is a different kind. 25 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:22,000 I mean, we can only write to authorities. 26 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:28,000 We made phone calls to the courts, tried to follow the case and find out why it is prolonged. 27 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:32,000 But we could never interfere in the court proceedings, of course. 28 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,000 He tried everything. He really could not have tried anything else. 29 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:43,000 Arrested in 1998, it was not until July 2006 that he was able to return to his family in Sweden. 30 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:49,000 While this case is exceptional due to its duration, it serves as an illustration of what can happen. 31 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:55,000 The European Commission's proposal introducing the possibility for suspects to return to their country of origin 32 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:01,000 would apply not only to pre-trial detention, but also to judicial supervision. 33 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:04,000 I think it is an interesting idea. 34 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:12,000 The fact that a magistrate or a judicial officer will know that there is available this kind of, eventually, 35 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:19,000 this kind of possibility that a suspect could be sent home under supervision, 36 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:26,000 it might render him more open to granting bail. 37 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:34,000 The problems relating to the need for the suspect's presence during the investigation still have to be solved. 38 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:40,000 The European Union would like to deal with that issue by counting on cooperation and confidence between states, 39 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:46,000 so that European citizens who are suspects in another member state will continue to be presumed innocent 40 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:51,000 and no longer be subject to lengthy detention measures.