"Allowed only one hour of exercise a day, one shower a week, and one visit by relatives a month, they have been interviewed only once by police in more than 80 days' detention. Hungary's criminal justice system is tough, bureaucratic and notoriously slow. Under the penal code, the two could be held up to two years without being charged.The Hungarian side deny the British complaint that they misused the extradition procedure: "Hungarian law is in complete harmony with the framework proposal of the European commission governing the issuing of the European arrest warrant," said Gabriella Skoda, a spokeswoman for the metropolitan prosecutor's office in Budapest. "In Hungary, you can issue a European arrest warrant at the investigation stage, without charges being issued by the prosecution."
According to article 1, paragraph 1 of the framework decision of the European commission, warrants should be issued "for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution or executing a custodial sentence or detention order".
If the men are eventually found innocent, they could claim substantial damages from the Hungarian state, but only at the end of a legal road that stretches far beyond the wintry horizon."
Get the full story from the source: Guardian.co.uk
26.01.2010