Imagine being in another country and suddenly being arrested on a European arrest warrant for international money laundering, without understanding why.
Try to imagine being in a prison, full of people you don’t know and who don’t speak your language, making communication with others impossible.
All without understanding why.
This may seem like the setting of an action movie or even a paranormal movie.
Instead, it’s something that happens much more often than you think.
In this article, I want to tell you the story of one of our clients who was involved in a large operation of the Italian Judicial Police (called Marrakech Express), coordinated by the Latina Prosecutor’s Office, and who was arrested for this reason.
Our client, however, does not speak Italian, so he found himself locked up in jail without knowing why.
For these reasons we were able to secure his release.
H24 Line for emergency: +39 338 85 15 424.
Indice dei contenuti
The historical fact
One of our clients, B.N., after a vast operation carried out by the Latina police, coordinated by the competent Prosecutor’s Office, was arrested with a European arrest warrant for international recycling of used cars.
The operation involved numerous arrests and was carried out using particularly incisive means, such as wiretaps, arrests, searches and kidnappings.
In particular, the cars subject to recycling would have passed between Italy and abroad and, in particular, Mauritania.
In the case of the luxury cars, the profit made by the suspects would have been particularly significant and, moreover, the investigations would have uncovered a highly articulated international network.
The numerous episodes, as well as the particularly alarming form of illegal behavior, led to the arrest of various suspects, including our client, who was located in France following the issuance of an international arrest warrant.
However, before being arrested, our client told the police that he could not speak or understand Italian.
For this reason, the police carefully appointed a French-speaking interpreter from the moment of arrest, the only language our client spoke and understood.
Imprisonment in Italy for European arrest warrant
You can be imprisoned in Italy by a decision of a judge made in the presence of certain requirements on the basis of a request from the Public Prosecutor.
These requirements must necessarily be included in the preventive detention order and are necessarily (I) serious indications of guilt and at least (ii) one of the precautionary requirements consisting of:
- danger of absconding;
- danger of repeating similar criminal conduct;
- danger of contamination of evidence.
In fact, it is very important that the arrested person knows very well the charges against him, in order to better defend himself.
In accordance with this principle of high legal civilization, the law also requires that the custody order have to be translated into a language that the suspect can understand, and this under penalty of nullity of the precautionary measure, which must be opposed as soon as possible.
In our case, however, although the police appointed a French-speaking interpreter to clarify what was happening to B., he was notified of the custody order in Italy, before being taken to prison, written only in Italian.
Thus our client understood, thanks to the interpreter identified by the police, that he was about to be taken to prison, but did not understand why.
B. risked more than 12 years in prison, without knowing why.
He was taken to prison, in a completely new environment, unable to communicate and unable to explain to anyone why.
The content of the police report
Lawyers Ismaele Brancaccio and Vincenzo Ezio Esposito were immediately contacted by B.’s family, but were unable to explain the reason for their relative’s detention, as even the latter could not explain it.
Consequently, lawyers Esposito and Brancaccio immediately made every effort to extract a copy of the arrest warrant and the documents based on it, in view of the warrant interrogation that would take place less than five days after the arrest in Italy on a European Arrest Warrant for money laundering.
Once again, therefore, as usual in our work, speed and 24-hour availability were required.
Among the acts that gave rise to the request for pre-trial detention and the corresponding arrest warrant were the extracts of the telephone intercepts directed, among others, to B.’s telephone and the information from the Police, who had already identified our client.
What emerges from the analysis of the documents confirms what B. had communicated to his relatives: he had not understood a single word of the accusations made against him.
And in fact: in the wiretaps our Client expressed himself only in French, not even a word of Italian among the documents; the Judicial Police, then, while proceeding correctly with the identification operations, took care to appoint a French-speaking interpreter to protect B.’s rights.
From these data it can be deduced that B. could not speak, much less understand, the Italian language, so the charges against him crystallized in the custody order, which, we repeat, was only drafted and notified in Italian.
The Interrogation of the Client and the Request for Release made by our lawyers
During the warrant interrogation, which took place five days after our client’s arrest, attorneys Brancaccio and Esposito, after hearing the client’s statement to the GIP that he could not speak or understand Italian, requested the nullity of the custody order, pointing out that the Client’s inability to understand the Italian language had already been established and that, therefore, the custody order must have been translated into French.
Lawyers Ismaele Brancaccio and Vincenzo Esposito, in particular, engaged in a long and in-depth discussion in support of the objection to the annulment of the custody order which, if confirmed, would have led to the immediate release of the client.
During the interview, in particular, the defense reviewed all the investigative documents from which it was clear that B. did not speak Italian.
All the procedural documents were examined and reread in the courtroom in order to present them to the judge.
The fundamental point, in fact, was not so much to prove that the suspect did not speak or understand the Italian language, but that, moreover, this fact was known even before the issuance of the precautionary order.
In fact, if only during the interrogation it was known that B. did not speak Italian, or that, in any case, if this had been known only during the interrogation, and not before, no “reproach” could have been addressed to the Prosecutor, or to the Judge and the custody order would have been simply the subject of an immediate translation.
Since, on the other hand, the defense was able to represent that already in the investigation phase it was easy to understand that B. was not able to understand the accusations against him, if not formulated in a language he knew, therefore it was obvious that the precautionary measure had to be translated.
Failing that, therefore, the precautionary measure should be considered null and the accused should be released.
The Prosecutor’s position and the Judge’s decision
The Prosecutor, called to rule on the matter, notwithstanding the thorough analysis made by the defense, consisting in the analysis of all the investigative acts carried out, tried to argue that only at that moment the suspect openly manifested that he did not understand the Italian language, thus requesting the immediate translation of the arrest warrant, rejecting the request for nullity of the measure challenged by the defense with the consequent request for the release of the assisted person.
The judge, however, accepted the requests of the defense, going over, as lawyers Brancaccio and Esposito had already done, all the investigation records, from which it was already easy to understand that B. not only had no idea why he was there, but also that he could never understand it, the information revealing his lack of knowledge of the Italian language being evident.
Consequently, the GIP, upholding the objection of the defense, declared the provisional detention order null and void in favor of B. and ordered his immediate release after his arrest by European arrest warrant for money laundering in Italy.
At this point, it should be noted that the defense did not find, as revealed by a newspaper in Italy, the pretext to get their client out of jail.
Lawyers Brancaccio and Esposito defended justice and the law, which impose certain forms to protect also the suspect.
Not understanding the reasons for the arrest is the most terrible thing imaginable, even when it is to the detriment of the “guilty” person, who must be able to exercise his right to defense, guaranteed by the Constitution, including the right to confess freely.
Even making an authentic confession is impossible if you do not understand, beforehand, why you are being accused.
Why contact an expert lawyer in a European arrest warrant for money laundering in Italy?
The best defense we can guarantee you is a result acquired only with experience and deep knowledge of legal norms.
In the case of criminal law, it is important to know the legislation of the penal code, international law and to have experience accumulated over the years. That is why it is necessary to rely on a Criminal and International Lawyer in Italy.
What is our working method?
By contacting a European arrest warrant lawyer for money laundering in Italy you will be able to:
- Get an immediate budget without future surprises. Each defensive choice will be agreed with you in advance, you will not have any unpleasant surprises and you will not have to incur any unforeseen costs. From the beginning, you will know the costs that you will have to face.
- Always be informed of our professional activity carried out in your exclusive interest. You will be updated step by step on what we are doing and what will happen. We will explain things to you so you can understand the difficult language of the law.
- We are always by your side and you can always count on us. Our firm is called H24 Criminal Lawyer because we always operate 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, every day at any time of the day or night.
Read our other articles on this topic:
- Extradition and European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in Italy
- Extradition in Italy cannot be granted in case of risk of violation of human rights
- Lawyer for extradition to Belgium and European arrest warrant (EAW)
- Italian Lawyer for Extradition Cases. Italian International Law Firm
- Extradition Lawyer in Italy
- European arrest warrant: what to do in case of arrest?
- Interpol Red Notice Removal. How to delete it?
You can receive assistance or legal advice by contacting Criminal Lawyer H24, who will help you with an expert European arrest warrant lawyer for money laundering in Italy.
How do we carry out the online consulting service?
Click here to obtain more information. I describe in detail how we carry out the H24 online consulting service.
What are our customers saying about us?
Read our reviews on Google and find out what clients are saying about our law firm and our business.
Entrusted to experts
European arrest warrant Italy – Romania. How we managed to solve the case
Find out who our lawyers are here
What are the cases handled by the H24 Criminal Lawyer?
Read here all our articles and the cases handled and resolved by the H24 Criminal Lawyer team.
Where does the H24 Criminal Lawyer operate?
Our action takes place in the largest Italian cities where we have our legal offices. Our main offices are in Milan, Rome and Naples.
The H24 immigration lawyer team is international and also operates in major European cities.
Our attorneys are multilingual and provide legal services in English, French, Spanish, and Italian.
We guarantee our legal activity even outside of Europe.
We have contacts and offices around the world through our team of lawyers!
If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys now, please complete the request below.