§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many extradition requests were(a) completed and (b) not completed, with non-completed cases, broken down by nature of reason for non-completion, in each of the last five years. [154639]
§ Mr. StrawInformation is not available for the full period or in the form requested. The position in relation to completed cases is as follows:
402W
Extradition cases completed 1997–2000 Year Requests made to United Kingdom Requests made by United Kingdom 1997 70 45 1998 90 59 1999 75 57 2000 77 40 Since 1999–2000, the Home Office has embarked upon a number of new major projects to modernise its IT systems, for example the Sirius and Quantum programmes, and its future accommodation the Home Office Central London Accommodation Scheme project (HOCLAS) which accounts for much of the year-by-year increases in costs.
As at 31 December 2000, 205 requests to the United Kingdom were outstanding. They fell into the following categories:
Number Awaiting a decision on the issue of an Authority to Proceed 8 Before the courts 69 Awaiting a decision as to surrender 29 Others 99 Notes:
1. In the last of these categories were cases in which a fugitive has yet to be traced and arrested; and/or where we were in touch with the requesting jurisdiction. It also included cases where the fugitive was unable to be surrendered because he was serving a domestic sentence.
2. A reliable statistical breakdown in this form for earlier years is not available.
A further 99 extradition requests made by the United Kingdom to other countries were outstanding on 31 December 2000. Exact information is not available as to what stage each case had reached in the various jurisdictions to which those requests were made.
The figures provided do not include cases governed by the provisions of the Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965. Those are not collected centrally.