Additional sentences of up to 3 years for fugitives (minister)

The Government approved the draft law according to which people who received final sentences and evade the execution of the sentence will receive up to three additional years in prison, the Minister of Justice, Alina Gorghiu, announced on Thursday.

"This additional provision is added in the case of people who are definitively convicted who do not appear within seven days to execute the sentence of conviction that the court ordered. Up to three years will be added to the prison sentence. We hope that through this bill we will discourage fugitives", explained the minister of justice.

From 2020 until now, 2,607 people who had international arrest warrants on their names have been brought to Romania. Of these, 2,547 were brought on the basis of European arrest warrants, and the rest through the extradition procedure.

This year, 621 people were brought to the country, 17 of them based on extradition and 604 based on the European arrest warrant. Currently, 1,845 extradited or surrendered persons are serving custodial sentences in Romanian penitentiaries, representing 7.82% of the total number of persons in the penitentiary system.

At the same time, of the 1,845 people in Romanian penitentiaries who evaded the execution of the sentence by leaving the country, 880 were brought to the country considering the guarantees offered by the Ministry of Justice in terms of conditions of detention to be ensured.

Gorghiu added that in the relationship with countries such as Germany, Great Britain or Sweden, there is no longer any refusal to surrender.

Steps were initiated regarding extradition treaties with countries outside the EU, such as Canada or Mexico.

Alina Gorghiu also specified that currently the Ministry of Justice has two liaison magistrate positions in Italy and France, but wants to create one more position in Great Britain and one in Germany. These magistrates are the link between the Ministry of Justice and the jurisdiction where extradition requests are analyzed.