Back in Norway after being stuck in Spain – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country

On 27 August 2020, the Norwegian citizen Adam Gashi was arrested by the police in Norway, following an arrest warrant from the Spanish authorities.

He was detained in Norway for six weeks. He was then handed over to Spain where he was wanted for attempted murder following a shootout in the coastal town of Benidorm on 4 July 2018.

The deportation to Spain took place under the new Arrest Warrant Act, which is a mutual agreement between Norway and the EU. Prior to this, Norway did not extradite its own citizens to countries other than the Nordic countries.

In Spain, Gashi was initially detained for eleven months. After he was released, he was stripped of his passport and ordered to stay in the country until the case was fully investigated.

Gashi has always maintained that he and the two friends he was with that night are innocent.

– We were in the wrong place at the wrong time, Gashi said when NRK visited him in Spain two years ago.

Nevertheless, he has now received a confession in Spain. How did it happen?

Ggang fight in holiday town

There was complete panic when a Russian citizen suddenly fired several shots with a gun in a tourist street lined with palm trees and nightclubs in Benidorm.

Shortly before, the Russian and a man with German and Kazakh citizenship had been surrounded by a group of Moroccans who, among other things, attacked with a broken bottle.

A Moroccan and a British tourist were hit by the shots.

Gashi and his friends were standing outside the nightclub where the commotion started. They are said to have offered to interpret in the conflict earlier in the day.

Confessed in court

When the case finally came to court, after more than five years, the original charges against Gashi of attempted murder and association with a criminal organization were gone.

On 16 November last year, a court in Alicante spent less than fifteen minutes dealing with the case.

An agreement had been made in advance between the prosecution and the defenders. The agreement was confirmed in the judgement:

• The prosecution rejected the idea that the purpose of the shooting was to kill. The verdict states that shots were fired into the ground, and that the victims were hit by ricochets.
• The Russian ringleader received a sentence of two years and three months in prison, but did not have to serve time against being deported from Spain. In addition, he had to pay compensation to the victims.
• According to the agreement, Adam Gashi and another Norwegian citizen confessed to complicity in personal injury, and received a sentence of one year in prison, which they will not have to serve if they are not convicted of new criminal acts in the next two years. The two also received a small fine of 120 euros (1,378 NOK) each.

I think they were pressured

Adam Gashi tells NRK that he felt pressured to confess to participating in court. If he had not done so, he would have risked having to wait several more years for a proper trial.

– I had no choice. We had to say yes to finish the day. If we were to wait even longer to be fully exonerated, it would take perhaps three or four more years, says Gashi.

It would also go beyond the agreement that the other parties involved had made.

Gashi has previously said that he will appeal the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg when it has been processed in Spain.

It will be difficult now that he has confessed.

The other Norwegian citizen in the case also says he felt pressured to confess in order to get the case out of the world. He was also arrested in Norway in autumn 2020, but was not handed over to Spain.

He went to Alicante and attended the trial last November.

The Arrest Warrant Act

For Adam Gashi, the arrest warrant law has meant six weeks in custody in Norway, eleven months in custody in Spain and over three years of forced stay in Spain, due to a case that ended with no sentence and a 120 euro fine.

NRK has previously discussed several cases where Norwegian citizens believe they have not received fair treatment under the Arrest Warrant Act.

The agreement binds Norway to also hand over its own citizens to EU member states.

It means that the countries recognize each other’s legal systems as their own.

Therefore, the prosecuting authority or the courts in Norway must not assess the evidence before any of it is handed over.

The Storting unanimously decided in December 2011 that Norway should join the agreement with the EU, which therefore makes it easier and faster to hand over persons who are said to have committed criminal offences. It then took eight years before the agreement entered into force.

Requests Norway to investigate the matter

Adam Gashi asks the Norwegian state to demand answers from the Spanish authorities about what happened in the case.

– I hope that the Norwegian authorities dare to ask for documents from Spain and investigate them. Because they will see that we have been wrongly treated and I believe that there has been a miscarriage of justice against us, says Gashi.

He believes this is important to avoid other Norwegian citizens experiencing the same thing.

– I think it is a shame that Norwegian citizens should be deported before they have presented proper evidence.

– The hope is that justice will prevail. For us and for others.