The lawyer of a Romanian prince convicted of corruption in his homeland told a court about the "terrifying situation" in Romanian prisons during appeal submissions on Friday.
Defence lawyer Jason Azzopardi was making arguments as to why a decision to extradite 75-year-old prince Paul Philippe Al Romaniei should be overturned.
Al Romaniei was sentenced to almost three and a half years in prison in his native Romania.
Azzopardi's submissions follow a Constitutional Court judgement last Tuesday declaring that Maltese law on European Arrest Warrants (EAW) conflicts with EU law.
In Friday’s sitting, Madam Justice Edwina Grima heard Azzopardi describe the terrifying situation in Romanian prisons.
He said inmates were often drunk on alcohol they make themselves and murder one another without consequences.
Azzopardi said news of one such "gruesome" murder had surfaced just five days ago, adding that the director of Romanian prisons had testified that there was no violence and no reason for concern.
He said one of the prisons in which the prince would have to first stay was the Rahova prison in Bucharest, which he said had featured in documentary series The World’s Toughest Prisons.
He continued to say that in 2016, an Italian court had ordered that an EAW against a Romanian national should not be carried out because of the inhuman situation in the prisons there.
Azzopardi also pointed out that a court in Athens had rejected the extradition request, citing unfair trial concerns. He said courts in Paris and Cyprus had also dismissed the EAW on similar grounds, acknowledging political persecution and poor prison conditions.
That judgment referred to a stream of reports against the Romanian prison system from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
He also said that there are reports which show that the Romanian prisons are among the most overcrowded.
The prosecution, represented by lawyer Meredith Ebejer, argued that Romania’s prisons were improving.
Earlier on Friday, a constitutional court ruled that criminal courts handling EAWs must consider human rights issues. Any claim to the contrary is both incorrect and a failure to apply European law, it said.
The three judges - Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti, Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo, and Justice Anthony Ellul - said it was incorrect to argue that criminal courts lack the authority to assess whether extradition would violate a person’s fundamental rights, such as protection against inhuman or degrading treatment.
Last month, the criminal court granted his extradition. While appealing the extradition request in criminal court, Al Romaniei’s lawyers initiated constitutional proceedings.
In 2020, the 75-year-old prince was convicted in absentia of corruption in connection with the illegal restitution of real estate near Bucharest, over which he was accused of falsely claiming ownership.
Al Romaniei was sentenced to almost three and a half years in prison.
Some two years later, he was apprehended in Paris, but a Court of Appeal refused to extradite him to Romania.
He currently resides in France, but while in Malta for a conference in April, he was detained on the strength of an EAW.
Lawyers Azzopardi, Kris Busietta, and Alessandro Farrugia are defence counsel.
The judgment by the Court of Criminal Appeal will be delivered on July 19 at noon.