What happens if I am arrested on a Red Notice abroad?

The worst day of a Red Notice begins in an airport interview room. It helps to know what the next forty days look like.

What a provisional arrest is

A Red Notice asks countries to “locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition”. Provisional, because it precedes the formal request: the country where you are found detains you while the requesting country assembles the papers — the warrant, “a statement of the offences” and the relevant law. Not every country arrests on the notice alone; the United States does not. Where one does, the arrest is lawful locally even if the notice is not.

The two clocks

The first runs against the requesting country. The European Convention on Extradition — the model for much of the world — provides that provisional arrest “may be terminated if, within a period of 18 days after arrest, the requested Party has not received the request for extradition”, and “shall not, in any event, exceed 40 days from the date of such arrest”. If the papers do not arrive, you are released; if they do, extradition proceedings begin, and they can last months or years.

The second clock runs against you: the first seventy-two hours decide whether the case is fought from preparation or panic.

You cannot choose the country that arrests you. You can choose to have the file ready before it does.

What to do in the first 72 hours

Ask for consular access — Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations requires the authorities to inform your consulate “without delay” if you ask. Instruct local extradition counsel: this is litigation under local law. Say nothing about the merits without counsel. Have someone outside send the documents prepared in advance, and file — or activate — your request to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files.

What the Commission can do while you are held

Its procedural guidelines allow “provisional measures” in “emergency situations requiring an urgent decision”, naming the case “where an applicant’s extradition is clearly imminent” and where “the applicant is in detention due to data held in INTERPOL’s files” — blocking the data, removing a public extract, priority processing. These measures ride on a request already before the Commission: the strongest argument for acting early. The extradition court decides under its own law; the Commission decides whether INTERPOL’s data should exist; and winning the first does not settle the second — see Does a refused extradition end a Red Notice?

Related

• Is a Red Notice an international arrest warrant?
• Does a refused extradition end a Red Notice?
• Can you act before a Red Notice is issued?