Puccio Penalisti Associati, with a team composed of the Founding Partner Andrea Puccio and the Salary Partner Giulia Cagnazzo, has recently obtained from the Court of Appeal of Milan the rejection of an extradition request issued by Panama against the well-known Luxembourg entrepreneur Charles Ewert, who became internationally famous, over the past 30 years, for having overseen the establishment and management of numerous trust companies in South America, earning him the nickname “Panama Charlie.”
Due to various transactional aspects related to the case, Puccio Penalisti Associati structured and coordinated an international defense team, relying on two Luxembourg-based and a Panamanian law firm.
In more detail, the extradition request was linked to the enforcement of a five years’ imprisonment, issued by the Panamanian authorities against the aforementioned businessman for the crime of aggravated forgery committed against the well-known Austrian arms manufacturer Gaston Glock, and related to the falsification of numerous documents of one of the Panamanian companies owned by the entrepreneur, in order to misappropriate large sums of money, worth more than 30 million dollars.
The Court of Appeal upheld the defense’s request to revoke the pre-trial detention order, and rejected the extradition request from Panama, agreeing with the defense’s arguments regarding the real risk that the individual would face inhuman or degrading treatment once detained.
In particular, the Court highlighted the discrepancy of Panamanian prison conditions with the respect for human dignity, as well as the inadequacy of the explanations provided by the requesting state to overcome all the elements raised and documented by the defense regarding multiple violations of Article 3 of the ECHR.
Finally, the Court of Appeal of Milan emphasized the need to ensure that the individual is subjected to high standards of protection, “which do not expose the person to stress or a test whose intensity exceeds the inevitable level of suffering inherent in detention”.