A British man has been arrested under the European arrest warrant (EAW) system for a crime of which he was cleared some 17 years ago, the charity Fair Trials International said today.

Graham Mitchell, 49, a former Scots Guard, was arrested earlier this month on an EAW issued by Portugal for an incident that took place in 1995, when he spent 11 months in jail before being cleared of the attempted murder of a German national. He is still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his ordeal.

Kent Police arrived at his door with an EAW, accusing Mitchell of ‘first degree murder’ - despite his alleged victim being still alive. He has now been released on bail, but faces extradition to Portugal, where he has not been since the 1995 trial.

Fair Trials International chief executive Jago Russell said: ‘Graham thought that he had left his ordeal behind, but nearly 20 years later faces the threat of extradition. We hope that Portugal realises that it would be wrong to extradite him so many years after he was cleared, and that they withdraw the request. We fear that if they do not, there may be little chance of stopping the extradition under the UK’s flawed extradition laws.’

Fair Trials International has submitted a six-point plan to the Commons Home Affairs Committee to reform the Extradition Act 2003.

These reforms are: no extradition until a case is trial-ready; allow domestic courts to seek further information from the requesting state before extradition; give domestic courts a back-stop power to refuse extradition where it would not be in the interests of justice; abolish means-testing for legal aid in all extradition cases; extend the fixed one-week deadline to appeal against extradition under a EAW; and allow convicted British nationals or residents to serve their sentence in the UK, to avoid the expense of extradition followed by transfer back to a UK prison.