Dutch court refuses to extradite prisoner to Liverpool prison due to "inhumane" conditions

A Dutch court has refused to extradite a suspected drugs smuggler back to Walton Prison in Liverpool because of “inhumane” conditions.

The Amsterdam judges said there was a real risk of “inhuman and degrading treatment” if the suspect was sent back to the UK.

British police want the fugitive extradited following his capture after almost two years on the run over alleged “narcotics trafficking”.

It’s believed the man, who was not named in court, was smuggling heroin and cocaine.

He is the subject of a European Arrest Warrant.

The Court of Amsterdam cited a British report from last year where prison inspectors found “some of the most disturbing conditions we have ever seen” at Walton.

It added that conditions at the prison, officially named HMP Liverpool, “have no place in an advanced nation in the 21st century”.

The prison was plagued with rats, drugs, and there was widespread violence, found inspectors.

The “squalid” conditions were the worst they have ever seen, they added.

The court heard, in a letter, from the UK Director General of Prisons who argued that improvements were being made to Walton.

“We do not accept those conditions anywhere in our prisons amount to inhuman or degrading treatment contrary to Article Three [of the] European Court of Human Rights."

Article Three of the ECHR states that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

The Amsterdam court said it will delay its extradition decision “until it obtains additional information” about conditions at Walton.