Extradition Process Between the UAE and

Pakistan

Author: Dr. Hassan Elhais

Introduction

Extradition in the UAE is organized by a specific law for judicial cooperation called Law No. 39 of 2006.
However, this law might not be applied if there was an extradition treaty between UAE and other countries,
since I covered the judicial cooperation law in my previous articles I will start in my next series of articles
covering extradition under different types of treaties, bearing in mind that the UAE signed extradition
treaties with multiple countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, India, China,
United Kingdom, Armenia, Sudan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Australia, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan,
Spain and many other countries.

In my previous articles, I covered the extradition treaties with India, China, and United Kingdom

On top of these one-to-one treaties, there are additional conventions signed between the Arab
countries.

1. The treaty between Arab countries, UAE joined this treaty on 30 April 1972 and the treaty included in
addition of Arab countries Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen that’s of course besides Jordan, Saudi Arabia and
Egypt who signed a one-to-one treaty at a later date.

2. The second international treaty signed between Arab countries was the Riyadh Treaty which the UAE
became a party on 15th April 1999. This treaty included countries like Bahrain, Tunisia, Jordan,
Algeria, Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco,
Mauretania and Yemen.

In this article, I will cover the treaty between UAE and Pakistan and in other future articles, I will be
covering different treaties one by one.

On 29 January 2005, the UAE decided to recognize the treaty signed with the Pakistani government and
starting from this date the treaty shall supersede the UAE local laws related to extradition.

In compliance with this treaty, each signatory party should extradite the individual if he was accused of acts
criminalized by both the UAE laws and Pakistani laws with expected sentences of not less than one year
even if there was no criminal judgment yet.

However, if UAE or Pakistan is asking for extradition based on a criminal judgment then the sentence in the
judgment shall not be less than 6 months. The extradition shall only be done between UAE and Pakistan and
not to any other third party who is not a signatory to this one-to-one treaty.
If the extradition request was made based on a criminal complaint which has not been awarded by judgment
yet, then such extradition could be made if there was reasonable evidence that the person committed the
crime of which he is accused.

The extradition between UAE and Pakistan shall not be made in the following cases:

1. If the person is accused of political accusations or if it’s clear that the extradition request is built on
political grounds.
2. If the person has been charged for the same crime previously in Pakistan, UAE or any other country.
3. If the crime is subject to time limitation in the country which has requested to send the individual.
4. If the person accused has already executed the sentence in the country where he is based or any other
third country.
5. If the person has the right to asylum.
6. If the person is requested to be extradited based on a military crime.

The execution of the extradition could be suspended if the person is facing criminal charges for different
crimes in the country where he is a resident, in such cases he should first execute the sentence or get released
from the crimes he is accused of before the extradition is executed.

So if we assume that Pakistan is requesting the extradition of a Pakistani national who is a UAE resident but
in the meantime the same person is facing criminal charges in the UAE for cases like fraud, theft, breach of
trust or any other criminal accusations then in such cases the person first shall finish the criminal
investigation and get the judgment for the criminal case in the UAE and if the judgment includes jail
sentence then he shall execute it in the UAE and then when he finishes the criminal charges here then the
extradition could be enforced to send him back to Pakistan to deal with the criminal charges there.

In other words, if the person committed two crimes, one in Pakistan and one in UAE and if he is based in the
UAE, it is expected that he should finish the charges in the UAE first before being sent back to Pakistan.

The treaty recognized one of the most well-established concepts in extradition where none of the countries
do extraction of their citizens. In other words, if the UAE is requesting for extradition of a Pakistani national
from Pakistan then such extradition shall not be executed however, still the person could face the same
criminal charges before his national courts.

One of the securities given by this treaty to the accused is that after executing an extradition he shall not face
different criminal charges for a different case than the one he has been requested for unless he committed a
new crime after the extradition was executed.

The extradition request from Pakistan to UAE and vice versa shall include a specific list of the documents
otherwise it could get rejected. Such documents are listed in Article No. 07 of the treaty and most of these
documents will be the proof of ID indicating precisely who this person is where he could be found and what
the facts of the crime that he is accused of, the Articles of Law which criminalized the individual’s act,
besides the Articles of the Law which indicates the time limitation rule for such accusation according to the
national law, copy of any evidence to support the accusation against him, copy of the arrest warrant issued
against him, if the extradition was based on a criminal judgment then the copy of the judgment would be
requested to be provided.

If the arrest warrant was issued, then the receiving country shall arrest the person and such arrest shall be up
to 2 months in most cases then they should request a copy of the above-mentioned documents and if these
documents were received then the accused could be transferred to the criminal courts where the criminal
courts have the right to accept the extradition or not.

If the criminal court decides to execute the extradition then the accused will be given 1 month to raise his
petition to the Supreme Court and if the Supreme Court confirms the execution of the extradition request
then the UAE will arrange for the possible way, time and location to execute the extradition and inform the
Pakistani government about it.

Question: What would be the case if multiple extradition requests were received from different countries at
the same time? Let’s assume we have a Pakistani national who is based here and two extradition requests
were received, one from Pakistan and one from another country and both Pakistan and the other country sent
all of the requirements as per the treaties with the UAE. In this case, shall he be extradited to his home
country or the third country?

Answer: There is no certain answer to clarify this point. However, Article No. 10 of the treaty between UAE
and Pakistan indicated that in such cases UAE would decide to choose the execution of one of these two
requests taking into consideration the seriousness of the crime, the location of the execution of the crime, the
dates of the requests, the nationality of the accused and the possibility of extraditing him from one country to
the other after executing the first one.

Question: Who covers the extradition cost?

Answer: According to Article No. 15, the country requesting the extradition shall be the one to cover the
extradition costs unless exceptional costs are expected and only in such cases the costs could be discussed
between the parties.

Question: What happens after the extradition is executed and what are the obligations of the country
requesting the extradition as per the treaty?

Answer: According to Article No. 15 of the treaty signed by UAE and Pakistan after the execution of the
extradition, the country that submitted the extradition request shall update the country who executed the
extradition request with the last update on the criminal investigation, and what was the final decision if the
extradition was made based on a criminal complaint, but if the extradition request was made based on a
criminal judgment made in absentia then they should provide copy of the final judgment after the retrial
would be made based on the extradition process.

Related Links
Know more about the extradition laws of British Nationals in the UAE
Dubai Court Rejects Extradition Request for 'Wanted' Russian Woman
How Does the Extradition Process Work for Criminal Matters?

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