Cross-border pursuit: an international warrant of arrest before the extradition

The Sint Maarten authorities issued an international arrest warrant against the individual who had been placed in custody for possession of a weapon in Saint-Martin on Wednesday, March 29. He was arrested in the district of the French Quarter after a cross-border pursuit race. Indeed, he is a Dutch citizen and the more serious events which he is accused of were committed on the Dutch side - a robbery and shots fired at the police of Sint Maarten.

At the end of a 24-hour police custody, he was placed in detention for the enforcement of an international arrest warrant. According to the law when an individual is placed in detention for this reason, he has 48 hours to be brought before a public prosecutor. The individual took the first plane on Friday morning to be brought before the public prosecutor of Basse-Terre. The latter served the international arrest warrant and placed the individual in pre-trail custody in prison, pending his extradition to Sint Maarten. In order for an individual to be extradited, the person must agreed to the extradition proceedings, as well as the judicial authority. A priori nobody is against it. When the extradition will be recorded, the gendarmes of Saint-Martin will have to go retrieve the accused in Guadeloupe in order to hand it over to the police of Sint Maarten.