Criminal lawyers in Italy

Italy has acceded to the Strasbourg Convention on the transfer of sentenced persons since 1988. According to this Convention, the foreign citizens arrested and detained in a prison of Italy may be transferred to their country of origin to continue serving their sentence.
Main targets of the Convention are the development of international cooperation in criminal matters and the social rehabilitation of sentenced persons into their country of origin.
According to Art. 2 of the Convention, a person sentenced in the territory of Italy may be transferred to the territory of another country (Party of the Convention) in order to serve his sentence. He may express his interest in being transferred under the Convention to the sentencing State or the administering one.

The transfer may be requested by sentencing State or administering State.
Sentencing State is the State in which the sentence was imposed on the person, while administering State means the State to which the sentenced person may be transferred in order to serve his sentence.

According to Art. 3 of the Convention, a sentenced person may be transferred only on the following conditions:

- the person is a citizen of the administering State
- the judgment is final
- at the time of request, the sentenced person still has at least six months of the sentence to serve or the sentence is indeterminate;
- the sentenced person agrees with the transfer
- the acts or omissions on account of which the sentence has been imposed, constitute a criminal offence according to the law of the administering State or would constitute a criminal offence if committed on its territory;
- the sentencing State and the administering State agree to the transfer

The Convention obliges the contracting States to inform the sentenced persons about their rights and the possibility to request a transfer, once the judgment has become final.
In the case that the two countries agree on the transfer, the sentenced person shall be transferred to administering State to serve his sentence. The authority of administering state will lead to the execution of the sentence or convert the sentence, through a judicial or administrative proceedings, into another measure.
For this reason, before the transfer, the administering State shall indicate to the sentencing State which of the two procedures it will adopt. The administering State can't aggravate the penal position of the transferee.

Only the sentencing State may review the judgment, while it is allowed to the administering one to pardon or commutate the sentence.

By Mr. Luca Santaniello
Lawyer at Santaniello & Partners

Note: see also What to do if you are arrested in Italy and English speaking lawyers in Italy