Jailed driver trapped by red tape • by Melanie Hammond
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A lack of communication between European police forces has left a British truck driver imprisoned for almost three months for a crime of which he was initially cleared in 1997.
Kent-based Eddie Belfield was picked up by Belgian police at the port of Zeebrugge on 19 April after his name appeared on the computer as wanted by German authorities. The case dates back to 1994 when Belfield is alleged to have presented forged tax documentation at the German/Swiss border while driving a sealed consignment of cigarettes and tobacco from Germany to Spain. According to his wife Mary, Belfield has difficulty reading and writing and was unaware of his involvement in a largescale duty-evasion scam. Belfield was eliminated from UK Customs & Excise enquiries in 1997 but the warrant for his arrest was never cancelled by Interpol.
Belfield is awaiting extradition to Germany but his solicitor, Jacqueline van Loon, says she is unable to gain access to information on when this is expected to happen. After four attempts to get Belfield released, van Loon will now appeal to the European Court of Human Rights—she claims that under European law, Belfield should not have been held for more than 40 days.
Mary Belfield, who has seven children and cannot work due to ill health, says: "It's a nightmare. The bills are mounting up and I just can't pay them...Eddie was just doing his job."
Stephen Jakobi, director of The Fair Trials Abroad Trust, says: "It's a clear case of the breakdown of communication between investigative forces and a mockery of co-operation in the European Union. So far as we can find out, the British say it's none of their business, the Belgians say they are acting on the instructions of the Germans—and the Germans are saying nothing,"