Detained abroad on an INTERPOL alert: what to do in the first hours

Most often it is passport control. You hand over your passport, the officer looks at the screen for longer than usual, walks off with the document and comes back with company. Less often an arrest happens at home or when applying to a state body — for a residence permit, a driving licence, the registration of a transaction.

At that moment it matters to understand what has actually happened, because everything that follows depends on it. You have not been arrested on a conviction or on a charge brought in that country. You have been arrested because a record surfaced in the system and the local authorities are working out what to do with it.

A Red Notice is in itself neither an arrest warrant nor an extradition request. But it starts a mechanism: first provisional arrest, and only then — if the requesting country actually pursues it — a formal extradition request with a full set of documents.

So the first thing to accept: the next hours and days weigh more than the months that follow. What you said, whom you called and what you signed in the first twenty-four hours shapes the outcome more than any work done six months later.

Detention pending a decision on surrender is a distinct legal regime, not the same as ordinary arrest on a criminal charge. In Europe its basis is stated outright: Article 5(1)(f) of the European Convention on Human Rights permits the lawful arrest or detention of a person against whom action is being taken with a view to deportation or extradition.

How such an arrest is requested is set out in Article 16 of the 1957 European Convention on Extradition: in cases of urgency the requesting party’s competent authorities may ask for provisional arrest, and the requested party decides the matter under its own law. Paragraph 3 of that article lists the channels for the request — and INTERPOL is among them.

That is where a notice turns into handcuffs: not because INTERPOL holds power, but because the Convention recognises it as a channel for transmitting a request for provisional arrest.

Outside Europe the logic is the same and the deadlines and procedure are local. In the UAE, for instance, Article 15 of Federal Law No. 39 of 2006 lets the Public Prosecutor order provisional arrest on the basis of a warrant issued by a foreign judicial authority, before any surrender request has even arrived.

The practical significance of this distinction is large. You are being held within a procedure that has firm deadlines and a defined subject: the local court will decide not whether you are guilty but whether surrender is permissible. Arguing guilt in those proceedings is almost always pointless and sometimes harmful.

They do not activate by themselves. Most of them have to be invoked — out loud, in front of witnesses, and recorded in the file.

The right to know the reason. Article 5(2) of the European Convention: everyone who is arrested shall be informed promptly, in a language which he understands, of the reasons for his arrest and of any charge against him. The phrase in a language which he understands is not a courtesy but an obligation: if what is happening is explained in a language you do not speak, demand an interpreter and make sure the demand is recorded.

The right to judicial review. Article 5(4): everyone deprived of liberty is entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of the detention is decided speedily by a court, and release ordered if it is unlawful. This is your principal tool in extradition detention.

There is a legal subtlety worth knowing. Article 5(3) — the one requiring prompt production before a judge — applies only to detention on suspicion of an offence, that is, to paragraph 1(c). Extradition detention falls under paragraph 1(f), and no automatic appearance before a judge is guaranteed. What you rely on is Article 5(4), and the initiative under it is yours.

The right to compensation. Article 5(5): everyone who has been the victim of arrest or detention in contravention of this Article shall have an enforceable right to compensation. That is not an abstraction: violations recorded in the first day become the basis of a claim later.

The right to a lawyer when giving statements. Different countries frame it differently, but it is usually written into the law. In the UAE, for example, Article 17 of Law No. 39 requires a detainee to be brought before the prosecution within forty-eight hours, to be told the reason for arrest, the content of the request and the evidence and documents relating to it, and expressly preserves the right to give statements with a lawyer present.

The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Article 36 — a provision detainees are frequently not told about, although the authorities are obliged to tell them.

Paragraph 1(b): if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall without delay inform the consular post of his State that he has been arrested, committed to prison or to custody pending trial, or detained in any other manner. Any communication addressed to the consular post by the detained person must be forwarded without delay. And separately: those authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this subparagraph.

Paragraph 1(c): consular officers have the right to visit a national in prison, custody or detention, to converse and correspond with him, and to arrange for his legal representation.

And now the reason this section exists. The same paragraph 1(c) ends with a proviso: consular officers shall refrain from taking action on behalf of a national in prison, custody or detention if he expressly opposes such action.

For someone wanted by their own state this is fundamental. Notifying the consulate of the country that initiated the search is not assistance; it is passing information to the side you are defending yourself against. The right of consular access belongs to you, and you are equally entitled to decline it — expressly, aloud, and on the record.

If you hold more than one nationality, you have a choice: the consulate notified can be that of another country of your nationality which is not the one seeking you. If you are a refugee or an asylum seeker, consular assistance from your country of origin is generally inconsistent with the very nature of your status.

Identify yourself and produce your documents — always. Refusing to establish your identity helps nobody and sours the first impression on the very people who will decide the conditions of your detention.

After that: ask for a lawyer and an interpreter, and give no account of the substance of the case until they arrive. That is not a trick but an expressly provided right; in many countries the law obliges the authorities to tell you about it.

Sign nothing you do not understand. Documents consenting to simplified surrender are particularly dangerous: in many legal systems a detainee’s written consent allows the judicial procedure to be bypassed entirely. In the UAE, for example, Article 13 of Law No. 39 permits surrender by ministerial decision without court proceedings where there is one requesting State and the person has consented in writing, and Article 14 requires only that the consent be informed. Signing such a paper in the first day removes two judicial instances by your own hand.

Memorise, then write down: the exact time of arrest, who was present, what you were told and in what language, whether you asked for a lawyer and an interpreter and what the answer was. These details later become arguments under Article 5.

Tell one person on the outside. Not everyone at once — one person capable of acting: contacting a lawyer, sending documents, paying for the work. Panicked messages to ten people create noise, not help.

And what not to do. Do not discuss the substance of the charge — that question is not examined in extradition proceedings anyway, and what you say goes into the record and travels with the file. Do not try to negotiate on the spot. Do not destroy or hide documents or phones.

You need two, and that is not an attempt to double the bill. Their tasks differ, and one person rarely combines them.

The first is a local criminal lawyer in the country of arrest. They work in the court that will decide on detention conditions and on the permissibility of surrender, know the particular prosecutors and deadlines, and can physically appear within those forty-eight hours.

The second is a specialist in INTERPOL and extradition matters. Their job is the substantive position: grounds for refusal, proving political motive or a discriminatory purpose, the Article 3 risk, a parallel request to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files. That part does not depend on the country of arrest and is done on documents.

The test of competence is simple: a specialist does not say we will sort everything out but names the specific provisions the position will be built on and explains what cannot be done. A promise of a result by a given date is the signal to walk away.

If you cannot afford both at once, start with the local one: without them the next twenty-four hours will simply pass without you in the room.

Provisional arrest is not open-ended, and knowing the actual figures changes how the situation feels.

Under the European Convention on Extradition, provisional arrest may be terminated if, within eighteen days of the arrest, the requested party has not received the extradition request and the Article 12 documents. In any event it shall not exceed forty days from the date of arrest (Article 16(4)). Release on conditions at any point is not excluded.

Release when the period expires does not close the matter: Article 16(5) provides expressly that it does not prejudice re-arrest and extradition if a request arrives later.

Limits exist outside Europe too. In the UAE a detainee must be brought before the prosecution within forty-eight hours (Article 17), the prosecutor refers the request to the court within fifteen days (Article 18), and if the requesting State has not taken the person over within thirty days of notification they are released; the overall cap on detention may be raised to sixty days (Article 28).

If an extradition request does arrive, the clock switches to months: the court hearing, the appeal, the executive decision. Expect anything from several months to a year or more — and in many countries a substantial part of that can be spent out of custody.

This is the defence’s first real objective, and in many cases it is achievable.

The European Convention on Extradition provides expressly that the possibility of provisional release at any time is not excluded — provided the requested party takes such measures as it considers necessary to prevent escape (Article 16(4)). UAE law puts it more definitely still: detention does not preclude release on a personal or financial guarantee, and the prosecutor may order it either on application or of his own motion (Articles 15 and 16).

What helps: settled ties to the country — housing, family, work, lawful status; no criminal record; surrender of your passport; willingness to accept electronic monitoring and regular reporting; a financial guarantee; no history of absconding.

What hurts: false or borrowed documents, an attempt to leave after learning of the search, the absence of any lawful status in the country, past failures to appear.

File the application for release immediately rather than waiting for the case to reach court. Every week in custody damages the position, your health and your ability to gather documents.

Relatives matter more in the first day than people expect, because the detainee is physically limited in what they can do.

First: find and retain a local lawyer. Not somebody recommended in a chat group, but through the local bar or a specialist firm, having checked that they actually practise extradition work in that court.

Second: gather documents showing the detainee’s ties to the country — a lease, a residence permit, an employment contract, marriage and birth certificates, medical records. These are needed not to argue guilt but to apply for release, and they are needed fast.

Third: gather documents about the prosecution itself — case materials, court decisions, a refusal of extradition in the same matter elsewhere, asylum papers, publications. These will form the substantive position and the parallel request to INTERPOL’s Commission.

Fourth: make no public statements and raise no publicity before speaking to the lawyer. In some cases publicity helps; in others it sharply worsens the position, and that call belongs to whoever has seen the file.

And what not to do: do not send money to intermediaries promising to sort things out through connections. At best that is money lost; at worst it is a separate offence in both countries.

Defending yourself where you were arrested solves today’s problem — getting out and not being surrendered. It does not solve tomorrow’s: the record stays in INTERPOL’s system and will fire again at other countries’ borders.

So the second track starts in parallel, not afterwards: a request to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files for deletion of the data. Filing is free — Article 30(3) of the Commission’s Statute prohibits any charge — and a deletion request is to be decided within nine months of being declared admissible.

The two tracks reinforce each other, and that is not a figure of speech. A reasoned refusal of extradition — and the Convention requires refusals to be reasoned — becomes independent confirmation for the Commission that something about the prosecution does not hold. It is among the weightiest documents you can attach.

It works the other way too: a decision deleting the data removes the channel the requesting country was using and takes away the risk of being detained again in a third country.

And there is a reason not to postpone even after a win. In many systems a refusal creates no permanent bar: in the UAE, for instance, Article 25 of Law No. 39 expressly allows a fresh decision permitting surrender on a new request from the same State for the same offences where new grounds appear. While the record lives in the system, the story is not over.

Everything described above becomes twice as easy if part of the work is done before you travel.

Check whether there are data about you in the system. A request for access is free, but the decision takes four months from the date the request is declared admissible, and in 2024, 70 per cent of such requests took longer. Checking the week before a flight is pointless.

Keep digital copies to hand: passport, residence permit, lease, marriage and birth certificates, court decisions, asylum papers. Those are exactly what is needed in the first day, and searching mail archives from custody is impossible.

Have a local lawyer’s contact in the countries you travel to regularly. It is inexpensive before the event and expensive after it.

Agree in advance with one person close to you: who acts if contact is lost, where the documents are, whom to call. That conversation takes half an hour and saves the first critical day.

And the most reassuring point. On the Commission’s 2024 figures, of 948 admissible access requests, 57 per cent came from people about whom INTERPOL’s systems held no data at all. Checking removes the anxiety more often than it confirms it.

Signing a consent to simplified surrender without realising it removes the court proceedings entirely.

Giving a detailed account of the substance of the charge without a lawyer. Extradition proceedings do not examine guilt, and what you say stays in the file and travels with the case.

Not asking for an interpreter, on the assumption that you will manage. Article 5(2) gives a right to information in a language you understand; a demand never made cannot be proved later.

Letting the consulate of the very country that is seeking you be notified automatically. The Vienna Convention gives you the right to oppose action by consular officers, and in political cases that right is worth using.

Waiting for the case to reach court instead of applying for release on conditions straight away.

Confining yourself to the defence where you were arrested and leaving the INTERPOL record untouched. The next trip then begins in exactly the same way.

Paying an intermediary who promises to fix things through connections or by a particular date. Neither exists in this procedure.