CAT/C/49/D/346/2008 The decision to release him was subsequently rescinded by the President of the Supreme Court of Brazil but by that time the complainant was already in Italy. 2.2 On 15 September 2007, the complainant was taken in for questioning by the Monegasque authorities and was placed under provisional arrest at the request of the Brazilian authorities following the issuance of an arrest warrant by a judge in Rio de Janeiro on 19 July 2000.2 Based on that arrest warrant and the judgement of the Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro of 31 March 2005, the Monegasque Court of Appeal, sitting in chambers, authorized the extradition of the complainant by its decision of 15 April 2008. It ruled against a second request for extradition by the same authorities based on an arrest warrant dated 21 September 2007, which dealt with other acts that were not punishable in Monaco. 2.3 The Court of Appeal authorized the extradition of the complainant on the following grounds: that the validity of the international arrest warrant based on the Brazilian court’s judgement of 31 May 2005 could not be challenged; that the conviction of the complainant in Brazil was not contrary to Monegasque law merely because it was issued by a single judge, since the use of a collegiate system cannot be considered a necessary condition for a fair trial; that the single judge’s decision did not appear to have departed from the fundamental principles of a fair trial inasmuch as the judge had not been involved in the investigation and the principle of adversarial proceedings appeared to have been respected in accordance with article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights; and that the issuance of an international arrest warrant due to the flight of a person convicted in first instance does not preclude the possibility of the person concerned filing an appeal, and the arrest and extradition of the complainant by the State party was thus not contrary to international law. 2.4 On 19 June 2008, the complainant’s appeal against this decision was rejected by the Court of Review of the Principality of Monaco. On 2 July 2008, the Prince of Monaco authorized the extradition of the complainant. At the time of submission of the communication to the Committee, the transfer of the complainant to Brazil was imminent. 2.5 On 24 June 2008, the complainant filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, which was rejected. The complaint 3.1 The complainant contends that if he were deported to Brazil, he would have to serve the prison term to which he had been sentenced. He would therefore be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, given prison conditions in Brazil and the specifics of his case. 3.2 The complainant had been sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment in Brazil for a financial offence, which he considered to be a disproportionate penalty even if he were guilty, which he maintains he was not. He has produced extracts of reports by organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, press articles and videos showing the poor conditions existing in Brazilian prisons, which included overcrowding (at the time the complaint was submitted, the prison population in Brazil was four times greater than the system’s capacity),3 deplorable hygiene conditions, and physical and psychological 2 3 GE.13-40769 According to the ruling of the Court of Appeal dated 15 April 2008, the international arrest warrant had been issued by the Brazilian judicial authorities on 19 July 2000 and renewed on 26 June 2006 as a result of the flight of the person concerned to Italy. The complainant refers to information published on the website www.leduecittà.it (Review of the Italian prison administration). 3