its request for interim measures. The facts as presented by the complainant 2.1In 1993, the complainant worked as a language teacher in Barcelona, Spain, where she became involved with one Benjamin Ramos Vega, a Spanish national. During that time, the complainant and Mr. Ramos Vega both rented apartments in Barcelona, one at Padilla Street, rented on 21 April 1993 in Mr. Ramos Vega’s name, and one at Aragón Street, rented on 11 August 1993 in the complainant’s name for the period of one year. According to counsel, the complainant had returned to Germany by October 1993. 2.2On 28 April 1994, Felipe San Epifanio, a convicted member of the “Barcelona” commando of the Basque terrorist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Fatherland and Liberty) (ETA), was arrested by Spanish police in Barcelona. The judgement of the Audiencia Nacional, dated 24 September 1997, sentencing him and other ETA members to prison terms states that, upon his arrest, Mr. San Epifanio was thrown to the floor by several policemen after he had drawn a gun, thereby causing him minor injuries which reportedly healed within two weeks. Based on his testimony, the police searched the apartment at Padilla Streeta on 28 April 1994, confiscating firearms and explosives stored there by the commando. Subsequent to this search, Mr. Ramos Vega left Spain for Germany. 2.3The Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 4 de Madrid issued an arrest warrant, dated 23 May 1994, against both Mr. Ramos Vega and the complainant on suspicion of collaboration with ETA as well as possession of firearms and explosives. A writ was issued on 6 February 1995 by the same examining judge indicting the complainant and Mr. Ramos Vega for having rented, “under their name, the apartments at Padilla and Aragón streets, respectively, places which served as a refuge and for the hiding of arms and explosives, which the members of the commando had at their disposal for carrying out their actions”.b 2.4On 10 March 1995, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office initiated criminal proceedings against the complainant, following a request by the Spanish Ministry of Justice. However, the German authorities decided to discontinue proceedings on 23 November 1998, in the absence of a reasonable suspicion of an offence punishable under German law. In a letter to the Spanish authorities, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office stated that the apartment at Padilla Street, where the firearms and explosives had been found, had not been rented by the complainant but by Mr. Ramos Vega, while only a bottle filled with lead sulphide powder - which is not used for the production of explosives - had been found in the complainant’s apartment at Aragón Street. 2.5Subsequent to Mr. Ramos Vega’s extradition to Spain in 1996, the Audiencia Nacional, by judgement of 24 September 1997, convicted him of collaboration with an armed group and falsification of licence plates, the offence being aggravated owing to their connection with terrorist activities (“con agravante de relación con actividades terroristas”), sentencing him to two terms of imprisonment, one of seven years and the second of four years and three months. However, the Audiencia Nacional acquitted him of the charges in relation to the storage of firearms and to the possession of explosives, owing to lack of proof that he had known about the existence of these materials, and noting that he had rented the apartment at Padilla Street at the request and for the use of a friend, Dolores López Resin (“Lola”). The judgement states that, immediately following the search of that apartment, Mr. Ramos Vega helped several members of the “Barcelona” commando to flee by renting, and changing the licence plates of a car which he, together with the commando members, used to leave Barcelona. 2.6The complainant was arrested by Swiss police when crossing the Austrian-Swiss border at St. Margrethen on 14 March 2002, on the basis of a Spanish search warrant dated 3 June 1994. She was provisionally detained, pending a final decision on her extradition to Spain. During a hearing on 20 March 2002, she refused to consent to a simplified extradition procedure. By diplomatic note of 22 April 2002, the Government of Spain submitted an extradition request to the State party, based on an international arrest warrant dated 1 April 2002, issued by the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 4 at the Audiencia Nacional. This warrant is based on the same charges as the original arrest warrant and the writ of indictment against both the complainant and Mr. Ramos Vega. 2.7By letter of 7 June 2002, the complainant, through counsel, asked the Federal Office of Justice to reject the extradition request of the Government of Spain, claiming that by referring the criminal proceedings to the German authorities, Spain had lost the competence to prosecute the complainant, thus precluding the complainant’s extradition to that country.c Moreover, the fact that the Spanish authorities, in their extradition request to the State party, had deliberately not revealed who actually rented the apartment at Padilla Street, indicated that the complainant was to be tried for political rather than juridical reasons. Since political offences were not extraditable,d counsel argued that, contrary to the general rule that decisions on extraditions were purely a formal matter, the State party was obliged to examine whether a reasonable suspicion of an offence existed with respect to the complainant, in the absence of any link with the firearms and explosives found in the Padilla Street apartment, or with the escape vehicle. In counsel’s opinion, the complainant’s extradition is also precluded by the fact that the Spanish arrest warrant was based on testimony which had allegedly been extracted from Mr. San Epifanio by torture. 2.8By decision of 8 August 2002, the Federal Office of Justice granted the Spanish extradition request, subject to the condition that the complainant would not be tried for having committed the alleged offences for political motives and that the severity of the punishment would not to be increased on the basis of such motive. This decision was based on the following considerations: (a) that the examination of the issue of reciprocal criminal liability was based on the facts set out in the extradition request, the evaluation of facts and evidence and matters of innocence or guilt being reserved for the Spanish courts; (b) that no issue of ne bis in idem arose since the German authorities, for lack of territorial competence, had not exhaustively dealt with these questions; (c) that the charges brought against the complainant were not of a purely political nature; (d) that the complainant was not at direct and personal risk of being tortured during incommunicado detention following her extradition to Spain, because she could already engage the services of a lawyer in Spain prior to her extradition and because she enjoyed consular protection by Germany; and (e) that even if Mr. San Epifanio’s testimony had been extracted by torture, this was not the only evidence on which the charges against the complainant had been based. 2.9On 8 September 2002, counsel lodged an administrative court action with the Federal Tribunal against the decision of the Federal