Murder charge dropped 17 years after acquittal
Graham Mitchell, 49, was wanted to stand trial for the attempted murder of a German tourist in the Algarve in 1994, but the Portuguese authorities have removed their extradition request due to the amount of time that has passed, campaigners said.
Mr Mitchell said: “My family and I have been through hell. I am thrilled the criminal charges against me are now extinct.”
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Hide AdMr Mitchell and his friend, Warren Tozer, were originally arrested over an alleged assault on Andre Jorling, who was left paralysed from the waist down after falling off a 12ft sea wall.
They were cleared in 1995 in a high-profile trial in Portugal, which was recorded by the BBC’s Panorama programme.
But Mr Mitchell, a photographer who lives in Canterbury, Kent, with his wife Laura and two children, was re-arrested on 6 March by British police acting on a European arrest warrant in relation to the case and held overnight at Wandsworth prison.
Jago Russell, chief executive of Fair Trials International, said: “We are delighted that Portuguese authorities have finally seen sense and brought Graham’s needless ordeal to an end. It would have been a grave injustice if the EU’s fast track extradition system had been used to subject Graham to another trial in Portugal, so many years after he was acquitted.”