Yesterday, August 12th, the Swedish request for the extradition of Amsterdammer Maarten Blok was heard by the Amsterdam court. Sweden is requesting his extradition because they suspect him of having hit a police officer in the head in Goteborg during the June 2001 EuroSummit. Maarten has always denied this. According to prosecutor Ang (the same as in the Juanra case) it was a fairly simple case. Sweden is a democratic country known for its good human rights situation, therefore there is no reason at all to assume Maarten will not get a fair trial. Discussion about the evidence against Maarten should not take place in the Dutch court room, it should be left to the Swedes themselves. Maarten's lawyer, Victor Koppe, however supported the opinion that the Amsterdam court should indeed look at the evidence as well (which is rather slim). He also indicated reports by Amnesty International and a Swedish government committee which were critical of the Swedes' behaviour during the summit and the subsequent court cases. He also asked if the time Maarten would have to spend on remand in Sweden (probably several months) would be relative to the potential sentence of, according to Koppe, several weeks. He further found it peculiar that the Netherlands so easily hand over their own subjects while for example Germany and Norway tried their fellow country people who were arrested in Goteborg in their own countries. Ang by the way did mention that should Maarten be found guilty, he can serve his sentence in the Netherlands.

Before the court case began around 75 people listened to speeches about Maarten's case and about Dutch extradition policy in general. Some (fake) passports were symbolically burned. Verdict: August 26.