What is the link between extradition and mutual assistance?
Extradition is the process by which one country detains and delivers a person accused of committing a crime to a law enforcement agency of another country, so that the person may face criminal charges.
Mutual Assistance refers to the process of sharing evidence about criminal investigations or prosecutions between countries. The information gathered from such investigations can be used as the basis for an extradition request.
This article provides an overview of the numbers of extradition and mutual assistance requests made and received during the 2018–19 financial year, as provided by the Attorney General’s Department in its annual report.
Extradition requests made by Australia
During the reporting period Australia made 10 new extradition requests to other countries. Four requests were granted:
| Australian extradition requests granted | |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 1 |
| Singapore | 1 |
| United States of America | 2 |
| Citizenship of people surrendered to Australia* | |
| Australian | 4 |
| American | 2 |
| Croatian | 1 |
| Nepalese | 1 |
| Taiwanese | 1 |
*Note: As some of these people held dual nationality, the numbers total more than the number of people surrendered.
The major categories of offences for which people were surrendered to Australia include murder, sex offences, child sex offences, drug offences and proceeds of crime.
