05/02/2026
INTERPOL Cases
Interpol cases are one of the most prominent and important cases at the present time due to the widespread phenomenon of countries listing difussions and red notices with the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) in order to pursue the accused person in criminal cases and judgments issued by a judicial authority of one country for the purpose of arresting him/her in another country he/she had fled to or passed through its border ports.
Perhaps one of the most common mistakes that many people believe that the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) is the one that arrests and apprehends criminally wanted persons, and then hand them over to the authorities of the state that issued the notice or diffusion against them. Therefore, through this article, we will explain in detail the role of the Interpol organization and what happens with detainees in Interpol cases by the security and judicial authorities in the member states of the organization.
First: What is the International Interpol Organization:
It is an international criminal police organization that includes 194 member countries. Its primary function is to link the police services in member states to an information network through which data of accused and convicted persons in criminal cases are included in order to exchange information and contacts between police agencies around the world to facilitate the prosecution and arrest of perpetrators of crimes and to prevent their escape from justice.
Each member state of the organization has a main office of INTERPOL that is made up of members of the local police and is usually located in the capital. Its tasks are to contact the organization’s information network in order to include notices and difussions issued by the judicial authorities in their country, in addition to dealing with notices and difussions issued by other countries. Thus, the police force in each member state is the competent authority concerned with arresting people wanted from other countries.
Second: How to deal with detainees in Interpol cases and how to extradite them:
As we mentioned previously, the wanted persons through the Interpol network are arrested by the local police in the country the wanted person is on its territory, so the competence is to decide on the matter of the arrested and hand him/her over to the judicial authorities of the state on its territory. So the task of the police ends in handing over the wanted person to the judicial authorities and informing the Interpol office that issued the notice or diffusion that the wanted person was arrested through it, then handing him over to the competent judicial authorities to decide on his/her matter, and from here begins the second phase, which is how to deliver the wanted person to the requesting state issuing the notice or diffusion.
The issue of extraditing a person to another country is mainly subject to several legal considerations, most of which are related to the following matters:
* The extent of jurisdiction or authority of the judicial authorities in the country that has arrested the wanted person in his/her trial there and in accordance with its laws.
* The position of the internal laws of the country from which extradition is requested and its response to the extradition of one of its detainees.
* The position of the internal laws of the country from which extradition is requested from the crime of which the requested person is accused.
* International agreements signed between the state in which the person is arrested and the requesting state or the state to which the person whose custody has its citizenship.
The judicial authorities of the state in which the wanted person is arrested decides, according to the previous considerations, whether or not they will hand him/her over to the requesting state. It should be noted here that the Interpol organization does not interfere in the process of delivering the wanted person to the requesting state, but also ends the organization’s role in including the notice or diffusion and leaves it to the will of the state to decide whether or not to surrender the wanted person in accordance with its domestic laws and regulations.
