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MPs urged to back European arrest warrant

SOME of Britain’s most senior legal figures urged MPs yesterday to back the controversial European arrest warrant (EAW).

The EAW is one of 35 powers the government is seeking to opt back into after opting out of more than 100 EU policies relating to justice and home affairs.

But Prime Minister David Cameron faces a backbench revolt over the issue, which needs to be decided on before December 1, as backbenchers in his own party oppose the scheme.

Forty senior judges and legal figures, including inaugural Supreme Court president Lord Phillips, signed a letter published in the Daily Telegraph urging Parliament to opt into the EAW.

The letter, also undersigned by Law Society president Andrew Caplen, warned that failure to opt back in could lead to Britain becoming “a safe haven for fugitives from justice — a handful of them British citizens, but the vast majority foreign nationals wanted for crimes elsewhere in Europe.”

A commons vote on whether Britain should opt in to the EAW will be held on Monday.

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