Philippine Ambassador Ezzedin Tago

The Philippine Embassy has welcomed the Saudi Cabinet decision to authorize Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif to negotiate an extradition treaty with the Philippine government.

Ambassador Ezzedin Tago told Arab News that such a development would move the negotiation process forward and lead to the signing of an agreement.

Reacting to the news, Tago said that a treaty would be in the mutual interest of both states.

“An extradition treaty involves two countries agreeing to transfer an accused or a convict to the other country in order to face charges based on certain rules and procedures and for certain offenses,” he said.

“This agreement is different from a Transfer of Sentenced Persons in which both states agree to transfer their nationals sentenced in one country to serve the rest of their sentence in their country of origin, based on certain principles to be laid out in the agreement.”

According to the ambassador, the Philippines has extradition treaties with several countries.

“This is one of several bilateral agreements proposed between the two countries. There are other proposed agreements in various fields, including education, agriculture, sports, cultural, economic, maritime and health,” he said.

He said both governments continued to explore ways to improve bilateral relations in various fields and the Philippine Embassy welcomed this development.

Speaking about the proposed treaty, the ambassador said: “Our government, through the embassy in Riyadh, proposed to the Saudi government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the negotiation and signing of an extradition treaty between the two countries. The embassy sent a proposed text draft in July 2012. The draft agreement has been under study by the Saudi side.”

The envoy did not disclose the number of Saudis detained in the Philippines. According to him, this statistic is not relevant to an extradition treaty.

The same is the case with Filipinos who are in Saudi detention, he said, adding unless the person detained was also wanted or convicted of a crime in the Philippines.

With regard to the Filipino who was arrested recently for her involvement in a bomb factory in Riyadh with a Syrian national, the ambassador said the embassy had not yet received official information from the authorities regarding the arrest of the woman and therefore he was unable to comment on the matter.

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