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Confessed drug smuggler awarded damages
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February 11th, 2013
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As Camilla Broe spent two years in Danish and American jails the statute of limitations in her case expired
Camilla Broe was awarded 701,362.11 kroner in damages on Friday for being held in a Danish jail for 18 months being extradited to the US where she faced drug smuggling charges.
After being extradited, Broe spent another six months in a US jail before she was released after an American judge ruled the case had passed its statute of limitations.
Lyngby District Court awarded the damages after two out of three judges found the Danish authorities responsible for paying compensation because of the time spent detained in Denmark, despite the fact that the arrest warrant was issued in the US.
Broe’s lawyer, Michael Juul Eriksen, said he was satisfied with the compensation, which was awarded to Broe for lost earnings and for personal damages result from being separated from her young daughter who had to be placed in foster care.
“We are pleased but mostly because they agreed with us that Denmark was the actor responsible for giving compensation in this case,” Eriksen said.
Broe had been living in the US for 16 years when in 2001 she was approached by an FBI agent who told her she was the target of a narcotics investigation. Six months later, Broe moved back to Denmark without telling the American authorities.
The US issued an arrest warrant for Broe in 2003 and in 2007 she admitted to a Danish court that she had participated in drug sales in Holland and had helped a courier smuggle ecstasy into Miami, Florida.
She was imprisoned and released and then imprisoned again before being extradited to the US in September 2009. Despite her lawyer arguing from the outset that her case had passed its statute of limitations, she was not released until March 2010.
Because Broe was not awarded compensation for her time spent in American custody, the sum awarded was far less than the four million kroner she had demanded. The court explained in a press release that this was partially because Broe left the country while being a suspect in a criminal case.
According to Ritzau, prosecutor Gyrithe Ulrich has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision.
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