The Canadian Supreme Court ruling was issued in the...

The Canadian Supreme Court ruling was issued in the Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns. The two youths were charged with killing Rafay's parents and sister with baseball bats in Washington State in 1994. Burns and Rafay, both British Columbia natives, fled to Canada, where they were arrested in Vancouver in 1995, shortly after the massacre. They confessed to wiping out the Rafay family, who lived close to Seattle, to cash the $400,000 life insurance. The US asked Canada for their extradition. Canada, the only western country that had, for years, regularly handed over suspected criminals to the United Sates and other countries without asking for guarantees against execution, had initially accepted the request.Burns and Rafay's case was then taken before the Supreme Court, which ruled against extradition without guarantees against the death penalty. The ruling put an end to Canada's extradition policy, which foresaw asking for guarantees regarding the non-application of the death penalty only in exceptional cases.The Supreme Court's ruling on the Burns and Rafay case, issued on February 15, 2001 reversed this policy, stating that guarantees against the death penalty must always be sought, except in exceptional cases. Italy contributed to bringing about this radical change in Canada's extradition policy by sending to Canada in 1999 a Parliamentary delegation for an audience at the Supreme Court bench discussing the Burns and Rafay case, who were then still risking extradition to the US without guarantees against execution. The Italian Senate, through the delegation, explained the Italian extradition policy in cases involving capital punishment, citing the Pietro Venezia case. Italy had refused to extradite Venezia to Florida because it retained the death penalty. The delegation, led by Senator Rino Cirami, went to Canada on Hands Off Cain's suggestion. Sergio D'Elia, Hands Off Cain's general secretary, reacting to the Canadian Supreme Court's ruling, declared: " The Canadian Court did not establish an absolute refusal to extradite in capital punishment cases, as the Italian Constitutional Court did in Pietro Venezia's case. However this decision is important for two main reasons. Firstly, from a judicial point of view, because the Court established that guarantees against the death penalty must always be sought, except in exceptional cases. Secondly, from a political point of view, because Canada has for the first time said 'no' to the United States and its practice of capital punishment. This highlights the fact that Canada has decided to repudiate without reservations the death penalty, and the trend adopted by the International Community, which is progressively moving towards abolition."