Practice before the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files
Defence Lawyers in INTERPOL Cases
Most people find out by accident — at a border, in a visa refusal, in a letter from a bank. The first job is establishing what is actually on file.
Start here
Which of these happened to you?
Stopped or questioned at a border
You were held, questioned or refused entry, and no one explained why. This is the most common way an alert first surfaces.
What this usually means →A visa or residence permit was refused
A refusal without stated reasons, or a permit withdrawn after years without incident, often traces back to a record held elsewhere.
How an alert affects status →A bank closed or froze your account
Compliance screening reaches the same databases. Banks rarely say what they found, and are not obliged to.
Effect on banking →What we act on
The international record: what the Organization holds, and whether its own rules allow it to keep holding it.
Before the Commission
Requests for access to the file, applications for deletion, and applications for revision after a refusal.
How it starts
By establishing what is actually recorded. Nothing sensible can be argued before that, and the assessment costs nothing.
What we actually do
We act for individuals affected by an INTERPOL alert — a red notice or a diffusion. The work is an application to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files: first to establish what is held, then to have the data deleted where the Organization’s own rules have been breached. It is decided on paper, by a body that is not a court, and everything turns on the evidence behind the argument rather than on the argument itself.
We do not represent requesting states, we are not affiliated with the Organization, and we take no case we cannot argue on the merits. Where a matter is live before national authorities — a detention hearing, an extradition request, an exit ban — we work with counsel admitted in that jurisdiction.
How the work runs
Assessment
We read what you have and say what can be established, what cannot, and whether there is a ground to run. No charge.
Access request
An application to the Commission to establish whether data concerning you is held, and in what form.
Application
The written submission for deletion, and the evidential file behind it. This is the stage where cases are won or lost.
Decision
Communicated to you and to the country concerned. Where it is a refusal, revision on new facts may be available.
Where to start
Eight entry points, in the order they are usually needed. Nothing here is a dead end — each page says what it can establish and what it cannot.
- A Our red notice removal service What we do, on what grounds, and who handles the file. →
- B Check whether an Interpol notice exists What can and cannot be established, and how to ask. →
- C The removal procedure step by step Stages, evidence and realistic timeframes. →
- D What an Interpol red notice is The legal nature of the instrument and its limits. →
- E Types of Interpol notices Blue, green, black, yellow, orange and purple. →
- F Countries without extradition treaties Listed by requesting state, with the treaty position. →
- G Grounds for deleting a red notice Article 3, human rights, data quality, procedure. →
- H Interpol cases by jurisdiction Local practice in each country we cover. →
On what grounds a notice is deleted
Four families of argument do most of the work. An application usually runs more than one, and none of them succeeds as an assertion.
- Political character
- Article 3 of the Constitution forbids the Organization any intervention in matters of a predominantly political character. The test is predominance, and it is evidential.
- Human rights
- Article 2 requires the Organization to act in the spirit of the Universal Declaration. Argued where compliance would expose a person to a real risk.
- Data quality
- The rules require data to be accurate, relevant and sufficient. A request with no judicial basis, or resting on proceedings that have ended, fails them.
- Procedural defects
- Expiry of the limitation period, an earlier determination of the same matter, or failure to update the record when the position changed.
Who runs the file
One advocate is responsible for a matter from the access request to the decision. Admission and certificate number are published for each.
The lawyers who handle these cases, with what each of them takes on.
What we do not do
We do not promise an outcome
The Commission decides on the material before it. Anyone quoting you a probability is guessing, and the questionnaires on this site do not assess your chances either.
We do not take a case to bill the assessment
If there is no ground we can evidence, we say so and stop. That conversation costs nothing and happens before any fee is quoted.
We do not act for requesting states
Only for individuals affected by an alert. We are not affiliated with the Organization and do not act for it.
We do not publish what we cannot source
No invented statistics, no case citations we cannot point to, no client names in any form.
Where an alert behaves differently
Two countries matter in any file: the one that made the request and the one you are standing in. Each jurisdiction below is covered with its own local position — who decides on detention, which court hears a request, and what is decided separately from the alert.
Frequently asked
Is a red notice an arrest warrant?
No. It is a request circulated to member countries asking them to locate and provisionally arrest a person. Each country decides for itself under its own law, and several decline where they consider a request politically motivated.
Can I find out whether one names me?
Not through any public list, which shows a small minority of notices. The route that establishes anything is a request for access to your own data, addressed to the Commission.
How long does removal take?
Months rather than weeks. The Commission does not commit to a date. What can be controlled is the quality of the file, which is where the outcome is usually decided.
Do you work with people outside Cyprus?
Yes. The procedure before the Commission is written and does not require your presence anywhere. Where a matter is live before national authorities, we work with counsel admitted there.
Start by establishing what is on file
Tell us which country the case comes from, which country you are in now, and what happened. The first assessment costs nothing.
Request a free case assessment