ANTONIETTA SONNESSA, the photogenic Italian lawyer who represented Hussain Osman, the July 21 bombings suspect, was not the only woman working long hours on his extradition case.

From her office in the Ministry of Justice in Rome, a British lawyer was waging a backroom battle against Sonnessa’s case.

In the end it was Sally Cullen, the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) woman in Italy, who won the legal tussle and ensured the success of the first Anglo-Italian case involving a European arrest warrant.

But Osman’s return to Britain in the company of Metropolitan Police officers was just one of the anti-terrorist successes scored by the CPS last month.

The conviction of Andrew Rowe at the Old Bailey on charges of possessing a codebook and mortar-firing instructions for a terrorist purpose was the first prosecution by the Crown’s new Counter-Terrorism Division.

After the setback of eight “not guilty” verdicts in the ricin cases in April, the Rowe verdict — delivered after only five hours’ deliberation — was a relief for police and prosecutors.

“This was the first trial prosecuted by the CPS Counter-Terrorism Division, which draws together the skills and knowledge of the CPS’s most experienced terrorism lawyers to tackle the changing threat to public safety,” Ken Macdonald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said.

“The challenge we successfully met was to prove to the jury that, although there was no direct link between Andrew Rowe and a particular terrorist act, possession of those items together with other supporting evidence was sufficient for a jury to conclude that he had them for the purpose of terrorism.”

The Counter-Terrorism unit, under Susan Hemming, was set up in May as one of three new central casework divisions to deal with serious, sensitive and complex cases.

The others, an Organised Crime Division and Special Crime Division, are scheduled to be in place by next month.

Cullen, on the other hand, has been in Rome since 2001 as the UK’s liaison magistrate with Italy. She is one of four CPS lawyers stationed overseas — the others are in Paris, Madrid and Washington — to speed up extradition cases and international requests for “mutual legal assistance”.

Cullen credited the European warrant with delivering Osman’s return to Britain in less than two months. Before its introduction, extradition cases between the two countries were taking an average of eight months.

“The European arrest warrant works much more quickly than the previous legislation,” Cullen said. “It simplifies the process by delivering the extradition request from the judicial authority in the UK to a judicial authority in Italy.”

That meant the request for the arrest and return of Osman was transmitted directly from Bow Street Magistrates’ Court to Italy’s Court of Appeal in Rome. Civil Service bureaucrats were excluded from the process.

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• BGC 'set aside £40m to lure Tullett brokers'
• Legal aid review to ensure value
• Fears as 21 magistrates' courts face closure