Drugs suspect David Ungi will be extradited to UK from Spain

A former fugitive has lost his fight against extradition from Spain.

David Ungi, 30, is now said to be 'days away' from being put on a plane back to Britain years after being placed on the National Crime Agency’s most wanted list. After seven years on the run, he was arrested in May as he strolled into a gym near the small town of Coin in secluded hills above Spain’s Costa del Sol.

Appeal judges in Madrid have now said his extradition should go ahead after he challenged an earlier ruling approving his return to the UK.

A court official in Madrid confirmed: "The extradition hasn't happened yet but it has now been fully approved and is scheduled to take place in the next few days."

Ungi, who lived with three other Englishmen in a three-bedroom home they rented for nearly £800 a month, is now expected to face trial on drug trafficking charges after being flown back to the UK.

Ungi’s defence lawyer had argued Spain’s centralised Audiencia Nacional court should reject Britain’s extradition request because it was not clear what crime he was wanted for.

In a ten-page written ruling rejecting Ungi’s fight to stay in Spain, the panel of judges ruled: "The person being sought cannot be prosecuted in the country requesting his extradition for any other previously-committed crime which is different to the object of this claim, unless that country expressly requests the extension of that surrender."

It emerged in July shortly after Ungi’s one-day extradition hearing - broadcast live on the Madrid court’s YouTube channel - that he had been living near the Costa del Sol. He and three friends lived on a diet of baked beans, crumpets and sweets and shopped at a Buyrite British supermarket.