Mr Justice McGrath delivered judgment in the High Court on 31 January 2025 on an application made by the Minister for Justice (the “Applicant”) against Ivan Samko (the “Respondent”). The Applicant sought an order for the surrender of the Respondent on a European Arrest Warrant (“EAW”).
The Respondent was arrested in Prague in November 2024 and later released on bail. The Respondent filed a Notice of Objection on the grounds that (a) there was a lack of clarity in the EAW in relation to the number of offences for which his surrender was sought; and (b) the second offence set out in the EAW did not correspond with an offence known to Irish law.
Part (e) of the EAW alleged that the Respondent used a prison phone and authorised calls to organise the sending of narcotic drugs into a particular prison, and that he kept some of the drugs and then sold or supplied the rest to other prisoners. As previously stated in Minister for Justice v Connolly, it is mandatory that there is clarity as to the nature and number of offences in an EAW.
In assessing whether the offence set out in the EAW corresponds with an offence under Irish State law, the question is whether the acts that constituted an offence in the requesting State, if carried out in Ireland, amount to a criminal offence. In this case, the offence in question was one of Obstruction of Justice and Obstruction of a Sentence of Banishment contrary to Section 337 of the Czech Criminal Code. Section 337 describes interfering with execution of a court decision, which the Czech authorities stated occurred simultaneously to the drug offences.
The High Court found that there was sufficient clarity as to the nature and number of offences under the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. When looking at the issue of correspondence, the Court determined that the two separate offences under Czech law – the drug offence and the interference offence – which are criminalised under two sections in the Czech Criminal Code, did correspond to several offences in Ireland. Just because an act would give rise to a different type of offence for the same behaviour in Ireland does not lead to a correspondence issue as claimed by the Respondent.
The Court therefore made an order for the surrender of the Respondent for the purposes of prosecution for both offences set out in the Warrant.
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