Eamon Harrison contests extradition over 39 manslaughter counts

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Eamon Harrison is contesting his proposed extradition to the UK in the High Court in Dublin. British authorities are seeking his surrender to face 39 counts of manslaughter, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and conspiracy to commit human trafficking under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act.

The proceedings were reported on 12 December 2019. The allegations concern 39 migrants found dead in a refrigerated trailer in Grays, Essex, on 23 October 2019. Harrison is alleged to have delivered the trailer to a Belgian port before its onward journey to Britain.

His counsel, Siobhán Stack SC, said it was not alleged that Harrison had placed the deceased in the trailer or knew that people, or that 39 people, were inside. She said there was nothing to explain where the people were collected, who collected them or who put them in the trailer.

Ms Stack argued that the original European Arrest Warrant was fundamentally defective because of an extreme lack of information. She submitted that virtually all the additional information provided to the court had come from the Crown Prosecution Service rather than the issuing judicial authority.

Counsel for the Minister for Justice, Ronan Kennedy SC, said the warrant had not initially set out the degree of Harrison’s alleged participation, but that additional information had since been provided as part of the warrant process. The hearing was continuing before Mr Justice Donald Binchy.