Eyewitness excluded Imre Arakas from murder scene, extradition hearing told

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

An eyewitness to a killing in Lithuania concluded that Imre Arakas was not the person present at the scene, his counsel told the High Court during a hearing on his extradition. The proceedings were reported on 22 June 2021.

Lithuanian police sought Arakas’s surrender on murder, firearms and conspiracy-related charges concerning the 2015 shooting of Deimantas Bugavicius. A separate warrant concerned a criminal damage charge. Gardaí arrested Arakas on a European Arrest Warrant in Dublin in February 2018.

Remy Farrell SC, opposing surrender, said Arakas had told gardaí he was in Spain on the relevant dates. Farrell said Bugavicius’s partner, an eyewitness, had been shown newspaper photographs supposed to depict Arakas and concluded that he was not the person present at the scene.

Farrell argued that there was clear evidence Lithuania had not yet decided to try Arakas. Ronan Kennedy SC, for the Minister for Justice, said the warrant clearly stated it was issued to conduct a criminal prosecution.

Mr Justice Paul Burns adjourned the extradition case and remanded Arakas in custody. He directed counsel to draft questions about whether Lithuanian authorities intended to try him when the warrant was issued. The case was listed for mention on 12 July and a resumed hearing on 15 July 2021.

Arakas had pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to murder James Gately in Northern Ireland between 3 and 4 April 2017. In December 2018, the Special Criminal Court sentenced him to six years in prison. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said Arakas had agreed to pull the trigger for financial gain.