The High Court has ordered Andrew Connors’ surrender to Belgium to serve the remaining year of a two-year prison sentence, rejecting his objection that the European Arrest Warrant did not meet the legal test for surrender.
In a judgment delivered on 16 November 2021, Ms Justice Caroline Biggs said the warrant sought Connors’ surrender to enforce a sentence imposed in Belgium on 18 April 2018. He was arrested in Ireland on 22 July 2021 and brought before the High Court the following day. The warrant was produced to the court on 29 July.
Connors relied on section 38 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. He argued that the offences described in the warrant—participation in attempted burglary and conspiracy—did not match its classification as “organised or armed robbery”, and that the court should not rely on the warrant’s tick-box certification.
The judgment recorded that the warrant described an alleged incident in Mechelen on 18 January 2018. It said three men entered a residence through its front door and left about two minutes later, with signs of forced entry. It also described a later encounter at another residence, a vehicle pursued by police, and the flight of people from that vehicle. The warrant attributed participation in the offences to Connors and others. These are descriptions in the warrant, not findings made at the Irish surrender hearing about the underlying events.
Justice Biggs acknowledged potentially inconsistent descriptions in the warrant, but found no genuine and manifest error requiring the court to disregard its certification. She also considered whether the conduct described would correspond to offences under Irish law. The court concluded that the alleged attempted burglary corresponded to burglary or, at least, attempted burglary, and that the alleged conspiracy corresponded to conspiracy to commit an arrestable offence.
The court dismissed Connors’ objection concerning the warrant’s offence descriptions and found that surrender was not precluded under Part 3 or another provision of the 2003 Act. It ordered his surrender to the Kingdom of Belgium under section 16 of the Act.
The judgment also recorded that Connors did not appear in person at the Belgian hearing that led to the sentence. The court accepted the warrant’s statement that, after surrender, he would be served with the decision and informed of rights to seek a retrial or appeal, including the applicable request periods. Connors had abandoned his other grounds of objection and pursued only the section 38 issue.