The High Court ordered the surrender of Aleksandras Krasnovas to Lithuania under section 16(1) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, rejecting his argument that the time since the alleged offences made surrender unjust or risked an unfair trial.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Michael Peart on 24 November 2006, concerned a Lithuanian European arrest warrant issued on 4 April 2006 and endorsed for execution in Ireland on 25 April. Krasnovas was arrested on 18 September 2006 and remanded pending the application.
The warrant relates to three allegations from November and December 1998, when Krasnovas was 17. Two concern alleged break-ins at garages and theft of property between 25 and 26 November. The third alleges that he broke into vehicles and stole property in a car park on 4 December. The court found the first two allegations corresponded to burglary under Irish law and the third to theft. It said each offence met the Act’s minimum gravity requirement for surrender.
For Krasnovas, counsel argued that surrender after eight years would be oppressive and could breach his constitutional rights to a fair trial and trial with reasonable expedition. In an affidavit, Krasnovas said he had been questioned shortly after the alleged offences, later returned voluntarily to a police station when he heard investigators wanted to speak with him, and believed he had been available to the authorities. He said he had little recollection of his movements and little contact with alleged accomplices. Counsel also relied on a six-week sentence received by an alleged accomplice and on Krasnovas’s account that he had served a three-and-a-half-year sentence for another offence after a November 2000 conviction.
The Minister’s counsel submitted that the accomplice’s sentence did not make these offences minor for the surrender application. He also argued that there was no specific evidence showing how delay would prevent a fair trial, and that the court should presume Lithuania would respect the respondent’s rights unless evidence rebutted that presumption.
Justice Peart held that the accomplice’s sentence did not alter the offences’ eligibility for surrender and that the court could not treat them as minor on that basis. He found no specific prejudice to the defence had been established, beyond stress at learning the prosecution was continuing. The judge also said the account of the earlier conviction and sentence was not supported by other evidence, and there was no evidence from a Lithuanian lawyer about the country’s procedures or whether the alleged offences could have been dealt with at the earlier sentencing.
The court concluded that Krasnovas had not shown a real or serious risk of an unfair trial due to delay. It granted the surrender application. The judgment orders surrender; it does not determine guilt or impose a sentence for the Lithuanian allegations.