The High Court said it was disposed in principle to conditionally surrender Patrick Malachy Gordon to Northern Ireland for trial on four alleged terrorism offences, subject to receiving written undertakings from the issuing state. It did not make a section 19 order at this stage.
Mr Justice Edwards delivered the judgment on 5 November 2013 after the Minister for Justice and Equality sought postponement of surrender under section 18(1)(c) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. Gordon sought conditional surrender under section 19. He had already consented to surrender under section 15, and the court had made an order directing surrender before hearing the two applications.
The warrant concerns allegations that Gordon possessed documents likely to be useful to someone committing or preparing terrorism. The documents were described as including material about incendiaries, explosives and a pipe shotgun. These were allegations; the judgment records that Gordon had not been convicted of the four offences and was presumed innocent. The offences were alleged to have occurred on 17 February 2010.
Gordon was serving a five-year sentence imposed by the Special Criminal Court on 2 December 2011 and backdated to 3 December 2010. The sentence was due to expire on 2 December 2015, with 1 September 2014 identified as the earliest likely release date if remission applied. He had also applied to transfer to Northern Ireland to serve the remainder of that sentence; the application was awaiting consideration by UK and Northern Ireland authorities.
The Minister argued that surrender should be postponed until Gordon could serve his Irish sentence, and that the court should consider the practical and security issues involved in temporary surrender. Gordon argued that section 19 specifically addressed surrender for trial while serving a domestic sentence, and that further delay would affect his right to trial within a reasonable time.
The court said Gordon’s wish for an early trial should be accommodated if reasonably possible without displacing Ireland’s entitlement to have him serve his sentence. It also considered the relative seriousness of the offences and the practical, logistical and security issues. It found the offences in the warrant at least as serious as the offence underlying his Irish sentence.
The court said it would require written undertakings that Gordon be received and kept in custody throughout the Northern Ireland proceedings, then returned promptly to Ireland in custody to serve the remainder of his sentence. The conditional surrender order would not be made until those undertakings arrived. The court also did not envisage temporary transfer until a trial date, or specified pre-trial hearing arrangements expected to result in one, had been set.