The High Court ordered the surrender of Clive Kavanagh to the Netherlands under a European Arrest Warrant, ruling that the warrant’s initial transmission as an unsigned copy did not prevent the order being made.
In a judgment delivered on 13 March 2008, Mr Justice Michael Peart said the Netherlands sought Kavanagh’s surrender for prosecution over an alleged drugs offence involving heroin. The warrant said he was involved in receiving 20kg of heroin over a period on 9 November 2007. The judgment records that the alleged offence was said to have taken place in Dutch territory; it does not identify a specific town or city.
Kavanagh challenged the warrant on several grounds, arguing that it did not adequately identify the underlying decision, the place and circumstances of the alleged offence, his alleged degree of involvement, or the offence’s legal classification and applicable Dutch provisions. He also argued that it had not been signed by a Dutch judicial authority.
The judge rejected the objections concerning the warrant’s detail. He found that the warrant, read as a whole, identified the alleged conduct, the Dutch territory where it was said to have occurred, and the relevant Dutch narcotics legislation. He also rejected the argument that the word “suspected” showed no decision to prosecute had been made. The statutory presumption that a prosecution decision existed had not been rebutted, he said; no affidavit explaining the relevant Dutch criminal procedure had been provided.
The copy first sent to Ireland bore the issuing prosecutor’s printed name but no signature. After the objection was raised, the Central Authority obtained a letter from that prosecutor and a signed copy of the warrant. The letter said the warrant had been issued by him and signed in his absence by a colleague, also a public prosecutor, and that the signed and unsigned versions had identical contents.
The judge held that the Act allowed a “true copy” of a warrant to be transmitted and endorsed, and did not require the copy used for arrest to display a written or copied signature, provided the warrant had been issued before the arrest. He was satisfied that the warrant had been signed before its transmission to Ireland. Finding no basis to refuse surrender under the statutory provisions he considered, he ordered Kavanagh’s surrender for prosecution. The judgment does not report a conviction or determine the underlying drugs allegation.