The High Court has ordered the surrender of Gerchardas Firantas to Lithuania to face trial for alleged theft and criminal damage, rejecting his objections to a European arrest warrant issued for prosecution.
In a judgment delivered on 21 July 2020, Ms Justice Donnelly found that the warrant sought Mr Firantas for prosecution, not to serve a sentence. She held that the English translation’s addition of “not applicable” in a section left blank in the original Lithuanian warrant did not create an abuse of process or cause injustice. The relevant section concerned proceedings in absentia and did not have to be completed because no trial or sentence had occurred.
The court also found that the alleged conduct corresponded to theft and criminal damage offences under Irish law. The warrant alleged that, while acting in a group aiming to steal property, Mr Firantas kept watch at a supermarket’s broken door as others entered and stole. The judge concluded that the alleged damage was part of the plan to steal. These were allegations considered for the legal test governing surrender; the judgment did not decide guilt.
Mr Firantas argued that Lithuania had not decided to charge and try him. The court found that he had not rebutted the legal presumption that such a decision had been made, noting that the warrant said he was charged with two offences and had hidden from trial.
He also relied on his life in Ireland, where he said he had arrived in 2013 or 2014, worked and lived with a friend. The judge found that the information did not meet the high threshold for concluding that surrender would breach his rights to respect for private and family life.
The court rejected his request for a condition that he be returned to Ireland to serve any sentence imposed in Lithuania. The judge said there was no legal basis to impose such a condition and that a claimed lack of reciprocity was not a ground to refuse surrender.
Finally, the court rejected the challenge to the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s status as an issuing judicial authority. It found that evidence from a Lithuanian lawyer did not outweigh information previously considered by the High Court in related proceedings, and that a careful reading of the Lithuanian court decisions supplied in this case showed the prosecutor’s decision to issue a warrant was subject to review.
The court concluded that surrender was not prohibited by the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 and ordered Mr Firantas surrendered to a person authorised by Lithuania to receive him.