The High Court has ordered the surrender of Irish citizen Greg Colton, formerly Grzegorz Koltun, to Poland to serve almost seven years remaining on a sentence arising from a UK heroin conspiracy conviction.
Mr Koltun was convicted at Manchester Crown Court in February 1999 of participating in a conspiracy to supply diamorphine and received an 18-year sentence. After he asked to serve the sentence in Poland, a Lublin court converted it in October 2003 to a 15-year Polish sentence and credited time already spent in custody.
He was released temporarily from Polish custody in December 2005. After extensions totalling 12 months, he did not return to prison as required and instead came to Ireland. Poland issued a European Arrest Warrant in March 2018 seeking enforcement of the remaining six years, 11 months and 26 days. He was arrested in Ireland in September 2023 and granted bail.
Mr Koltun opposed surrender on several grounds. He argued, among other things, that Poland could no longer enforce the sentence, that the warrant lacked sufficient detail, that his rights had not been protected during the Polish sentence-conversion proceedings and that Polish prison conditions posed a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment.
Mr Justice McGrath rejected those arguments. The court accepted information from the Polish judicial authority that the sentence remained enforceable and found that Mr Koltun had initiated the transfer proceedings himself and had been represented by a lawyer during them.
The court also accepted assurances concerning Polish prison conditions. It found no evidence of a specific real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr Koltun relied additionally on his long residence in Ireland, Irish citizenship, employment history, health, his wife’s diabetes and family circumstances. The judge held that surrender would disrupt family life but that the circumstances were not sufficiently exceptional to make surrender disproportionate.
All objections were dismissed and the surrender order was made.