The High Court has ordered the surrender of a man to the United Kingdom to face prosecution for three alleged offences involving criminal property. It rejected his objections that surrender, including after a possible delay for separate Dublin proceedings, could expose him to a real risk of fundamental rights breaches.
The European arrest warrant was issued on 8 January 2020 and endorsed by the High Court on 10 February 2020. The respondent was arrested and brought before the court on 6 March 2020. The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Paul Burns on 16 July 2020, says the warrant sought his surrender to prosecute him for possessing criminal property, attempting to remove criminal property from Northern Ireland, and entering an arrangement to remove it from Northern Ireland.
According to the warrant as summarised in the judgment, the respondent was intercepted at Belfast International Airport on 19 May 2018 before an outbound flight to Spain. Two envelopes in his hand luggage contained €180,550. The judgment also records that he had booked 497 international flights into or out of the UK between May 2014 and May 2018. These matters are allegations underlying the prosecution request; the court was not deciding whether he committed the offences.
The respondent had separate money laundering proceedings pending in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, with a trial due on 29 June 2021. His counsel argued that surrender might be postponed until those proceedings, and potentially any resulting sentence, were completed. By then, counsel submitted, the UK’s EU transition period would have ended and there could be uncertainty about the respondent’s rights and access to a fair and expeditious trial.
The court noted that the respondent’s concerns depended on future events and were not supported by specific evidence of a real risk. It considered the EU Court of Justice’s ruling in *RO*, which said that concrete evidence is needed to displace the presumption that the UK would continue to apply relevant fundamental rights protections after leaving the EU. The transition arrangements were still in force when judgment was delivered and were due to continue until 31 December 2020.
Mr Justice Burns found that the respondent had not produced cogent evidence of substantial or reasonable grounds to believe surrender would expose him to treatment contrary to his fundamental rights. He dismissed the objections and declined to seek guarantees from UK authorities. The court found surrender was not prohibited under Part Three of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 and ordered surrender under section 16. The judgment does not state that surrender would take place immediately; the applicant had said she would ask the court to postpone the order until the Dublin proceedings were determined.