The Supreme Court dismissed Trust Egharevba’s appeal and affirmed the High Court order for her surrender to France under the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The Court held that the first requirement of her section 44 objection was not met, so the objection did not apply. It did not decide two other certified questions, which it described as hypothetical.
France sought Egharevba’s surrender in connection with two alleged offences: laundering proceeds of procuring and human trafficking as part of an organised criminal gang, and conspiracy to prepare those crimes. The warrant alleged that victims’ money passed through bank accounts in Ireland before being transferred to Nigeria, and that Egharevba knowingly arranged transfers. Those are allegations in the warrant, not findings made by the Supreme Court.
The warrant described the alleged offences as having been committed in Grenoble, France, and “on an indivisible basis in Nigeria and in Ireland” between 1 April 2008 and 14 March 2011. Egharevba’s objection relied on section 44, which bars surrender where an offence was committed or alleged to have been committed outside the issuing state and the conduct would not constitute an offence under Irish law by virtue of having taken place outside Ireland. The two requirements are conjunctive, meaning both must be met.
The High Court had rejected the objection and ordered surrender. It reasoned that the French proceedings attributed conduct in France to Egharevba because she was alleged to have participated in an organised group whose members’ actions could ground the laundering charge. The Supreme Court affirmed that determination on the first requirement: Egharevba could not establish that the alleged laundering offence was committed outside France for the purposes of section 44. Since that requirement was not met, the Court said the section did not apply and did not need to decide the second requirement.
The appeal also raised two certified questions about whether hypothetical conduct could be prosecuted under Irish law and whether an alleged conspiracy had its subject matter in Ireland or against an Irish citizen. The Court declined to answer them, stating that it does not decide hypothetical cases outside the special jurisdiction under Article 26 of the Constitution. The surrender order therefore remained in force.