The High Court has refused to surrender Radoslav Sipka to Slovakia to serve a ten-year prison sentence after finding that he was tried and convicted in his absence without the safeguards required by Irish European arrest warrant law.
Slovak authorities sought Sipka's surrender under a European arrest warrant issued in January 2020. The warrant related to a single offence comprising several instances in which, according to the Slovak proceedings, he deceived people into providing him with money. The issuing authority classified the offence as "swindling".
Sipka challenged surrender on two grounds. He argued that the warrant was unclear about the number of offences and the calculation of the sentence, and that his surrender was barred because he had not attended the proceedings leading to conviction.
Mr Justice Paul Burns rejected the first argument. Slovak authorities clarified that the five instances described in the warrant formed one criminal offence and that a single ten-year sentence had been imposed.
The second objection succeeded.
The court established from additional information that Sipka was neither present at his January 2019 trial nor at the October 2019 appeal. He had not been personally summoned, was not otherwise aware of the hearing dates and had not appointed the lawyer who represented him. That lawyer had instead been assigned by the Slovak court during proceedings conducted against Sipka as a fugitive.
Slovak authorities also confirmed that Sipka did not have an automatic right to a fresh appeal or retrial in which the merits and new evidence could be reconsidered.
The Minister ultimately conceded that the requirements governing in-absentia convictions had not been satisfied either formally or substantively.
The High Court found no express or implied waiver by Sipka of his right to participate in his defence. Section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 therefore barred surrender, and the application was refused.