The High Court has consented to the United Kingdom (Scotland) extraditing a man to Albania, where he was convicted in his absence of offences the judgment describes as essentially amounting to murder by automatic firearm. The order resolves Ireland’s consent to onward extradition under the European Arrest Warrant Act. It is not an order by the Irish court directing his extradition from Scotland.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Donnelly on 23 January 2017, says the man had been surrendered from Ireland to Scotland in February 2008 under a European arrest warrant. He was later convicted in Scotland of offences connected with setting fire to an aeroplane at Glasgow Airport. After concerns about his mental health, a Scottish court made hospital compulsion and restriction orders without a time limit. The judgment says his identity as Astrit Picari was established after he had used the name Safet Bukoshi.
The court held that its task under section 24(4) of the 2003 Act required it to consider whether extradition would be prohibited under the Extradition Acts, including by constitutional or European Convention rights. It found that the Albanian offence corresponded to murder in Ireland, met the minimum-gravity requirement, and that no express statutory prohibition applied.
The man objected that his paranoid schizophrenia and conditions in Albanian prisons put him at risk of inhuman or degrading treatment. His expert witness, Professor Brad Blitz, questioned whether Albania could provide sustained psychiatric care and medication. Albanian authorities gave assurances that he would be held at a named prison with a psychiatrist, receive continuous psychological support and an individual treatment programme, and continue Olanzapine. The court accepted those assurances. It said the evidence did not establish a real risk of prohibited treatment, while acknowledging ongoing concerns about psychiatric care in Albania and the absence there of a designated forensic psychiatric facility.
The court also rejected objections concerning the fairness of an Albanian trial and the guarantee of a retrial after his trial in absentia. It found no evidence establishing a real risk of a flagrant denial of fair-trial rights and accepted the Albanian authorities’ express guarantee of a retrial. It rejected the delay argument for lack of an evidential basis and found the family-life objection unsustainable on the circumstances described in the judgment.
The court’s conclusion was limited to consent: it was satisfied that Ireland could consent to Scotland extraditing the man to Albania. The judgment records that the Scottish Government was separately investigating how his rights would be upheld and that he intended to challenge any extradition there.