The High Court has ordered Anthony Abimbola’s surrender to Germany under a European arrest warrant so he can serve a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for a rape conviction there.
Mr Justice Michael Peart delivered the judgment on 15 October 2008. The court said the warrant was issued in Germany on 18 February 2005, transmitted to Ireland on 17 January 2008 and endorsed for execution on 23 January. Abimbola was arrested on 29 January and remanded on bail pending the surrender application.
The warrant followed an earlier, unsuccessful extradition attempt under the Extradition Act 1965. The High Court had ordered extradition under that process, but the Supreme Court released Abimbola on 28 November 2007 after finding the High Court lacked jurisdiction to make the order: the 1965 Act had been disapplied in respect of Germany from November 2004.
Abimbola raised several objections to surrender. He argued that the delay in acting on the European arrest warrant breached the requirement to deal with such warrants urgently. The court held that delay was not a ground for refusing surrender under the Framework Decision, and that the provision did not give him a right to resist the order on that basis.
He also argued that the warrant might have faced constitutional difficulties under German law when issued. The judge rejected that objection as speculation, noting that no expert evidence had been presented. On the meaning of section 10(d) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, the judge concluded that it could cover a person who left the issuing state before conviction and sentence, and rejected the argument that this prevented surrender.
Abimbola had spent about 16 months in Irish custody during the earlier extradition proceedings. He sought confirmation that this time would count against his German sentence. The court held that he was not entitled to an advance assurance, and said the issue could be taken up with German authorities after surrender. It also rejected an objection based on information the authorities had not provided, finding that the information was not necessary to the objections before the court.
The court found no other statutory reason to refuse surrender and ordered it. The judgment does not state whether surrender had taken place by the date of the decision.