The High Court has refused to surrender Daniel Tomasz Markiewicz to Poland because one of the 18 offences covered by his aggregate prison sentence did not have a corresponding offence under Irish law.
Polish authorities sought Markiewicz's surrender under a European arrest warrant issued in August 2020. The warrant sought enforcement of a two-year sentence imposed in December 2016, of which one year, 11 months and 16 days was stated to remain.
Sixteen of the offences concerned bicycle thefts. Two others arose from items found during a July 2013 search of Markiewicz's flat in Warsaw.
Offence 17 concerned identification documents belonging to other people which Markiewicz was convicted of "hiding". Polish authorities explained that their law criminalises intentionally making a document unavailable to someone entitled to possess it.
The key issue was whether that conduct would also amount to an offence in Ireland, a requirement known as correspondence or double criminality.
Mr Justice Paul Burns held that it would not. There was insufficient evidence that Markiewicz had stolen the documents or knew they were stolen. The Minister's side accepted that the available facts did not support treating the conduct as handling stolen property under Irish law.
The position was different for offence 18. That charge concerned preparations to forge 130 prescriptions. Following additional information from Poland, Markiewicz accepted that this conduct did correspond to an Irish offence.
That distinction proved decisive. Poland had imposed one aggregate two-year sentence covering all 18 offences and told the High Court that the sentence could no longer be divided to identify the punishment attributable to any particular count.
Under Irish Supreme Court authority, surrender could therefore not proceed unless correspondence existed for every offence supporting the indivisible sentence.
Because offence 17 failed that test, the High Court refused surrender. It was unnecessary to determine Markiewicz's separate objection under section 37 of the European Arrest Warrant Act.