The High Court has ordered the surrender of a man to Sweden to serve the remainder of a custodial sentence imposed there for 14 offences involving accounting, tax and money laundering.
In a judgment delivered on 13 February 2023, Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo said the European Arrest Warrant sought enforcement of a three-year-and-eight-month sentence imposed on 5 July 2021. The warrant stated that one year, 10 months and 20 days remained to be served. The court said the man was arrested in Ireland on 3 September 2022 and that the warrant was produced to the High Court on 16 September.
The offences listed in the warrant were three gross accounting offences, 10 gross tax offences and one gross money laundering offence. The Swedish authorities’ description alleged that the conduct was carried out with others through businesses, and included failures to keep accounts and provide accurate VAT information. The warrant said the tax conduct created a risk that about SEK 7 million in VAT would be withheld from public funds. It also alleged that about SEK 5.2 million was paid into the man’s private bank accounts, with about SEK 4.1 million then moved through cash withdrawals, purchases and transfers.
The respondent argued there was insufficient clarity about his role in the accounting offences. The judge found the warrant described him acting jointly with others and said the court was not to revisit the convictions after he had appeared at the Swedish trial. The judge also found the accounting and tax offences corresponded to offences under Irish law, including false accounting, tax offences and money laundering.
The respondent further objected that surrender would disproportionately affect his family and his wife’s health, relying on his affidavit and a general practitioner’s letter concerning his own stress and anxiety. The judge said there was no independent evidence that his presence was essential to his wife’s care, or that he would not receive appropriate mental health treatment in Sweden. He concluded that the circumstances did not meet the exceptional threshold for refusing surrender under section 37 of the 2003 Act or Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The court found surrender was not precluded under the Act and made an order under section 16 for his surrender to the Kingdom of Sweden. The judgment records the surrender order; it does not establish when the transfer took place.