The High Court has discharged a man whose extradition to Ukraine was sought so he could serve a nine-year sentence, finding a real risk that his rights against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment would be breached in prison.
Mr Justice Edwards ruled on 21 October 2014 that the evidence established substantial grounds for believing the risk was real. The court therefore declined to make the committal order sought under the Extradition Act 1965 and ordered the man’s discharge. It did not order his extradition.
Ukraine sought his extradition to serve a sentence imposed in 2006 by a court in Lutsk for offences involving the importation and sale of MDMA and amphetamine as part of an organised group. The Irish court found the extradition request and supporting documents met the relevant formal requirements, and that the offences met the tests for extradition. No issue was raised by the parties on correspondence or minimum gravity.
The man objected on human-rights grounds. In an affidavit, he alleged that while held in Ukrainian custody in 2005 he was beaten, confined in poor conditions, denied medical care and threatened. He also alleged coercion in the case that led to his conviction. These were his claims, not findings by the Irish court.
The court considered reports from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, including reports on Ukrainian prisons published in 2012, 2013 and 2014, along with other country information and the Ukrainian authorities’ responses. It acknowledged evidence of reforms and improvements in some institutions. But it found that reports still showed widespread abuse, inadequate investigations and risks to prisoners who complained. The court said the man’s own account of earlier detention carried limited weight, while the independent country reports carried substantially more.
The court concluded that the evidence rebutted the presumption that Ukraine would respect his rights and that the Ukrainian authorities’ representations had not allayed its concerns. It found a real risk of either ill-treatment amounting to torture or detention conditions or a prison regime amounting to inhuman or degrading treatment.
The court rejected his other objections. It found that he had not provided enough evidence to establish a real risk of a flagrant denial of justice, and dismissed the Article 6 objection. It also declined to uphold his Article 8 family-life objection, finding the available evidence did not show that extradition would have profoundly injurious or extraordinary consequences for him or his family. The Article 3 finding was sufficient to determine the application.