The High Court ordered the surrender of Ivans Desjatnikovs to Latvia under a European arrest warrant, finding that the allegations fell within the broad category of fraud or swindling for which Irish law does not require double criminality to be established.
In a judgment delivered on 10 October 2007, Mr Justice Michael Peart said the Latvian warrant sought Desjatnikovs’ surrender for prosecution, not to serve a sentence following conviction. He rejected a challenge based on wording in the translated warrant that referred to both prosecution and execution of a sentence. The court also found the warrant had been endorsed for execution before his arrest and that no statutory bar under sections 21A, 22, 23 or 24 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 applied.
The respondent argued that surrender should be refused because, if convicted in Latvia, he could face mandatory minimum prison terms that would breach his constitutional rights. The judge said a difference between Latvian and Irish sentencing laws did not by itself make surrender unconstitutional. He distinguished an earlier extradition case involving the United States and said the exceptional circumstances that might justify refusal on fundamental-rights grounds were absent.
The warrant described allegations concerning two transactions. In one, Desjatnikovs was alleged to have taken about 45,000 Latvian lats from the cash desk of a pawnshop company he chaired and not repaid it. In another, he was alleged to have received 7,300 lats from an acquaintance under a loan agreement, with the money said to be intended for the company, but not transferred or repaid. The judgment did not determine whether either allegation was true.
The court found that the described facts did not correspond to Irish theft or deception offences under the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001, because the warrant did not allege the required dishonest intent or deception. However, the judge held that section 38(1)(b) permitted the court to consider whether the alleged conduct came within the broad concepts of listed offences such as fraud or swindling, even though the issuing authority had not marked such an offence on the warrant.
Finding that the alleged conduct could fall within those broad concepts and that the Latvian offence met the required maximum-sentence threshold of at least three years, the judge made the surrender order sought under section 16. The order resolved the surrender application; it was not a finding of guilt on the Latvian allegations.