The High Court has ordered Dorian Szamota’s surrender to Poland to serve a one-year prison sentence imposed for a denial-of-service attack and threats to continue it unless he received money.
The ruling, delivered by Mr Justice David Keane on 19 April 2024, followed a remittal from the Court of Appeal. The remaining question was whether surrender would breach Mr Szamota’s defence rights, because a separate conviction in Poland had been handed down in his absence. The Minister for Justice accepted that none of the conditions permitting surrender under Article 4a of the EU Framework Decision was met in relation to that trial.
The sentence now at issue was imposed in 2015 and conditionally suspended for five years. In 2017, Mr Szamota was convicted in absentia of breaking into a caravan and stealing items. Because that conviction occurred during the probation period, a Polish court ordered the suspended sentence to be enforced. The EAW seeks his surrender to serve the one-year sentence, not the separate 14-month sentence imposed for the caravan offence.
The Minister argued that surrender would not breach defence rights, relying on information and documents from the Polish issuing judicial authority. They indicated that Mr Szamota was arrested in October 2016 on suspicion of burglary, charged and interviewed the following day, and given written information about his rights and obligations, including duties to provide and update an address. The authority’s records also indicated that he admitted the offence and applied to be sentenced without a trial. Mr Szamota disputed receiving the instruction document and making the recorded admissions, though he acknowledged that signatures on the documents resembled his and that he recalled signing papers when released.
The judge accepted the Polish authority’s evidence over Mr Szamota’s contrary assertions. He found that Mr Szamota knew he was charged, understood his obligations about appearing and providing an address, and knew that proceedings could continue in his absence if notices were sent to the address he had supplied. The judge found no evidence that Polish authorities lacked diligence in trying to notify him, or that Mr Szamota had taken steps to learn of the trial.
On that basis, the court concluded that Mr Szamota had deliberately and freely waived his right to attend the trial, and that surrender would not breach his defence rights. Having found the statutory requirements for surrender satisfied and no statutory bar applicable, the High Court made an order directing his surrender to an authorised Polish representative. The judgment decides the Irish surrender application; it does not set aside or retry the Polish caravan conviction.