The High Court has refused to surrender Leon Nikolic to Croatia to serve the remainder of a two-year-and-three-month prison sentence, after finding that the evidence on Croatian prison conditions created a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment.
Nikolic was sought on a European Arrest Warrant issued by Zadar County Court in November 2025. The warrant related to three prolonged theft offences and stated that one year and nine months of his sentence remained to be served.
He challenged surrender on two main grounds. First, he argued that the warrant was unclear about the underlying convictions and sentencing process. He also said he had not attended the hearing at which the cumulative sentence was imposed. Second, he relied on prison overcrowding, violence and poor conditions in Croatia, including his own account of previous detention in Zadar Prison.
The High Court sought further information from Croatia. The issuing authority explained that four indictments had been merged into one proceeding before Zadar Municipal Court. Nikolic attended a hearing in September 2024, was represented by a lawyer and pleaded guilty to all charges. His lawyer later attended when the sentence was imposed.
Mr Justice Sean Gillane held that this additional information removed any uncertainty about the convictions and defeated the argument based on trial in absence.
The prison-conditions objection succeeded, however. The court relied on a Council of Europe report documenting serious overcrowding, low personal space and widespread inter-prisoner violence in Croatian prisons, together with a US State Department report recording overcrowding across the system.
Croatia responded by citing domestic legislation guaranteeing minimum standards and saying prison authorities would take measures to protect Nikolic. The judge found those assurances too general. They did not identify the actual conditions in which Nikolic would be detained or give specific guarantees about personal space and treatment.
The court therefore held that surrender would breach Ireland’s obligations under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and refused the request. It stressed that the ruling would not prevent a future surrender request supported by sufficiently specific assurances.