The High Court has ordered Sergejs Radionovs’s surrender to Latvia under the European Arrest Warrant Act, 2003, so he can face prosecution over two alleged robbery offences. The order followed a contested surrender application; it is not a finding that he committed either offence.
The warrant concerns alleged incidents in Jēkabpils in July and October 2012. In the first, the Latvian authorities allege that Radionovs assaulted a man and took property belonging to him and a woman, causing reported losses of €17.93 and €85.37. In the second, they allege Radionovs and another person assaulted a man and took a phone, SIM card and cash, causing a reported loss of €64.03. The allegations and amounts are set out in the warrant, not findings by the Irish court.
Radionovs objected to surrender, including on the grounds of delay and interference with his private and family rights. The court sought further information from Latvia about the investigation timeline and applicable limitation periods. The Latvian authority said the proceedings began in 2012, charges were brought in October 2018, and the relevant limitation periods had not expired. It also described investigation steps and the subsequent trial schedule.
The Latvian account said the trial began in February 2019. Hearings were adjourned for reasons including witnesses’ non-appearance, health problems affecting Radionovs and a co-accused, and the need for new defence counsel. It said Radionovs did not attend hearings in January, August and September 2020. After the September hearing, the Latvian court ordered his arrest and circulated him as wanted, saying his reported address did not exist and his whereabouts could not be established. Latvia said he had left the country. The Irish High Court accepted that he failed to attend and concluded that the later delay was attributable to him.
Radionovs’s affidavit gave a different account of his circumstances, including that he had lived openly in Ireland since 2019 with his partner and her daughter, and had complied with bail conditions here. The High Court considered the Article 8 objection against the high legal threshold for refusing surrender and found that his circumstances did not rebut the statutory presumption that Latvia would comply with fundamental rights obligations. It also held that the investigation-stage delay did not justify refusal.
The court found that no statutory bar to surrender applied and ordered surrender under section 16. It did not decide the Latvian prosecution or determine Radionovs’s guilt.