The High Court has ordered the surrender of Aurimas Mecius to Lithuania for prosecution over alleged participation in a criminal organisation, human trafficking and drug trafficking. Mr Justice Paul Burns made the order under section 16 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 after dismissing the respondent’s objections to surrender.
The European arrest warrant was issued on 9 March 2020. The court endorsed it on 13 July 2020, and Mecius was arrested and brought before the High Court on 26 August 2020. The application concerns prosecution, not a conviction. The alleged offences and the issuing state’s account of Mecius’s role have not been established at trial in this proceeding.
The warrant alleges a transnational criminal organisation recruited vulnerable people in Lithuania and brought them to Ireland and Northern Ireland, where they were exploited to distribute heroin. The issuing authority alleged that Mecius joined the organisation around 2013 and supervised heroin distribution in Waterford, including directing street dealers and collecting proceeds. It also alleged that he used physical violence against a dealer in an apartment in Waterford on 15 August 2017. The precise address was not established in the information supplied to the court.
Mecius argued that surrender for the drug offence was barred by section 44 because the alleged conduct took place outside Lithuania and Ireland did not apply equivalent extraterritorial jurisdiction. The Minister’s counsel accepted that this bar would apply if the offence was alleged to have occurred outside Lithuania, but argued that the alleged criminal enterprise operated across Lithuania, Ireland and the UK.
Justice Burns held that the allegations described a transnational conspiracy, with acts by participants in different countries furthering a common enterprise. He found that the warrant and additional information alleged the drug offence was committed in Lithuania as well as Ireland and the UK. As the first requirement of section 44 was not met, he dismissed that objection without needing to decide the second part of the statutory test.
The court also rejected Mecius’s argument that the warrant lacked sufficient particulars under section 11(1A). It found that the warrant and additional information gave sufficient details about the alleged offences, their circumstances and his alleged involvement, and that the absence of further detail would not cause injustice in contesting surrender or dealing with the case after surrender.
The judgment records that other objections, including challenges concerning the issuing judicial authority, whether a decision to charge had been made, and Lithuanian prison conditions, were not maintained. The court concluded that surrender was not precluded under the Act and ordered Mecius’s surrender to Lithuania.