The High Court has ordered Razvan Hoamea’s surrender to Romania to serve a combined sentence of five years and 22 days for attempted murder and illegal tree felling.
Romanian authorities issued the European arrest warrant in March 2020. The sentence comprises five years for attempted murder and a further 22 days arising from an earlier tree-felling offence. All of it remained to be served.
This was not Romania’s first attempt to secure Hoamea’s surrender. An earlier warrant referred only to the attempted murder sentence, but proceedings revealed that the overall sentence also included the tree-felling penalty. Surrender under that warrant was refused because the second offence had not been included.
In the renewed proceedings, Hoamea argued that the tree-felling offence did not correspond to an Irish crime. The High Court rejected that objection, finding that the conduct corresponded both to an offence under the Forestry Act 2014 and to criminal damage.
Hoamea also challenged surrender because he had not personally attended the Romanian trial and appeal which produced the attempted murder sentence. He claimed he had not instructed the lawyers involved. However, Romanian authorities supplied documents showing that he had been represented on appeal by a lawyer chosen and paid for by him or his family.
Mr Justice Burns accepted that evidence and found that Hoamea’s defence rights had been respected. He also noted that Hoamea had personally attended the earlier proceedings concerning the tree-felling conviction.
A third objection concerned Romanian prison conditions. Updated information indicated that Hoamea would initially spend 21 days in quarantine at Rahova Prison before likely serving part of his sentence in Bacău Penitentiary. Romanian authorities guaranteed at least three square metres of personal space throughout his detention, excluding toilet space.
The court found no substantial grounds for believing that surrender would expose Hoamea to inhuman or degrading treatment. Having rejected all pursued objections, it ordered his surrender to Romania.