The High Court has ordered Wojciech Cieply to be surrendered to Poland on foot of two European arrest warrants concerning a series of offences and prison sentences.
Mr Justice Michael Peart ruled on April 24, 2009 that there was no statutory bar to surrender under either warrant and rejected Cieply’s principal objection that he had not “fled” Poland within the meaning of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003.
The first warrant, dated October 23, 2007, sought his surrender to serve a two-year prison sentence for document forgery and fraud. The Polish case concerned a falsified agreement for the sale of a Mitsubishi car and the alleged swindling of two buyers out of cash and a Polonez car, with losses stated at PLN 18,000. The sentence had initially been suspended but was ordered into execution in January 2004.
A second warrant, dated May 27, 2008, covered 11 offences. Four were prosecution matters and seven concerned convictions and sentences. Among the latter were the theft of a bag, cash, bank cards and documents from a hotel room in Ustron, and the taking of a Fiat Cinquecento for short-term use.
Cieply argued that he had lived and worked in Germany from 2002 before later moving to Ireland, and that he had not fled Poland. The court examined the timing of several suspended sentences which subsequently became enforceable.
Mr Justice Peart found that at least one sentence had become enforceable in October 2001 before Cieply left for Germany, and that another became enforceable while he was present in court in Poland in January 2004. Leaving Poland while those sentences remained unserved brought him within the statutory meaning of having fled the issuing state.
The court also found the required Irish equivalents for the relevant fraud, forgery and theft offences and ordered surrender under both warrants.