The High Court has refused an application to surrender Andi Bali to Belgium to serve an 11-year prison sentence, finding that his fair-trial rights were breached when his appeal proceeded in his absence.
In a judgment delivered on 13 May 2022, Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring said the evidence did not establish unequivocally that Bali knew the date and place of the appeal or had waived his right to attend. The court found that an entry ban imposed by Belgian authorities prevented him from entering the country for the hearing.
Belgium sought Bali’s surrender under a European Arrest Warrant issued on 3 October 2019. The warrant sought to enforce a sentence imposed on 26 June 2019, with 3,396 days remaining to be served. The Irish court was satisfied Bali was the person named in the warrant and that the statutory minimum-gravity requirement was met.
Bali challenged the warrant on several grounds, including that it did not sufficiently connect him to one of the offences and that the proceedings in Belgium had denied him a fair trial. The court found that the warrant’s offence of building a criminal gang corresponded to Irish offences of conspiracy or participating in a criminal organisation.
The fair-trial challenge concerned Bali’s absence from his Belgian trial and appeal. He said he had been deported and barred from entering Belgium, and denied receiving notice of the appeal. Belgian authorities said he had been summoned by certified letter and represented by a lawyer. However, the summons had been sent to a general address in Albania, and there was no evidence that anyone received it. The court also noted uncertainty about the appeal date and the lack of clear information about the effect of the entry ban.
The judge said the fact that a lawyer attended did not, by itself, establish that Bali had knowingly waived his right to be present, particularly when he was legally barred from attending. She concluded the appeal had taken place in circumstances that breached his fair-trial rights under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court therefore found surrender would breach section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act.
The court did not decide whether Bali’s Article 8 rights had been breached. It refused the surrender order; the judgment did not determine the underlying Belgian convictions or sentence.