The High Court has ordered the surrender of Dariusz Zegarek to Poland under a European Arrest Warrant, after dismissing his objections based on delay and family and private life.
Mr Justice Paul Burns delivered the judgment on 20 October 2020. The warrant sought his surrender to serve part of a 2 year and 6 month cumulative prison sentence. At the time the warrant was issued, it said 1 year, 6 months and 23 days remained to be served.
The warrant concerned two offences covered by a cumulative judgment of the Circuit Court in Olsztyn in 2009. One arose from an incident in Białobrzegi in 2002, when Mr Zegarek was accused of instigating an attack on two police officers carrying out an arrest order. The other concerned a 2001 burglary at a Carrefour store in Warsaw, in which a Sony PlayStation 2 console valued at PLN 2,699 was stolen. The High Court found that both offences corresponded to offences under Irish law.
The court reviewed information from the Polish authorities about the underlying trials and the later cumulative sentence. The authorities said Mr Zegarek had been present at one underlying trial but not defended by counsel, and had attended the other. He did not attend the 2009 cumulative sentencing hearing; his lawyer represented him and appealed, leading to a partial amendment of the judgment.
Mr Zegarek argued that he might already have served the sentence during imprisonment in Poland from 2007 to 2014. The Polish issuing authority said he had served some of the relevant sentence and was released on parole in August 2014, but that his conditional release was revoked in 2016 after he failed to remain in contact with his probation officer. It said he knew the sentences were not fully served when released. A Polish law firm’s report, relied on by Mr Zegarek, identified possible concerns about procedural guarantees in the parole-revocation proceedings, while also concluding that a sentence remained enforceable.
At the hearing, his counsel pursued objections concerning delay and the effect of surrender on family and private life. Mr Zegarek said he had lived and worked in Ireland since 2015 and helped care for his partner and her children. His partner’s affidavit described health conditions and her need for care. The judge found that the delay had been reasonably explained and that the family circumstances did not reach the high threshold required to refuse surrender.
The court dismissed the objections, found no bar to surrender under the relevant provisions of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, and ordered surrender under section 16. The judgment records the order; it does not establish that surrender was carried out.