Suspects freed due to warrant delays

THREE suspects wanted for crimes across Europe were freed from custody in Ireland last year because their arrest warrants were not processed on time.

Such delay-based releases only happened eight times across the entire EU, in a period when 3,159 prisoners were transferred under valid arrest warrants.

A Council of Europe survey revealed Ireland was significantly slower at bringing suspects before the courts and reaching decisions on European Arrest Warrant (EAW) requests.

Under regulations governing the warrants, prisoners must be sent to the country requesting their arrest within 10 days of a decision.

Last year Ireland received 198 arrest warrants, 320 people were arrested and 194 suspects surrendered to police in other jurisdictions.

However, in three cases the people walked free because they could not be handed over on time.

The only other countries to release suspects for this reason last year were Slovenia (3), Poland (1) and Sweden (1), according to the Council of Europe survey of member states.

According to the Department of Justice none were the fault of Irish authorities.

“In each case, the Irish courts had ordered surrender but the authorities in the requesting state were unable to collect the person in question by the deadline,” it said.

In all other areas measured Ireland is slower than other states at handling requests.

Last year when a suspect did not agree to be handed over, the process took an average of nine months. In the next slowest country (Sweden) it took less than three.

In instances where somebody obliged, it averaged two months here, and 37 days in the Czech Republic. The rest took between eight and 30 days.

In 29 cases, Ireland was not able to respect the 90-day limit for deciding whether or not to execute a warrant. There were just 90 other cases where a country failed to stay inside this limit across the EU in 2008.

The department said this jurisdiction had the added complication of having a common law to negotiate.

And it said it was possible it was not slower than other countries but simply better at collecting information.

“It should also be borne in mind that Ireland, unlike most other EU member states, operates a Central Authority and, accordingly, is in a position to compile comprehensive and accurate EAW statistics and forward them to the Commission.

“The under-reporting of cases by member states generally is recognised at EU level,” it said.

However, in a linked EAW evaluation report to the Council of Europe the outgoing Czech presidency said countries were not communicating well enough with each other and this was complicating time issues.

“According to some evaluation reports, these flaws often extend to the timely communication of the surrender dates, and to the requirement to provide, at the time of the surrender, precise information on the total period of detention served by the requested person.”