KING'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
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MAREKS GRANTS | Appellant |
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PROSECUTOR GENERAL'S OFFICE, LATVIA | Respondent |
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Amanda Bostock (instructed by CPS Extradition Unit) for the Respondents
Hearing dates: 16 January 2025
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Crown Copyright ©
Mr Justice Constable:
Introduction
"July - December 2019 – Fraud – Persuaded a Russian woman to sell her home in Russia to live with him in Latvia. She entrusted the proceeds (€31,900) to him for the purpose of buying a property in Latvia but he spent it 'upon his own discretion' and told her that the money had been damaged when it was accidentally washed in the washing machine."
The maximum sentence which could be imposed is one of 10 years' imprisonment.
Fugitive Status
The Facts
"On 8 January 2020, in the morning, I had a fight with Svetlana and I told her to go back to Russia, to which she answered me that she would then go to the police to write a statement and that her friend Mage had advised her to do the same. Because at that time I did not have any savings in order to hire a lawyer, I decided to leave the country."
The Law
"A person who has knowingly placed himself beyond the reach of a legal process is a fugitive. It is for the requesting state to establish fugitive status to the criminal standard. It must be shown that the requested person deliberately and knowingly placed himself beyond the reach of the relevant legal process."
"The essence of Mr Allen's argument on the Appellant's fugitivity from April 2004, as I saw it, was as follows. The Appellant "knowingly placed himself beyond the reach of a legal process" (Wisniewski paragraph 59). That was so, notwithstanding that when he left Turkey in April 2004 he did not breach any condition or obligation which have been imposed on him. It was because "an inevitable consequence" when he left was that he would "eventually fall foul" of an obligation or requirement arising from the Turkish criminal process. That, together with the Judge's finding as to his state of knowledge and state of mind … made the Appellant a fugitive. That is the essence of the argument. I cannot accept it. The starting point is that the Respondent does not say, cannot maintain, and the Judge did not find, that any obligation was imposed on the Appellant as at April 2004. There was no restriction on the Appellant leaving Turkey; there was no obligation as to his location; there was no obligation as to notification of an address or change of address; there was no obligation to make or maintain contact with any person or authority; there was no obligation to attend a trial hearing …. The case-law on fugitivity strongly emphasises breach. As Ms Townshend emphasised, Wisniewski – which analysed the position in relation to suspended sentences – speaks as a fugitive of a person "who breaches conditions of his sentence which require him to keep in contact" and who "thereby becomes" a person "whose whereabouts are unknown to the authority which is entitled to know them and puts it beyond the authority's power to deal with him"; that it is "his conduct in breach of the suspended sentence that has given rise to his lack of knowledge that the sentence has been implemented" (paragraph 62). Similarly, Stryjecki (paragraph 32) emphasises the action of having "knowingly breached the terms of [the] suspension". Mr Allen is right that a person whose act of leaving makes a future breach inevitable may be a fugitive. An example is a person owing a regular duty to attend at a police station, who by leaving will not be able to attend future appointments. Another example is where individuals "deliberately flee the jurisdiction in which [they have] been bailed to appear" (Gomes paragraph 26). In this case, the Respondent cannot sustain, on the material before the Court, still less to the criminal standard (Gomes paragraph 27), that any "inevitable breach" arose from the Appellant leaving in April 2004. It is not enough that the individual may one day owe an obligation and fall foul of it by being away from the requesting state: otherwise, everyone would be a fugitive. Moreover, in De Zorzi the appellant left France having been told by the Judge that she would have to return the following year (paragraph 6), but she was not a fugitive when she left, nor when she declined to return. The suggestion that there was an inevitability in this case involves the (alarming) proposition – which I cannot accept – that prosecution, trial, conviction and a custodial sentence were all themselves inevitable. The finding of fugitivity … cannot therefore stand."
The Appeal
Article 8