High Court allows surrender to Romania for tree theft convictions under European Arrest Warrant Act 2003.

THE HIGH COURT

Record No. 2025 324 EXT

[2026] IEHC 75

BETWEEN

MINISTER FOR JUSTICE, HOME AFFAIRS AND MIGRATION

APPLICANT

AND

COSTEL TUDOR

RESPONDENT

JUDGMENT delivered by Mr. Justice Sean Gillane on 10 February 2026

Introduction

1. This is an application for the surrender of the respondent to the Republic of Romania to serve a sentence of imprisonment pursuant to a European Arrest Warrant (“the warrant”) dated the 17th of December 2020.

2. The respondent appeared before the High Court on the 26th of November 2025 following his arrest on foot of an SIS Alert dated the 15th of January 2021, pursuant to section 14 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 as amended (“the 2003 Act”).

3. On the 27th of November 2025, the respondent was remanded in custody with consent to bail to the 8th of December 2025 in order for the warrant to be produced. The warrant was produced before the High Court on the 1st of December 2025 and the relevant orders were made in accordance with section 14(4) of the 2003 Act.

4. The respondent is a Romanian national and objects to his surrender. He filed a notice of objection on the 20th of January 2026. The matter came on for hearing before me on the 23rd of January 2026.

Background

5. The warrant is a Romanian conviction warrant issued by the District Court of Bacau, the competent judicial authority.

6. The warrant was signed by Judge Candet Ana Maria.

7. The warrant concerns the enforcement of two sentences of imprisonment: a. A sentence of three years’ imprisonment for the offence of illegal cutting of trees from the National Forest reserve; and b. A sentence of three years’ imprisonment for the offense of theft of trees from the National Forest reserve.

8. Under Romanian law, these convictions resulted in a sentence of four years’ imprisonment being imposed (one sentence of three years’ imprisonment was increased by one third of the other sentence). This sentence became final on the 15th of October 2020 through criminal decision No. 900 of the Court of Appeal in Bacau. This is clear from Part B of the warrant.

9. Part D of the warrant clearly reflects that the respondent was present in person at the trial during which the relevant decision was made.

10. Part E of the warrant provides a description of the circumstances of the offences. It states as follows: “… between 23.05.2016-19.07.2016, together with other defendants he cut and stole illegally trees of the sessile oak species from the national forest fund, the created prejudice being of lei 213,238.48.”

11. The warrant then sets out the legal classification of the offences and the applicable legal provisions according to Romanian law.

Grounds of Objection

12. The respondent’s notice of objection raises two related substantive points: “The EAW does not sufficiently comply with the section 11(1A)(f) requirement for clarity as to the circumstances in which the offence was committed and the degree of involvement of the Respondent in the commission of the offences which ground the EAW. The terse, one sentence narrative which describes the conduct amounting to the Romanian offences does not provide any meaningful basis to examine double criminality – see Part E of the EAW.

Correspondence is not clearly demonstrated pursuant to the requirements of sections 5 and 38(1A) of the Act of 2003. In the absence of sufficient clarifying information, surrender ought to be refused.”

13. In essence, the argument advanced was that the description of the circumstances of the commission of the offence, variously described by counsel for the respondent as “terse” or “gnomic”, was insufficient to meet the requirements of section 11 of the 2003 Act, and that I should either request further information from the issuing authority pursuant to section 20 of the 2003 Act or refuse surrender.

Discussion

14. There seemed to be little dispute about the other requirements of section 11 that must be met before an order for surrender could be made.

15. I am satisfied that the name and nationality of the respondent is clearly set out on the face of the warrant.

16. I am satisfied that the name and address of the judicial authority that issued the warrant and its telephone number, fax number and email address are set out on the face of the warrant.

17. Section 11 requires that the offence to which the relevant warrant relates be set out, including the classification under the law of the issuing state of the offence concerned. I am satisfied that Part E of the warrant states that it relates to two offences and that it describes the facts underpinning the offences. The classification of these offences under the law of the issuing state is also clearly set out in Part E of the warrant.

18. Part B of the warrant confirms that it is based on a criminal sentence ruled by the District Court, which became final through criminal decision No. 900 ruled by the Court of Appeal of Bacau dated the 15th of October 2020.

19. I am satisfied that Part C of the warrant confirms that this sentence remains enforceable.

20. I am satisfied pursuant to section 16(2) of the 2003 Act that the respondent is the person in respect of whom the warrant was issued and that his name, date and place of birth are clearly set out. No issue was raised by the respondent in respect of the SIS Alert linked to the warrant and I am satisfied that no issue as to identity arises.

21. The four-year sentence clearly meets the minimum gravity requirement as provided for by section 38(1)(a)(ii) of the 2003 Act.

22. The offence occurred in the issuing state, and no question of extraterritoriality arises. Furthermore, no issue arises in relation to the limitation period for the prosecution of these offences.

23. The warrant also clearly states that the respondent appeared at the court hearing resulting in the relevant decision.

24. The respondent contends that the request lacked clarity and correspondence cannot be demonstrated, having regard to the deficiencies in the description of the offence, and requested a full inquisitorial hearing in relation to the application for his surrender.

Counsel for the respondent submitted that the Court would have to “read in words that aren’t there” for the requirements of section 11 to be met.

25. Counsel for the respondent also submitted that decisions in other cognate cases were not binding on me and that the Court should look “afresh” at the actual information provided by the issuing authority in the warrant.

26. The applicant submits that the warrant provides sufficient information as it sets out the dates between which the offences were committed; that the offences were committed by the respondent with other individuals; that the respondent engaged in the act of cutting and stealing the trees illegally; the type of tree involved and the fact that the trees were cut and stolen from the National Forest fund. The warrant also included a monetary value assessed in respect of the damage caused.

27. The applicant argues, in reliance on Minister for Justice and Equality v. Cahill [2012] IEHC 315, that there are three objectives underpinning the statutory requirement for a description of the circumstances in which the offences were committed: “The first is to enable the High Court, in its capacity as executing judicial authority, to be satisfied that it is appropriate to endorse the warrant for execution in this jurisdiction. […] The second objective is to enable the executing judicial authority to be satisfied as to correspondence in cases in which double criminality is required to be demonstrated. [...] The third objective, and the critical one in the circumstances of the present case, is to enable the respondent to know precisely for what it is that his surrender is sought. A respondent is entitled to challenge his proposed surrender and in order to do so needs to have basic information about the offences to which the warrant relates. Among the issues that might be raised by a respondent are objections based upon the rule of specialty, the ne bis in idem principle and extra-territoriality to name but some. In order to evaluate his position, and determine whether or not he is in a position to put forward an objection that might legitimately be open to him to raise, he (and also his legal advisor in the event he is represented) needs to know, in respect of each offence to which the warrant relates, in what circumstances it is said the offence was committed, including the time, place, and degree of participation in the offence by the requested person.”

28. The applicant submits that these objectives are all satisfied on the facts of this case.

29. Section 11(1A)(f) of the 2003 Act, which is derived from Article 8(1)(e) of the Council Framework Decision of the 13th of June 2002 on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States, states that a relevant arrest warrant shall set out: “the circumstances in which the offence was committed or is alleged to have been committed, including the time and place of its commission or alleged commission, and the degree of involvement or alleged degree of involvement of the person in the commission of the offence”

30. This section, in my view, requires an analysis informed by the objectives identified by Edwards J. in Cahill.

31. In the present case, I cannot see any difficulty in establishing correspondence. In Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform v. Dolny [2009] IESC 48, Denham J. said: “In addressing the issue of correspondence it is necessary to consider the particulars on the warrant, the acts, to decide if they would constitute an offence in the State. In considering the issue it is appropriate to read the warrant as a whole. In so reading the particulars it is a question of determining whether there is a corresponding offence. It is a question of determining if the acts alleged were such that if committed in this jurisdiction they would constitute an offence. It is not a helpful analogy to consider whether the words would equate with the terms of an indictment in this jurisdiction. Rather it is a matter of considering the acts described and deciding whether they would constitute an offence if committed in this jurisdiction.”

32. At paragraph 17, Denham J. went on to say, in terms of the approach to be taken: “The words on the warrant are plain: ‘beat … on the face and head with his fists … causing injury to his body …’ The natural and ordinary meaning of the words is clear. There is well established jurisprudence on the approach to be taken to the words in warrants under the Extradition Act, 1965 as amended. Thus in Wilson v. Sheehan [1979] I.R. 423 at p. 429 Henchy J. stated:- ‘When it comes to the words in the warrant by which the factual content of the specified offence is identified, the correct rule is that those words should prima facie be given their ordinary or popular meaning unless they are used in a context which suggests that they have a special signification.’ In that case the warrant had alleged that the requested person ‘… did rob Michael Barker of £281 in cash and immediately before doing so used force, to wit personal violence, on the said Michael Barker.’ Henchy J. held at p.430 that:- ‘Since the word ‘rob’ in ordinary usage means ‘deprive a person of property unjustifiably by force,’ all the District Justice had to decide was whether the charge in the warrant that the plaintiff had robbed a person of money, using personal violence to that person immediately before doing so, would constitute an offence if the same conduct were charged in an indictment in this state.’ I am satisfied that a similar approach may be taken to the words on a warrant issued under the European Arrest Warrant Act, 2003, as amended. Thus a court may look at all the information provided, the facts and acts described, and give to words their ordinary and popular meaning.”

33. The question becomes one of whether the facts described on the warrant would, if established, constitute an offence in this jurisdiction. As Binchy J. commented in Minister for Justice and Equality v. Kasevicius [2019] IEHC 434, there is no requirement for the facts to be presented by the issuing authority in the same way in which they might appear in this jurisdiction on a summons or a charge sheet or an indictment.

34. In this case, the offences are described as the illegal cutting and stealing of oak trees. I cannot see how more is required to establish correspondence with the offences of theft pursuant to section 4 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001 and criminal damage pursuant to section 2 of the Criminal Damage Act 1991. I cannot agree that I am required to seek further information from the issuing authority pursuant to section 20 of the 2003 Act in order to enable me to perform my functions under the Act.

35. In Minister for Justice and Equality v. Tache [2019] IEHC 68, Donnelly J. considered circumstances where the respondent had “committed two concurrent forestry offences, namely: he cut a number of 12 unmarked (turkey oak and hornbeam trees), belonging to ‘Stejarul’ Forest Division’ … and stole the 12 unmarked turkey oak and hornbeam trees.” This was stated to have been done “without right.”

36. I gratefully adopt the reasoning of Donnelly J. where she held that the cutting of the trees, without right, corresponded with the offence of criminal damage under the Criminal Damage Act 1991, and that stealing was sufficient to come within the definition of theft for the purposes of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.

37. In this case, Part E of the warrant refers to Article 107 of the Romanian Forest Code where the phrase ‘without right’ is used in the context of, inter alia, cutting trees and Article 109 refers to the “theft” of trees.

38. I am also of the view that the respondent clearly knows precisely for what it is that his surrender is sought, an objective described as “critical” in Cahill. In Minister for Justice v. Verberger [2021] IEHC 555, Burns J., in rejecting an argument based on a lack of clarity in the description of the offences, held at paragraphs 8-11: “Counsel on behalf of the respondent submits that there is an unacceptable lack of clarity in the EAW as regards the number of offences to which it relates and the location of the offences.

At part E of the EAW, it is stated that it relates to one offence and, thereafter, details are set out under numbers (1) to (5) of various actions undertaken by the respondent, along with other persons, as regards fraud or conspiracy to defraud. The precise location of each of the actions is not indicated but the dates of same and the aggrieved parties are identified as well as the amounts of money involved and the mechanism by which the fraud was committed.

By additional information dated 1st July, 2021, it is confirmed that the EAW relates to one single criminal offence. It is pointed out that, according to the Criminal Code of the Czech Republic, the various matters set out are to be considered one single criminal offence. The additional information states that the locations where the crime took place are detailed in the judgment which is part of the EAW and it confirms that the crime was committed in the territory of the Czech Republic. It also confirms that the respondent committed the offence in question within an organised group. I am satisfied that there is no lack of clarity surrounding the number of offences to which the EAW relates. As regards the location of the offences, the judgment was not in fact included with the EAW, but I do not believe anything of significance turns on this. It has been confirmed that all of the offences occurred within the Czech Republic. Thus, there can be no uncertainty as to whether there was any extraterritorial element to the offences. Furthermore, this is a conviction warrant.

The EAW indicates that the respondent participated in the hearing on 18th December, 2017 and the hearing on 24th April, 2019. In such circumstances, the respondent must be fully aware of all of the relevant details pertaining to the offence in respect of which he was convicted. He has not put forward any evidence by way of affidavit indicating any particular prejudice he may suffer as a result of the EAW failing to indicate precisely where in the Czech Republic each offence occurred.” (Emphasis added.)

39. There is no suggestion in this case, which concerns a conviction warrant, that the respondent did not participate in the process that led to his conviction and subsequent sentence, and I am in no doubt that he understands the nature of the offences for which he is sought and that this “critical” objective has been satisfied.

40. I am satisfied that I am not required to refuse the respondent’s surrender under sections 22, 23 or 24 of the 2003 Act. I am also satisfied that I am not required to refuse surrender for any other reason under Part 3 of the 2003 Act.

Conclusion

41. For the reasons set out above, I reject the points of objection raised by the respondent to his surrender. I therefore propose to make an order for his surrender to the Republic of Romania.