A MAN wanted in Britain on charges alleging that he attempted to cheat the revenue by conspiring to commit tax fraud and entering into money-laundering arrangements has won a Supreme Court order preventing his extradition.
The three-judge court yesterday refused to order the delivery of James Anthony Tighe, Pettiswood, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, on grounds including major conflicts in the European arrest warrant issued in the UK in March 2008.
Mr Tighe had appealed against a High Court order for his extradition over alleged offences between 1997 and 2005.
Giving the Supreme Court judgment, Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said these were extremely serious charges which in practice could lead to sentences of up to 15 years imprisonment, with some carrying maximum sentences of life imprisonment.
It was therefore “all the more surprising that little care appeared to have been devoted to the drafting of the European warrant or, it must be said, to its scrutiny in this jurisdiction”, he said.
It was “notorious” that the law relating to arrangements for the forcible delivery of persons from this jurisdiction has been greatly changed by the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, giving effect here to the “framework decision on the European arrest warrant and surrender procedure”.
The framework decision was itself “a remarkable document”, agreed in principle in the 10 days after the terrorist outrage in New York in September 2001, Mr Justice Hardiman said.
The proposals being worked on before that epochal event related to terrorist crimes only but, in a period of time “so short as to allow for very little, if any, consultation, it was decided to extend their effects to a very wide swathe of ordinary crimes”.
In Mr Tighe’s case, the judge noted the warrant first certified that three of the four offences, those of conspiring to commit tax fraud, were within the list of criminal conduct set out in the framework decision but then certified they were not.
It was for a state requesting extradition to say whether, and if so where, in the list of offences set out in the framework decision the offence for which they wanted to put a person on trial was to be found, he said, noting that it was clear there was no offence in Ireland of conspiracy to cheat the Revenue.
He said the decision to charge conspiracy in this case was made by the UK revenue authorities and both conflicting certifications – that conspiracy is/is not an offence within the framework document list, was also of their making, he said.
In those and other circumstances, the court would not make an order for delivery of Mr Tighe.
In relation to the fourth offence, of conspiring to cheat the public revenue via entering into money-laundering arrangements, the judge noted that under the relevant law, a European warrant must set out the circumstances in which an offence was committed or allegedly committed, the time and place of the offence’s commission or alleged commission and the degree of involvement of an accused.
However, this warrant did not specify the circumstances in which this offence was alleged to have been committed, he said. The contents concerning this offence contained no statement whatever specific to the accused.
This particular charge also did not correspond to an offence in Irish law, he said. The offence of failing to disclose one’s income did not fit at all obviously within any of the headings in the framework document and certainly not the “fraud” and “laundering of the proceeds of crime” headings ticked by the UK authorities, he added.
