Leendert Versluis v The Public Prosecutor's Office in Zwolle-Lelystad, the Netherlands
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Julian Knowles |
| Judgment Date | 28 March 2019 |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] EWHC 764 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/1331/2018 |
| Date | 28 March 2019 |
[2019] EWHC 764 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Julian Knowles
Case No: CO/1331/2018
Benjamin Seifert (instructed by Sonn Macmillan Walker) for the Appellant
Florence Iveson (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 21 February 2019
Judgment Approved by the court for handing down
(subject to editorial corrections)
If this Judgment has been emailed to you it is to be treated as ‘read-only’. You should send any suggested amendments as a separate Word document.
The Honourable
Introduction
This is an appeal by Leendert Versluis (the Appellant) under s 26 of the Extradition Act 2003 ( EA 2003) with the permission of Sir Wyn Williams sitting as a High Court judge against the order for his extradition to the Netherlands made by District Judge Rose at Westminster Magistrates Court on 26 March 2018.
The grounds of appeal argued by Mr Seifert on behalf of the Appellant are as follows:
a. The district judge erred in finding that it would neither be oppressive nor unjust to order the Appellant's extradition due to the passage of time since he became unlawfully at large, and thus that extradition was not barred by s 14 of the EA 2003.
b. The district judge erred in finding that it would be in accordance with Mr Versluis's rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the ECHR/Convention) to order his extradition, and thus that extradition was not barred by s 21.
c. The district judge erred in finding that it would neither be oppressive nor unjust to order the Appellant's extradition in spite of his ill-health, and thus that extradition was not barred by s 25.
The hearing before me was an adjourned hearing from November 2018. That hearing did not take place because of the Appellant's admission to hospital and concerns about his health. There is an outstanding application for clemency by the Appellant to the relevant Dutch authorities on the grounds of his ill-health. However, although I have seen material which shows the application is currently under active consideration in the Netherlands, unless and until the European arrest warrant (EAW) for the Appellant is withdrawn, I must proceed on the basis that the Respondent wishes the Appellant to be extradited, as Ms Iveson confirmed that it did.
The Appellant's primary submission is that the judge should have discharged the Appellant on the evidence which was before her. Further or alternatively, it is submitted that if I am not minded to allow the appeal on that basis I should admit fresh evidence which is said to demonstrate a significant deterioration in the Appellant's health and which, when the Celinski balancing exercise is conducted afresh (see Polish Judicial Authorities v Celinski [2016] 1 WLR 551), would result in a finding that extradition would amount to a disproportionate interference with the Appellant's Article 8 rights and, furthermore, extradition would be unjust and oppressive due to his health conditions and/or so barred by s 14 and or s 25.
Proceedings in the Netherlands
The Appellant is currently aged 65, having been born on 31 March 1953.
These proceedings are regulated by Part 1 of the EA 2003. The Netherlands has been designated as a Category 1 territory for the purposes of Part 1 by virtue of [2(2)] of The Extradition Act 2003 (Designation of Part 1 Territories) Order 2003 (SI 3333/2003) as amended by the Extradition Act 2003 (Amendment to Designations) Order 2004/1898.
The EAW in this case was issued on 5 January 2011 and certified by the National Crime Agency on 5 September 2016. It seeks the Appellant's extradition so that he can serve the remainder of a sentence of 26 months in relation to four offences which are described as ‘participation in a criminal organisation’ and ‘swindling’.
The domestic basis for the EAW is the judgment of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal dated 20 February 2009. The sentence imposed was a total of 26 months' imprisonment, of which 521 days are specified on the EAW as remaining to be served. The sentence was imposed in the Appellant's absence.
Box E of the EAW describes the Appellant's offences in the following terms:
a. Between 1 January 2001 and 1 January 2003, he was convicted of participating in an organisation in Utrecht, Woerden and other countries in Europe which had, as its purpose, committing criminal offences. The offences were forgery of documents, swindling, and money laundering. Mr Versluis was the founder and director of this organisation.
b. Between 5 April 2001 and 18 December 2001 in Utrecht, Woerden, Rotterdam and elsewhere, he induced Field Sea BV to surrender €304 940.30 by a false representation.
c. Between 1 December 2001 and 19 February 2002 in Utrecht, Woerden, Rotterdam, Brielle and elsewhere in the Netherlands he, along with others, fraudulently induced Andromeda Financial Management to pay €80 000.
d. Between 1 September 2001 and 28 January 2002, in Utrecht, Weorden Wene and Italle, he induced S. Curci to surrender €300 000 by misrepresentation.
Box F sets out that an EAW was issued by the Dutch Public Prosecutor on 19 May 2004 against the Appellant who, at that time, was held in custody in Belgium. He had been surrendered from Germany to Belgium on an earlier Belgian EAW for the same offences. He was then extradited from Belgium to the Netherlands on 25 June 2004.
The Belgian authorities requested that the Netherlands take over the criminal prosecution for the Belgian offences. This occurred on surrender. The Appellant was present with his lawyer on 1 October 2004, 15 December 2004 and 1 February 2005. On 1 February 2005, the District Court of Utrecht granted him temporary release which was effective from the following day. However, he and his lawyer were present at the trial on 7 June 2005.
On 7 June 2005 at the trial the District Court in Utrecht added the Belgian charges and the judge decided to stay the proceedings for an indefinite period of time. The summons for the 28 September 2006 was not served on the Appellant. That summons was later declared invalid.
On 20 September 2006 a summons was sent for the trial on 3 October 2006 to Mr Kremer (whose role is not specified, but was presumably the Appellant's lawyer). He said that he would forward it to the Appellant immediately. On 3 October 2006 the Appellant was not present but a lawyer said to have been ‘explicitly authorised’ was present on his behalf. The EAW states that pursuant to Article 279 of the Netherlands Code of Criminal Proceedings a case in which the defendant is absent but a lawyer has been authorised to act for him is a ‘defended action’.
The Court's examination of the action concluded on 3 October 2006 and then the judgment was to be pronounced on 17 October 2006. On that day the two Belgian charges on the indictment were ‘barred’, apparently due to the protection of specialty which the Appellant enjoyed.
On 27 October 2006 a nominated lawyer filed an appeal on behalf of the Appellant. The notice of the appeal for the trial on 22 February 2008 was not served on him in person. On 12 February 2008 the letter was sent to an address in the UK which the Appellant had given. He was not present at the trial on 22 February 2008 but was represented by his nominated advocate, who stated that the Appellant had been informed of the hearing.
The appeal hearing was adjourned until 30 May 2008. On that occasion also the Appellant was absent. His nominated advocate stated that he had waived his right to attend the trial. On his behalf, on that date, the EAW states that his counsel declared: ‘The defendant is aware of this trial and he waived his right to be present at the trial.’ At a further Court of Appeal hearing on 10 October 2008 the Court was informed by his lawyer that the Appellant was aware of the hearing and had waived his right to be present but had recently been admitted to hospital. The lawyer said that the assumption was that the Appellant or his authorised counsel would be present at the next hearing. On that day the Court stayed the hearing until 6 February 2009. The summons was sent to an address in England on 10 November 2008 that had been given.
On 6 February 2009 the Appellant's nominated counsel said that the Appellant would have liked ‘very much’ to have appeared at the trial. He knew about the trial date but not through the summons. The lawyer said he was in contact with this client, who had been mistaken about the date of the trial. In addition, his health had also impeded his ability to appear.
On that day the case was adjourned to 20 February 2009, when Mr Versluis was sentenced to the term of 26 months. According to the EAW the following matters were taken into account:
“… with regard to the duration of the sentence the court has taken into consideration in favour of the Defendant the fact that he is faced with serious health problems and psychological problems, which were caused by the murder of his son, among other[s] things. In addition the Court sees cause to partially compensate the Defendant for the time he was detained in custody in Germany, in the sentence to be imposed, since this period of time cannot formally be deducted in the sense of Article 27 of the Netherlands Penal Code, but the court considers it likely that the basis for the detention lay in more or less the same offences. Given that the length of the detention abroad is not completely known, the Court will decrease the duration of imprisonment to be imposed by four months.”
On 24 February 2009 the Appellant's nominated counsel brought an appeal in the Supreme...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Jeno Zoltan Varga v Regional Court of Budapest, Hungary
...in the balance against extradition. Fugitivity 25 In relation to fugitive status, I have been referred to Versluis v The Netherlands [2019] EWHC 764 (Admin) per Knowles J at §54 to 59 (citing well known leading authorities); De Zorzi v Attorney General Appeal Court of Paris [2019] EWHC 20......
-
Veronica De Zorzi v Attorney General Appeal Court of Paris (France)
...of article 8. 39 Relying on Pillar-Neumann v Public Prosecutor's Office Klagenfurt [2017] EWHC 3371 and Versluis v The Netherlands [2019] EWHC 764 (Admin), he submits that the Appellant had not evaded arrest, concealed her whereabouts, evaded justice or put herself beyond the reach of the ......
-
Tibor Jozsa v Tribunal of Szekesfehervar, Hungary
...Republic of Latvia [2016] EWHC 2211 (Admin), [26] and Versluis v The Public Prosecutor's Office in Zwolle-Lelystad, The Netherlands [2019] EWHC 764 (Admin), [79]; and De Zorzi v Attorney General Appeal Court of Paris [2019] 1 WLR 6249, 20 Mr Ball for the Respondent very fairly acknowledg......
-
Joanna Klazinska v Circuit Court in Lodz, Poland
...appeal. We must make our own assessment.” See also Versluis v The Public Prosecutor's Office in Zwolle-Lelystad, The Netherlands, [2019] EWHC 764 (Admin), [79]. Submissions 28 On behalf of the Appellant, Ms Brown accepted that the judge had been entitled to conclude that the Appellant was ......
-
Prisoner Transfer Within the Irish-UK Common Travel Area (CTA) After Brexit: Human Rights Between Politics and Penal Reform
...treat-ment); special regimes and violence, ill-treatment and suicide. 151. Versluis v Public Prosecutor’s Office, Zwolle-Lelystad, [2019] EWHC 764 (Admin) [79] and [65].152. ‘Prisoners and staff, are less safe than they have been at any other point since records began, with more self-harm a......