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	England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Gramauskas v District Court of Alytus Region, Lithuania [2015] EWHC 1115 (Admin) (20 March 2015) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/1115.html Cite as: [2015] EWHC 1115 (Admin)

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL
		20 March 2015

1. MR JUSTICE MITTING: The extradition of the appellant is sought on an accusation European Arrest Warrant issued by the Prosecutor General of Lithuania on 21 May 2012 to stand trial for 32 offences of (in shorthand) the electronic theft or attempted theft of money from bank accounts, allegedly committed between September and November 2011, and one of affray, allegedly committed on 1 March 2012. The appellant was arrested on 21 November 2014. After an uncontested hearing, his extradition was ordered on 19 February 2015.
2. His grounds of appeal, which were contained in a notice served in time, are that his extradition would infringe his rights under Article 3 ECHR because he risks injury or death at the hands of a group of persons to whom he owes money in Lithuania, and that his rights under Article 2 would be infringed because of his suicide risk. Neither of those grounds are now advanced.
3. A single ground is advanced which is available to the appellant because it does not depend upon evidence but simply upon the construction of the warrant, and that is that the particulars of one of the 33 offences charged does not fully set out the time and place at which the alleged offence was committed as required by section 2(4)(c) of the 2003 Extradition Act.
4. All of the offences apart from the offence of affray are, as I have indicated, actual or completed attempts to steal (in colloquial parlance) money from the bank accounts of named individuals. Charge 11 states on its face that "exact time and place were not determined in the course of pre-trial investigation." What is alleged is that he unlawfully acquired the data of identification tools regarding the user of an electronic payment device belonging to another person sufficient to initiate a financial transaction in relation to a bank account. The bank and the number of the account are given in the charge. The offence would be categorised perhaps in English law as being equipped with the tools for fraud. It is obvious from the remainder of the 32 charges of attempted and actual theft that this offence was committed in Lithuania and that the appellant was in the town of Alytus when the offences occurred.
5. The warrant is not required to state the exact time at which an offence of this nature occurred. In the nature of things, it is impossible to state. When a theft occurs it may be possible to establish with a degree of precision; when, save in approximate terms, the tools of fraud are obtained may not be possible to state with precision. All that the warrant is required to state by section 2(4)(c) is what can be stated by the prosecuting authority sufficient to establish the charge under the law of Lithuania and demonstrate that there is an equivalent offence in the law of England and Wales. Plainly there is. As far as the place goes, it is established, as Mr Gibbins for the requesting authority asserts, as Alytus.
6. This extremely limited challenge to one charge in the warrant is without foundation. This appeal is dismissed.