Background
Alex Jeremjan appealed against a district judge’s order extraditing him to Czechia. The District Court in Jihlava had convicted him in his absence of fraud in November 2021 and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment. The offence arose from his failure to repay CZK 240,000, approximately £7,930, borrowed in July 2020 as a guarantee for a loan.
An earlier Czech extradition request in Austria was discharged after the Czech authorities failed to answer questions concerning transfer of the sentence, service of the judgment and Jeremjan’s retrial rights. A subsequent warrant was issued and Jeremjan was arrested in the United Kingdom in March 2024. He spent more than a year in custody before being released on bail in May 2025. He argued that extradition was unjust or oppressive because of delay, disproportionately interfered with his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and amounted to an abuse of process.
The Court’s Holding
Mr Justice Sheldon dismissed the appeal. The Czech authorities’ failure to respond to the Austrian court appeared more likely to have been an administrative error than deliberate misconduct. Their later request to the United Kingdom was neither a collateral attack on a decision of a UK court nor an attempt to circumvent UK proceedings, and the mere pursuit of surrender in multiple jurisdictions did not establish abuse of process.
Although the district judge had made some errors about dates and had understated the attributable delay, the High Court held that extradition was neither unjust nor oppressive under section 14 of the Extradition Act 2003. Even taking the culpable delay at its highest—approximately one year and five months—Jeremjan knew that his conviction and sentence remained in force and could not reasonably have acquired a settled sense of security against extradition.
Extradition was also proportionate under Article 8. Jeremjan still had about ten months of a substantial sentence to serve, and the strong public interest in enforcing foreign sentences outweighed his time in custody, bail curfew, claimed harsh prison conditions and limited private or family ties. His recently formed UK relationship began while the extradition proceedings were known to be pending.
Key Takeaways
- A foreign authority’s failure to answer another country’s extradition inquiries does not, without cogent evidence of misconduct affecting the integrity of UK proceedings, make a later UK request an abuse of process.
- Delay alone rarely bars extradition; the court considers its length and culpability, any legitimate sense of security it created, and whether the resulting consequences amount to oppression rather than ordinary hardship.
- Time already spent in custody or under curfew is relevant to Article 8 proportionality but did not outweigh the public interest in returning Jeremjan to serve the substantial remainder of his Czech sentence.
Why It Matters
The judgment clarifies that abuse-of-process scrutiny in extradition cases primarily protects the integrity of proceedings in the United Kingdom, although sufficiently extreme conduct abroad could potentially engage that jurisdiction. An unsuccessful or discharged request in another country does not itself prevent a requesting authority from pursuing extradition in the UK.
It also illustrates the demanding thresholds for passage-of-time and Article 8 challenges. Even where the requesting authority bears some responsibility for delay and the requested person has spent significant time in UK custody, extradition may remain proportionate when a substantial foreign sentence is outstanding and the person has not developed strong family or private-life ties.