Extradition of drug trafficking defendants to the US. No violation of their rights
JUDGMENT
Matthews and Johnson v. Romania 09.04.2024 (app. no. 19124/21 and 20085/21) and Lazăr v. Romania (app. no. 20183/21)
SUMMARY
The applicants, Murray Matthews, Marc Johnson and Marius Lazăr, are, respectively, a New Zealand,
a British and a Romanian national. They were born respectively in 1989, 1966 and 1973. They are
members or associates of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.
All three applicants were arrested on 19 November 2020 in connection with various crimes and their
detention was ordered. The charges were brought following a six-month undercover operation in
2020 in which the applicants had attempted to purchase 400 kg of cocaine from a US Drug
Enforcement Administration agent posing as a drug dealer. The cocaine was to be smuggled into the
US from Peru and then transported via shipping containers from Texas to Romania and New
Zealand. Mr Matthews and Mr Lazăr were also charged with having asked the agent to murder two
members of a rival biker gang and then made preparations in that connection.
In January 2021 the US authorities requested that the applicants be extradited for trial for, among
other charges, racketeering, drugs and money-laundering offences. The applicants argued that they
would be subject to a life sentence without the possibility of parole if found guilty in the US. The US
authorities provided information to the contrary.
Extradition was ordered by the Court of Appeal, with reference to the European Court’s case-law.
The court held that Mr Matthews’s potential life sentence would be de jure and de facto reducible
and that in any case life imprisonment did not appear to be grossly disproportionate. As regards
Mr Johnson, the court stated that a sentence of life imprisonment was fully justified, and that there
was no requirement for Romania to request any guarantees that such a sentence would be
commuted. It held that Mr Lazăr’s potential life sentence would be de jure and de facto reducible, and that, as regards a fair trial in the US, his attendance was sought precisely to uphold his defence rights.
The final decisions were made in March 2021 by the High Court. Detention was ordered until the
applicants’ surrender to the US authorities.
At the applicants’ request, the European Court indicated interim measures on 15 (Mr Matthews) and
19 April (Mr Lazăr), and 5 May 2021 (all three applicants), stating that the applicants should not be
extradited for the duration of the proceedings before the Court. Those measures were lifted on
12 December 2022 following a request by the Romanian Government in the light of the Grand
Chamber’s judgment in Sanchez-Sanchez v. the United Kingdom (no. 22854/20).
The applicants complained about the length of time in detention, but the High Court ruled that the
180-day limit on pre-trial detention was not applicable to detention pending surrender.
Nevertheless, on 8 June, 19 November and 9 December 2021, Mr Lazăr, Mr Matthews and
Mr Johnson were respectively released under judicial supervision.
On 15 December 2022 the national courts ordered the arrest of the applicants with a view to
enforcing the extradition order. The order has not been enforced to date in respect of Mr Matthews
and Mr Johnson and both are currently wanted by the Romanian police and warrants have been
issued for their arrest.
On 16 January 2023 Mr Lazăr was surrendered to US authorities at Bucharest Henri Coandă
International Airport.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT…
Article 3
The Court reiterated that the case of Trabelsi v. Belgium, on which the applicants relied, had been
expressly overruled in the Sanchez-Sanchez judgment.
The Court held that the applicants had failed to provide evidence that there was a real risk of their
being sentenced to life imprisonment without parole if extradited to the US. It referred to the fact
that the applicants’ charges would be mainly concerned with drug trafficking, crimes for which less
than 2% of convictions in the Eastern District of Texas received a life sentence; the applicants’ having
a clean criminal record; and their having the right to appeal if convicted.
The Court therefore rejected the complaints under Article 3 as manifestly ill-founded.
Article 5
The applicants alleged, in particular, that their detention had been unlawful after the expiry of the
relevant detention time-limits.
The Court qualified as detention the periods in which the applicants had been under house arrest
along with those in the remand system.
It held that Mr Matthews’s and Mr Johnson’s detention from their arrest until the decisions ordering
their extradition had been in accordance with the law and justifiable owing to proceedings that had
to be carried out with a view to extradition. Concerning from the 30-day statutory period following
the setting of their surrender date until their placement under judicial supervision, the Court found
their detention lawful even in the absence of fixed time-limits, as the application of the force
majeure legal provision by the domestic courts, in the context of the interim measure indicated by
the Court preventing the applicants’ handover to the US authorities, was not arbitrary and was
accompanied by procedural safeguards. Moreover, the detention had not been unreasonably long,
unjustified or ordered in bad faith.
The period following Mr Lazăr’s rearrest on 28 December 2022 until his surrender followed a period
of judicial supervision, itself following a previous period of 202 days’ detention. Although the law
governing detention pending extradition had changed, providing now for a maximum 180-day
detention until surrender, the Court found that the domestic courts’ interpretation of the relevant
domestic law to the applicant’s case, in the context of the authorities’ international cooperation
obligations, was in accordance with the law and that his detention was justified and not arbitrary.
The Court overall considered that the applicants’ detention with a view to their extradition and
surrender had been in accordance with Article 5 § 1 (f) and there had been no violation.
As regards the complaints under Article 5 § 4, the applicants had been able to “take proceedings” to
have the lawfulness of their detention reviewed by a court. In those proceedings the Romanian
courts had, among other actions, verified compliance with surrender time-limits. The Court noted
that the national courts had been particularly diligent, delivering decisions on lawfulness of
detention within a few days or weeks at two levels of jurisdiction. These complaints were therefore
manifestly ill-founded and the Court rejected them.
Other articles
Mr Johnson and Mr Lazăr also complained, under Articles 3 and 5, of disproportionate sentencing, of
being surrendered to the US authorities despite not being in a good state of health (Mr Lazăr only),
and of shortcomings in the extradition-warrant procedure. The Court found no evidence of any
appearance of a violation and rejected these parts of the applications.
