This notorious Kinahan hitman has been booted out of Ireland – to stand trial for murder in Lithuania.
Sources have confirmed to Dublin Live that Imre Arakas – caged here in 2017 for a foiled murder bid that gardai believe was personally ordered by mob boss Daniel Kinahan – was extradited to the Baltic state early yesterday. Arakas, 63, was serving a six-year jail term for the plot to take out Hutch associate James “Mago” Gately – but he completed that sentence late last year and has been in custody on foot of an extradition request by Lithuania since.
All the paperwork has now been completed and Arakas was whisked from the top security Portlaoise Prison in Co Laois to the airport, where Lithuanian cops escorted him on a flight to the capital of Vilnius. A Garda spokesman confirmed a man had been extradited to Lithuania yesterday morning.
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He said: “Earlier today, 4th January 2022, members of the Garda Extradition Unit, Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, surrendered an Estonian male (60s) to the Lithuanian authorities at Dublin Airport. The male was extradited on foot of a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Lithuanian authorities in relation to an incident in November 2015.”
Although he was not named by gardai, sources have confirmed that the extradited man was Arakas. Authorities in Lithuania will now put him on trial over allegations he supplied guns to an organised gang in the murder of a Lithuanian pop star’s lover.
The extradition followed a High Court decision last November to approve the move. Arakas, whose last address was in Sopruse, Tallinn, Estonia, is wanted to face charges which include a count of murder as well as firearms and conspiracy-related charges in relation to the shooting of Deimantas Bugavicius.
At the High Court in November Mr Justice Paul Burns said there was no ambiguity in the warrant received from Lithuania for Arakas’ surrender. Additional information had been supplied to Irish authorities stating that Arakas was to be tried with murder, possession of weapons and criminal damage when participating in preparatory acts before the murder.
Mr Justice Burns said the detail, time and location of the alleged offences had been supplied and that there was no issue with those offences not corresponding with Irish law. A witness to the murder of the pop star’s lover has said that Arakas was not present at the scene. And Arakas told gardai that he was in Spain on the relevant dates.
However, Lithuanian authorities allege he was part of a three-man gang that conspired to murder Mr Bugavicius, who was alleged to have had an affair with Vita Jakutiene. Ex-wrestler Arakas was jailed by the Special Criminal Court here for six years in December 2018, after he admitted to conspiring with others to murder Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3 and 4, 2017.
Read more: Estonian hitman who came to Dublin on murder mission caged for 6 years
The Special Criminal Court heard that Arakas was a member of the Estonian Defence League in the 1990s and was involved in the separatist movement from the USSR. The married father-of- two had been “scarred and marked deeply” by imprisonment in Russia, the court also heard.
Arakas was arrested near Blanchardstown, West Dublin in April 2017 – shortly after flying into Dublin. He was detained during an operation involving the Garda Emergency Response Unit and the anti-gangland Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.
Sources say gardai had intelligence he was flying into the country and launched an undercover surveillance operation against him when he arrived at Dublin Airport. They followed him as he went to Moore Street where he bought a wig for his murder bid on Gately. He then went to a house near Blanchardstown to prepare to move north for the hit – but armed gardai moved in.
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