Ervin Juresa and Extradition: Beyond the Facts

Swordplay’s sometime scribe Alex Wade has an interesting piece in The Times today on the hidden stories behind extradition hearings in the UK. It’s a subject that Swordplay is particularly interested in, so we asked Wade if he would dip into his notebook and reveal more about the individual at the centre of his Times piece – Ervin Juresa. Here’s what he came up with.

Extradition isn’t something we think about all that much. It’s what happens to other people, isn’t it? And given that they’ve probably done something wrong in the first place – for, as we know, there is no smoke without fire – why should we preoccupy ourselves with them?

So much for lazy logic. The truth, as ever, runs deeper. And in the case of Ervin Juresa, a Slovenian national who recently lost his battle against extradition to Slovenia, that there is more than meets the eye is a serious understatement.

Juresa arrived in the UK in May 2004. He had been working as the manager of the island of Bled, a municipality in northwestern Slovenia which regularly features in lists of the world’s most beautiful places. No surprise, since Bled is beautiful, a picture postcard compendium of castle, church, rock and verdant trees on a glacial lake within the Julian Alps. It has long been a health resort and is today visited by aristocrats and politicians from all over the world, as well as Slovenians, many of whom choose Bled for their weddings. The island has 99 steps, and local tradition at weddings is for the husband to carry his new bride up these steps, during which the bride must remain silent. Tough work for both partners, one suspects.

But beneath Bled’s aura of tranquillity there is turbulence, and Juresa finds himself at its centre. At first blush, this is hard to fathom. Juresa is well-dressed and well-spoken, a capable, articulate man with a wealth of experience. He has been a sniper in the Slovenian army, a nurse and a restaurant owner. He is easy-going and, thanks to his last five years in Britain, an expert in social media, search engine optimisation and other subtle arts from the Web 2.0 world. Now 40, life should be rich and full of optimism for a talented man such as this. Instead, though, he finds himself divorced and on the wrong end of a Slovenian lawsuit.

Juresa took on the running of the island of Bled in January 1997. He was glad to accept the role, having become intimately acquainted with Bled’s infrastructure thanks to the restaurant he opened on the island. Juresa claims that he made an immediate difference to Bled’s revenue streams and worked to prepare the popular tourist destination for the 21st century. He says his company spent money renovating buildings and investing in much needed materials, even down to cutlery and crockery. He created employment and catered for some 200,000 annual visitors, whose numbers would include the likes of HRH the Prince of Wales, Laura Bush and the Spanish monarch, King Juan Carlos. And yet there were warning bells. In the same year that Juresa started managing Bled, its parish church became embroiled in a wrangle for control of the island with the Slovenian government. Juresa claims that he found himself allied with a group of churchmen who forcibly took possession of Bled in 1997. As he now admits, “The move was illegal – the case should have been resolved through the courts.”

But hindsight – and Slovenian property law – aside, life on Bled went well for Juresa for some years. He ran the island at a profit and enjoyed a good relationship with Dr Ambrozic, the parish priest. In a close-knit, Catholic community such as Bled’s, harmonious co-existence is all but Juresa’s wife elected to leave him in 2003 and at the same time his relationship with Dr Ambrozic soured. Suddenly, by his account, Juresa’s position of security on the island was shattered. His contract was replaced with much more onerous terms and he says that because he was fearful that he would be unable to honour existing contractual obligations, he alerted the bank to what he perceived as an impending financial storm. It duly called in a guarantee of 47,000 EUROS and Juresa’s company collapsed. The man who had formerly been responsible for ensuring that Bled was suitable for America’s First Lady found himself cast out, persona non grata on the island he had been proud to call home.

For a year, Juresa remained in Slovenia. He had lost his own money, invested in his company which ran Bled, as had his family, but his mother managed to subsidise a plane ticket to Britain, where, in 2004, Juresa resolved to make a new life. Here, he says, “I obtained the necesary work permits, paid taxes and lived a law abiding life. I’ve done minimum wage jobs in catering but have also developed expertise in many Web 2.0 applications. I want to stay here and continue to work with UK businesses which could benefit from my skills.”

Of course, it’s not as simple as that. Dr Ambrozic and the parish church of Bled launched legal proceedings against Juresa to recover the 47,000 EURO guarantee. Remarkably, this appears to be treated by Slovenian law as a criminal rather than civil matter. Juresa found himself on an Interpol list of Europe’s most wanted men for what, in Britain, would most likely be a civil law debt claim. The wheels of the law have turned not in his favour but in that of the church. Following a decision of Horseferry Magistrates Court last week, Ervin was extradicted a few weeks ago.

After his last court hearing, Juresa told me of that he was “extremely concerned” about being returned to Slovenia,”. He alleged that there is a complex skein of wrongdoing that would not be out of place in a Dan Brown novel. “There is a lot that I have to say about the workings of the Catholic church on Bled. It is not as it should be. This information will come out in my trial. This, as well as the ongoing dispute between the Slovenian government and the parish church of Bled, makes it impossible for me to have a fair trial.” He fears worse than this, though: “With what I have to say and know, my life will be in danger.”

What to make of all this? There is much, much more rumbling under the surface, that much is obvious, but can Juresa’s life really be in danger for a 47,000 EURO debt? Is life on the idyllic island of Bled really so rife with intrigue, a sort of Slovenian Blue Velvet, albeit sans the sexual shenanigans?

It is impossible to say. But spare a thought for Juresa and the many others who, like him, find their quest for a new life in Britain dashed. And consider this: asked whether, if he won the lottery, he would pay off the debt and so annul the church’s legal proceedings, Juresa is emphatic. “No chance,” he told me. “It is a point of honour for me. I did what I thought was right.”

Image of Bled courtesy of Flickr user Jules T.

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