Karel Šroubek does not want to be deported back to the Czech Republic. (File photo) Photo: Carmen Bird Photography
- Šroubek, also known as Jan Antolik, is still in New Zealand seven years after then Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway ordered his deportation
- He used a false passport, smuggled in drugs and has been in New Zealand for 22 years
- He has lost an appeal to judicially review the decision, after a tribunal ruled against him
Analysis: "This will go to court. It will be tied up for years. I don't think we've heard the last of Karel Šroubek by any measure."
That's how National MP Michael Woodhouse summed up the 2018 debacle in which the drug-smuggling kickboxer was on the cusp of being deported, then granted residence and then facing deportation again - all in the space of 10 weeks.
The Court of Appeal has now rejected Karel Šroubek's latest attempt to avoid being sent back to the Czech Republic.
But in keeping with the pitch and sway of his storied existence, there may still be avenues which he could go down to stay in New Zealand.
His case hit the headlines in 2018 when former immigration minister, Iain Lees-Galloway, was asked whether to deport him - and instead granted him residence.
That was despite his jail time (five years, nine months in 2016 for importing nearly 5kg of MDMA) and being wanted by Czech police.
An image released of Karel Šroubek by Interpol. (File photo) Photo: Supplied / Interpol
The long-running saga began more than 20 years ago, when Šroubek used the passport of fellow kickboxer Jan Antolik to visit New Zealand in 2003.
That was because under his real name, he was wanted for assault in a fatal shooting in Prague. Also unbeknown to authorities he had not yet served a (four-and-a-half-year) jail sentence for assaulting two police officers and a taxi driver in 1999.
Four years after arriving in New Zealand, he was given police diversion for possession of a knife and, in 2008 and 2009, he faced charges of assault, but was subsequently acquitted.
Meanwhile, Šroubek had been granted residence in 2008, under his false Antolik name.
That fraud was eventually discovered, and in 2011, he was found guilty at trial of possessing a false passport and giving false information.
Why is he still here?
He told the court he had no convictions in the Czech Republic and that he was genuinely fearful of returning there.
The judge granted him a discharge without conviction - meaning he could avoid authorities attempts to deport him - unaware that between 2007 and 2009, Šroubek had returned to his homeland on three separate occasions.
In September 2014, Šroubek was charged with the drugs offences that landed him in jail and made him liable for deportation. In 2018 he appealed to then immigration minister, Iain Lees-Galloway.
Former Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
The minister took less than an hour to not only reverse the deportation order, but to also grant him residence in his real name. It emerged the minister knew of his Czech convictions when he made his decision.
He "urgently reviewed" the residence approval when a political firestorm erupted, and Šroubek once again faced deportation - this time because the government judged him as an "excluded person", whose visa was granted in error.
Further adding to the murky decision-making were claims Šroubek's then wife had engineered the revelations through National Party MPs during the couple's marital breakdown.
Enter the lawyers
Meanwhile, Czech authorities tried to extradite him. Šroubek's previous immigration lawyer Simon Laurent told RNZ the deportation could be challenged in court as abuse of process or double jeopardy as the minister knew of the pertinent information when he made his first decision.
The case had been inching its way through multiple tribunal and court appeals in the intervening years, partly because of Covid-related delays.
In January 2023 Šroubek filed an application for judicial review in the High Court at Auckland of the deportation decision and the tribunal rulings.
But he was barred from appealing part of the decision because of statutory time limits, and took that fight to the Court of Appeal.
That legal argument played out in March this year, and the decision to dismiss his appeal came out on Monday.
In 2018, former immigration minister Michael Woodhouse said the minister had left the government vulnerable to a legal challenge that "Mr Šroubek's lawyers will drive a bus through". His suggestion the case would be tied up in court for years are as prescient now as they were accurate then.
The judicial review may leave Šroubek with only the chance of a legal challenge to argue that he has 'exceptional' humanitarian grounds to remain here.
With so many twists and turns so far, it does not seem likely Šroubek's fated story in New Zealand will come to a quick end. It may not even be the beginning of the end.
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