European court rejects Mills’s entrapment claim

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The European Court of Human Rights declared Robert Mills’s case inadmissible, rejecting his challenge to the finding that a 2013 Garda drug operation did not amount to entrapment. The court noted that the operation had been authorised at the highest level, officers had been instructed on entrapment, and Mills’s lawyer had questioned police witnesses in detail about the operation.

The court shared concerns about the absence of a formal Irish system for authorising and supervising undercover operations. It warned that without a clear and foreseeable procedure, the boundary between legitimate undercover work and instigating a crime could be more easily crossed. It found no indication that officers pressured Mills: he made three sales, each with similar speed and ease, and the Irish courts had found he would have acted the same way if offered the opportunity by someone else.