Garda informer can use sensitive documents in extradition challenge

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

A Garda informer won a High Court ruling allowing his lawyers to use sensitive documents in his challenge to extradition from the UK to France. The proceedings were reported on 27 April 2018.

The man says he was acting as a Covert Human Intelligence Source for gardaí when he was arrested in France on drug trafficking offences 17 years before the report. He subsequently received a four-year prison sentence in France, which was never served.

The report said he was detained in England under a European Arrest Warrant issued by France after the prison term went unserved. He opposes the surrender request, which was due to be heard by an English court later in 2018.

The documents had been obtained in 2016 following a ruling by Ms Justice Marie Baker in his pending action against the Irish State. He sought a modification of an undertaking so his lawyers could send documents they considered necessary to the English court.

The State opposed the application, arguing that there would be a lack of control over the documents and that the application was premature. Ms Justice Marie Baker found that special circumstances and the interests of justice justified modifying the undertaking. She was satisfied that the English court would sufficiently protect the documents’ confidential and sensitive nature.

His separate damages claim against the Garda Commissioner, Ireland and the Attorney General had yet to be heard. He claims gardaí agreed to protect him from prosecution but failed to intervene after his arrest in France. The State accepts paying him for information but rejects his claim that it agreed to protect him from prosecution if arrested in another jurisdiction.