John Downey granted leave to appeal extradition decision

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

John Downey was granted leave to appeal the High Court’s decision to extradite him to Northern Ireland on 6 March 2019. He was wanted for the murder of two British Army infantrymen, Lance Corporal Alfred Johnston and Private James Eames.

The soldiers were killed on 25 August 1972 when a device exploded in a vehicle they were checking on the Irvinestown Road, Cherrymount, Enniskillen. The High Court had ordered Mr Downey’s extradition the previous week.

Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly said the proposed question raised a point of law of exceptional public importance that should be determined by a higher court. It concerned whether surrender could be an abuse of process where an assurance had led a person to act to his detriment and facilitated the gathering of evidence, even though it had not been established that the assurance was deliberately given or maintained for that purpose.

Mr Downey’s counsel, Garnet Orange SC, said his client had a legitimate expectation that no proceedings would be issued against him. The High Court heard that Mr Downey’s fingerprints were alleged to have been found on adhesive tape from a battery pack used in the bombing. Mr Orange said the tape was subsequently lost for years and it was unclear whether it still existed; he said the prosecution intended to rely on statements from two witnesses who had since died.

The case was put back to Friday to finalise the proposed question; Mr Downey was not required to attend then. He was remanded on continuing bail and required to appear before the Court of Appeal for the hearing.