The High Court has ordered the surrender of Ciaran Maguire and Sean Paul Farrell to Northern Ireland to face prosecution for alleged attempted murder and possession of explosives with intent, arising from events on 18 June 2015. The decision was delivered by Mr Justice Binchy on 14 February 2020 in two European Arrest Warrant proceedings.
The allegations in the warrants concern an improvised explosive device found beneath a car belonging to a serving police officer in Northern Ireland. The warrants say that two vehicles were later seen travelling in convoy at high speed towards the border. Gardaí stopped a Volkswagen Passat in County Donegal with three male occupants, including Maguire and Farrell, and arrested them on suspicion of membership of an illegal organisation. Both were interviewed after caution and released without charge. The judgment records forensic evidence linking each man to vehicles, clothing or items associated with the investigation; the allegations remain to be tried.
The men argued that surrender was prohibited by section 37 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 because their constitutional rights would be breached. They objected to the use of their Garda interview silence in Northern Ireland and to the possibility that a trial court there could draw an inference if they did not give evidence at trial. They also argued that they had not received information required by an EU directive and sought a delay pending a reference to the EU Court of Justice.
In response to a request from the High Court, the issuing judicial authority said a Northern Ireland trial court could not draw an adverse inference under Article 3 of the Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1988 from the men’s Garda interview silence, because they had not received the caution required by that provision. It said Article 4 could permit an inference if either man chose not to give evidence at trial, a separate matter from their Garda interviews.
Justice Binchy rejected the objections. He held that the directive provisions relied on did not apply to people arrested on a European Arrest Warrant beyond the rights specific to those proceedings, and declined to wait for or make a further EU court reference. He found no evidence that the Northern Ireland courts would draw Article 3 inferences from the Garda interviews, and concluded that the safeguards governing Article 4 did not establish an egregious violation of constitutional rights. The court also rejected the claim that Gardaí had been obliged to give a separate warning about Northern Ireland trial rules.
The court found the warrants compliant with the 2003 Act and ordered surrender under section 16. It did not determine the men’s guilt or make findings on the underlying allegations.