Lithuania to choose Campbell’s extradition path
At Belfast Recorder’s Court today, Real IRA member and suspected Omagh bomber Liam Campbell was remanded in custody whilst Judge Tom Burgess asks the Lithuanian authorities in which jurisdiction they would prefer to pursue his extradition on a European arrest warrant. Here, in the UK, or in Ireland where Campbell has been remanded on bail with two others since his arrest in January – in connection with an MI5 sting operation which saw Campbell’s brother arrested in Lithuania in January 2008. Liam Campbell was initially arrested last Friday, after crossing the border into Bessbrook, County Armagh, in breach of his bail conditions, when police apparently rammed his car.
Just for the heck of it You missed and O in the title
Choose is the future tense chose is the past tense
Quite right.
Corrected now.
And back to the topic..
Well, I, for one, will sleep a lot easier tonight.
Btw, Paul.
That should be “you missed an O in the title” ;op
And now back to the topic..
‘Suspected’? By whom exactly?
Well the families of some of the victims for starters, Mark. He’s named in their civil suit.
Bessbrook’s not what is was
My few brushes with the civil courts in Canada have taught me that every one and any one is named in a suit. Theory goes if you name every one some one will break. So to use it as proof of guilt is silly in the extreme
“So to use it as proof of guilt is silly in the extreme.”
Where’s the “use [of it] as proof of guilt”?
You tried to infer that he was the bomber simply because he is named in a civil suit. That’s the use[of it] as proof of guilt.
No Paul.
You inferred that.
Mind-reading by any other name..
Pete
What bail conditions did he break?
dunreavynomore
Presumably he was barred from leaving the country.
Really strange case when you think about it.
Campbell decided to drive across the border when he knows the Authorities want to question him on mant different lines of enquiry spanning a time period of a decade or more.
Not the brightest of ideas for someone who lately has avoided the North like the plague by all accounts.
For E4A to be lying in wait for him to ram his vehicle knowing he was heading to Bessbrook meant that either
(a) his home is bugged
(b) his car is bugged (unlikely time notification too short)
(c) an informant (really unlikely notification just far too short)
(d) Conor Murphy saw Campbell (again too short although Murphy was missing from Stormont that day?)
(e) SAS have staked out his house/car/favs (yep gets my bet)
So the strange thing is the Government decided to snatch him up North but wouldn’t apply for an extradition warrant from the South? why not have they no evidence?
The Government knows that extradition proceedings are at an advanced stage in the Republic for Campbells extradition to another state, a fellow EU state.
So we now have more questions to answer.
(a) why would the Government sieze Campbell when they know it would only cause a dipolmatic incident by usurping due process in a neighbouring state?
(b) was it because the Irish Government had no desire to extradite Campbell and the Government were made aware of this?
(c) was it because the Lithuanians had made a horlicks of their extradition warrants in the Irish courts?
(d) what are Campbells legal rights on the issue, as far as I can remeber EU law insists that Campbell must be returned to the Republic where he was first charged with the extradition warrant and the same process in a British court is therefore negated until the decision of an Irish court is finalised.
(e) reading about the Lituanian case where Campbells brother was arrested in a tobbacco and firearms sting nearly a year and a half ago, legally sting opperations can only involve the people caught in the sting not persons or persons unknown in different countries hundreds of miles away, did the Irish Government know this and were going to refuse the warrant for extradition and made this know to the Government and that is why they acted in such dramatic fashion.
(f) and just for the cynics.. a year and a half with no trial due for another year and a half, and with Campell the elder coming that’ll put the trial back another 2 years on top of that, that’ll be 5 years on remand Campell the younger will have served equivilant to a 10 year sentence here.
Lituania was one of the main CIA rendition stop overs is the Government using it now as Northern Irelands Guantanamo?
“Lituania was one of the main CIA rendition stop overs is the Government using it now as Northern Irelands Guantanamo?”
Lithuania should put that on their tourist leaflets.
“Here, in the UK, or in Ireland ”
Given that here is the UK, I suspect the options are Northern Ireland, England and Wales or Ireland.
BonarLaw
Possibly an unnecessary comma in the original.
It was an attempt at emphasis.
“Given that here is the UK, I suspect the options are Northern Ireland, England and Wales or Ireland.”
Why not Scotland?
“Presumably he was barred from leaving the country”
Pete, He didn’t leave the country!
If you mean he was banned from crossing the border, I doubt it and anyone who knows the road he lives on will know that the border runs along the middle of the road for some distance meaning that while travelling southwards he would be technically in the republic and while travelling north he would be technically in the north.
Oracle asks very pertinent questions.