“He is not going to surrender himself up here (Northern Ireland) at the moment”
The Irish News has an exclusive interview with Liam Adams’ solicitor behind its paywall, but the details are repeated in other reports. And as the police prepare a European Arrest Warrant it’s worth noting that Liam Adams “gave no permanent address” to Garda in Sligo. From the Irish Times report
Mr Adams walked into a police station in Sligo in the on Monday afternoon where he was interviewed. He was later released because the proper arrest warrant had not been prepared and served. It was the first time in more than a year that his whereabouts were known to the authorities on both sides of the border after he failed to turn up for a court appearance in November last year. Mr Breen said he “can’t see how Liam will ever get a fair trial in this jurisdiction (Northern Ireland) because of what has been said in the media”.
He said his client had only been contacted once, in February 2007, by police investigating the allegations.
He told the Belfast-based Irish News : “These allegations came to light in 1987, according to what we had been told by police during his arrest.
We were told by police that the alleged injured party didn’t wish to proceed but she wished to have Mr Adams spoken to by police.
“At absolutely no time up until 2007 (when Ms Tyrell decided to proceed with the complaint) did police speak to Mr Adams. In 2007 police called to a residence and left a police card for Mr Adams to contact them.
“He immediately contacted them and went voluntarily to the police station in my company. Throughout a series of interviews he strenuously denied the allegations.”
Mr Adams, he said, was interviewed three times on February 15th, 2007 at Grosvenor Road police station in west Belfast before being released by police pending a report to the PPS.
Prosecution papers were issued in March the following year but were never served as Mr Adams could not be located.
Mr Breen said he had no information about his client’s whereabouts during that time. He had not seen him since February 2007, but received a call on Monday night from “a family member” asking for representation for Mr Adams who had, by that stage, already handed himself in to police in Sligo.
The solicitor was also contacted last week by another of Liam Adams’s daughters who asked him to lodge a complaint with the Police Ombudsman after she claimed officers “forced their way into her house under a warrant” to look for her father two days after Áine waived to right to anonymity to level the accusations.
And here’s a snippet from another Irish Times report
Eileen Calder, head of the Northern Ireland Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre, said yesterday that Áine Kerr (her married name) and her mother told her they were effectively “ostracised” from members of the Adams family over attempts to make Liam Adams accountable for his alleged crimes. She said she did not find Gerry Adams’s comments on the matter credible.
There are other questions about his version of events.
Joe
No where as near tacky as pedophilia LOL
“Aine withdrew her statements why ? Not because she was intimated by Gerry Adams or the republican movement, but because the RUC tried to turn her into a tout.”
tacapall
Pure fiction.
Watch the UTV Insight programme again.
As for Aine’s mother’s concerns about the questions being asked of her.
Where there are allegations of a child being abused, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask who else is going into the house.
“We’re looking now at a trial in the south…” – Malachi
Not the case for EU member states. Section 38 of the Extradition Act 1965 applied to EU member states prior to the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 but it now only applies to non-EU states:
[i]Where any citizen of Ireland does any act outside the State which constitutes an offence for which he would be liable to extradition but for the fact that he is a citizen of Ireland he shall be guilty of the like offence and be liable on conviction to the like punishment as if the act were done within the State.[/i]
That allowed the Irish courts extra-territorial jurisdiction for offences committed by Irish nationals in another jurisdiction, allowing them to be prosecuted within the this state for an offence committed outside of it.
Under Chapter 1 (10) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, the Irish state has an obligation to surrender any Irish national to another EU member state:
[i]10.— Where a judicial authority in an issuing state duly issues a European arrest warrant in respect of a person—
(a) against whom that state intends to bring proceedings for the offence to which the European arrest warrant relates, or
(b) on whom a sentence of imprisonment or detention has been imposed and who fled from the issuing state before he or she—
(i) commenced serving that sentence, or
(ii) completed serving that sentence,
that person shall, subject to and in accordance with the provisions of this Act and the Framework Decision be arrested and surrendered to the issuing state.[/i]
That means that if the UK seeks the extradition of Liam Adams to Northern Ireland then the Irish state must surrender him to the authorities within that jurisdiction. It is no longer within the sovereign power to refuse to extradite him or to prosecute him within this state instead. Assuming, of course, that Liam Adams is an Irish national and was an Irish national at the time when the offence was allegedly committed.
So the extradition of Liam Adams is at the sole discretion of the UK. Why would they stop the extradition proceedings that they have commenced? Indeed, have they actually commenced them? The Irish police seem to be missing one European arrest warrant.
I’d be extremely surprised if the UK allowed Liam Adams to be prosecuted in this state or if the Irish state suggested it. As the British police attempted to use the alleged rape of a child as an opportunity to recruit that child’s mother as a police informer, it is very likely that they also used that alleged rape as an opportunity to recruit the father of the alleged victim as a police informer too. That is consist with their established practice. If the police were more successful in recruiting the father than they were in recruiting the mother, then it is highly unlikely that the British state would risk one of their senior touts being exposed as state-protected paedophile in a foreign court that would have no incentive to protect the security interests of the British state and wherein the British state would have no authority to block witnesses or cancel the trial if rquired to advoid embarassing revelations.
“If SF are a normal political party then surely its only a matter of time before MMcG has a word in Gerry’s ear.” – alan56
Is it “normal” for members of political parties to be able to cause other party members to spend considerable amounts of time in prison? They both know too much about the other for either one to get ‘assertive’ with the other.
Alias
Notwithstanding the EU position..
As with other recent cases
It would appear that Liam Adams will have the option of being tried in Ireland [Republic of] rather than Northern Ireland.
Apparently, it’s due to the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Act 1976.
Maybe pushing the fact that so few clergy men have been sent to prison for their fowl acts in the 26.
True, Pete, but the accused only has the option of deciding which jurisdiction he is to be prosecuted in if the relevant prosecuting authority within the jurisdiction where he is alleged to have committed the offence grants him that option.
Under Chapter 10 the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, if the UK requests the extradition of Liam Adams then the Irish state has an “obligation to surrender” him to that jurisdiction and no sovereign authority to refuse that request.
Because it is not Liam Adams’ decision to make, he would need to cite reasons why the Irish state should not extradite him in accordance with its binding duty to do so under the 2003 Act with the Irish courts then deciding if they should grant the extradition request or not, such as Roisin McAliskey cited in a UK court.
This is the part of the EC’s The Framework Decision that the Belfast court quoted in its decision on in the case of The Federal Public Prosecutor Germany vs. Roisin McAliskey:
[i]10. On 13 June 2002 the Council of the European Union entered into a Framework Decision addressing the question of extradition and the proposed amendments to the process for the extradition of any person from a signatory to the Treaty. The proposed change arose from a declared “high level of confidence between Member States” as to their criminal law processes, and arising from that confidence a wish to tackle what was in their eyes the unacceptable time taken in the extradition process.
11. In Recital (5) to the Framework Decision the objective of the decision and the subsequent legislation within Member States was set out in the following terms.
“(5) The objective set for the Union to become an area of freedom, security and justice leads to abolishing extradition between Member States and replacing it by a system of surrender between judicial authorities….. Traditional co-operation relations which have prevailed up until now between Member States should be replaced by a system of free movement of judicial decisions in criminal matters, covering both pre-sentence and final decisions, within an area of freedom, security and justice.”
12. In Recital (8) the Decision states:-
“(8) Decisions on the execution of the European Arrest Warrant must be subject to sufficient controls, which means that a judicial authority of the Member State where the requested person has been arrested will have to take the decision on his or her surrender.”[/i]
In short: Liam Adams must be surrendered to the UK under the 2003 act unless he can produce a convincing reason why he should not be surrendered. Since the Irish courts would be setting a legal precedent, they will not allow a spurious pretext or a political expedient to interfere with their duty under the Act to process the extradition and facilitate “a system of free movement of judicial decisions in criminal matters, covering both pre-sentence and final decisions, within an area of freedom, security and justice.”
Alias,
“unless he can produce a convincing reason why he should not be surrendered”.
The southern court will no doubt be invited to evaluate the impact of the assumption of guilt and the more lurid speculations floating around on the numerous Slugger blogs in the media in deciding just how convincing is his suggestion that he wont receive a fair trial if he is extradited.
Yes, and Liam Adams’ solicitor made some statements to that effect (hinting at fair trial and ill health grounds) but, again, extradition between the UK and Ireland is no longer a political decision so it will be the courts (Recital
that have to be convinced of the validity of any objection to surrender, keeping in mind that they have an obligation to process the surrender with the onus being on the accused to prove to the court that he should not be surrendered expeditiously once the paperwork is in order.
The judiciary is very limited in what objections to the surrender that it can accept (see Article 3 and Article 4 of the Council Framework Decision), i.e. essentially Article 47 and Article 48 of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights (corresponding to Article 6(1) of the ECHR).
As Recital 11 of the (11) Council Framework Decision states: “In relations between Member States, the European arrest warrant should replace all the previous instruments concerning extradition, including the provisions of Title III of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement which concern extradition.” That means that if the UK wants him then the UK gets him.
I suspect that the Irish courts will leave it up to the UK courts to decide whether of not he can get a fair trial in that jurisdiction since Recital 10 declares that “the mechanism of the European arrest warrant is based on a high level of confidence between Member States.”
Alias,
whichever juridsiction decides a review of the Slugger blogs will provide a healthy source of arguement for the defence given the nature of many of the comments and the obvious political inspiration behind many of them in a case where politics is completely irrelevant in deciding guilt or innocence.
Blogs and other new media don’t count, alas. There are no ‘circulation’ figures. It is comment in the print and broadcast media and from public figures that the court will consider. The leader of the second biggest political party in Northern Ireland, and a party of government within the state, declaring the accused to be guilty of the alleged offence is the comment that will concern the courts the most in determining if it is still possible for the accused to get a fair trial.
Alias,
“Blogs and other new media don’t count, alas”
Surely that is judgement for the courts to make – precedent has to be made sometime.
I didn’t say it wasn’t. I said there are “no circulation figures”, i.e. no reliable means to quantify how many members of the general public within the jurisdiction (if any) read the comment and therefore no way for the court to assess what impact the comment would have on the defendant’s absolute right to a fair trial.
And by the way, as I have pointed out many times in the posts above, the courts cannot set any precedent outside of the narrow parameters specified within of the Council Framework Decision in regard to the European arrest warrant. In case you don’t know what a Framework Decision is, they are unanimous decisions of the Commission that are legally binding on Member States with those states only having discretion in regard to how they transpose the decision into national law. EU law takes precedence over national law here, so a national court cannot set any precedent that conflicts with the parameters of this EU law.
Talk about Republican spin,in this case for an American audience – see report of Adamsgate in the Irish Echo which is interesting for what it omits eg the victims complaint in the UTV programme about how GA dealt with her.
Sorry that I cannot technically capture this for you all (but worth following up on Google).
Alias,
the precedent would be set in the use of a blog to “produce a convincing reason why he should not be surrendered” – this would be at the court’s discretion and would not conflict with exisiting law either European or National.
GT,
The American spin is but the mirror opposite of much of what we have read on Slugger – neither should be given any weight – at least the American stuff has little legal implication for any court proceedings and those of us wishing for the demise of Adams and SF will need to pin our hopes within the political arena.
MU: I would not so easily dismiss the importance to SF of keeping supporters in the USA on board,
many of whom,conservative Catholics,see ‘the auld country’ through rose tinted specs. Adamsgate stories and those concerning the Catholic church and child abuse, challenges this world view and their support for ‘the cause’. Its still a propaganda war,afterall, so the facts are not so important as the spin.
Moderate Unionist, that isn’t a legal argument. The defence argument would still be that the defendant cannot get a fair trial as he is entitled to Article 47 of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and under Article 6 (1) of the ECHR and that his right to a presumption of innocence Article 48 of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and under Article 6 (2) of the ECHR has be breeched by intensive pre-trial adverse publicity and by statements from a senior politician of government within the jurisdiction that are deeply prejudicial to those rights. So there is no precedent to be established there. These are established principles of law based on fundamental human rights.
The ‘precedent’ that you propose is merely that accepted standards by which the court quantifies the risk to the rights of the accused can be disposed of and replaced with lesser ad hoc standards. The courts will not do that and, indeed, no longer have the sovereignty to do that since EU law sets out specified parameters for surrender of an accused under the Framework Decision with the judicial authority in the jurisdiction where the accused is arrested having an obligation to have faith in the judicial authority within the jurisdiction where the accused is to be prosecuted. Since the jurors will be selected that other jurisdiction, the judicial authority in the surrendering jurisdiction will very likely leave any assessment of said adverse pre-trial publicity to the judicial authority in that jurisdiction. That is consistent with the scope and objectives of the Framework Decision.
In the UK, for example, the Contempt of Court Act 1981 will apply to publicity in the trial of the accused with its relevant provisions designed to safeguard his rights, so there is no point in the Irish courts applying laws that are not applicable in the relevant jurisdiction even if they could do so. That Act states that the “strict liability rule [i]applies only[/i] to a publication which creates a [b]substantial[/b] risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced.”
Since the court then has an obligation to quantify that the comment created a “substantial risk” to the rights of the accused, the court will need ‘circulation figures’ for that purpose. The court has no reliable means to quantify whether or not comment on a blog created a substantial risk or any risk at all, so it will look at broadcast and print media in order to make the relevant calculation. Admittedly, the law is behind the times in this area but until a reliable means of quantifying the influence of diverse new media becomes available (probably never), then the courts will not subpoena server records and what-not when these calculations can be made via accepted standards.
In addition to that, the strict liability rule is to comply with Article 10 of the ECHR covering freedom of speech. This protection is made explicit in Section 5 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981: “A publication made as or as part of a discussion in good faith of public affairs or other matters of general public interest is not to be treated as a contempt of court under the strict liability rule if the risk of impediment or prejudice to particular legal proceedings is merely incidental to the discussion.” So there is virtually no chance of anything said here “as part of a discussion [i]in good faith[/i] of public affairs” doing any harm as long as it stays within the parameters of Section 5 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981.
The Irish courts are not going to fabricate some fantastical ‘precedent’ about the role of new media in the European arrest warrant procedure. It will be up to the PPS in the first instance to decide if the deeply prejudicial statements from Gerry Adams mean that the accused cannot now get a fair trial. If they decide to proceed with the trial, it will then be up to the Belfast court to decide if the trial should proceed.
My guess is that the PPS will proceed with the trial as part of an improper politically inflenced decision aimed at protecting someone that the security services want left in place but that the court will not proceed with the trial. If that happens, Gerry Adams will only stay in place if the security services calculate that the outcry from Aine about being denied justice does more damage to the Shinners’ popular support, and theeby to the process of integrating them into the British state, than Gerry is worth.
Alias,
“The Irish courts are not going to fabricate some fantastical ‘precedent’ about the role of new media in the European arrest warrant procedure”
We will see. I suspect Liam Adams will not be leaving the south and whether that decision is taken North of the border or not the decision will be based on the contamination of public opinion to which Slugger continues to contribute. Geryy Adams’s surivival will depend on Ulster politics and not on the basis of any conspircay theories such as your own ‘fantastical’ offering regarding the security services.
Personally I think Gerry Adams has been more of a hinderance over the past year or two than a help. I suspect that McGuinness resents his interference in executive matters and the handling of devolution of policing and justice powers. I don’t think there’s much space for a conspiracy theory about whether or not the security forces “need” Gerry. That might have been different five years ago.
I think Adams will come to regret not stepping down while he was on top, at around the same time as Ian Paisley did.
Stalin, the British security services do need Gerry in place since there is no-one else within northern post-nationalism who has the authority to complete their process of integrating that movement’s supporters into the reformed British state. Even some moderate unionists know that since they are quite keen that no harm should come to wee Gerry – not for the promotion of his supporters’ interests but for the promotion of their own interests (which is what the state-controlled Gerry is actually promoting).