The High Court has found in favour of an Angolan man who claimed his deportation order was unsound and has granted him an injunction on the order until January 17th, 2005.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne found the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, did not consider Section 4 of the Criminal Justice (UN Convention) Bill 2000.
This section states that "a person shall not be expelled where the minister is of the opinion that there are substantial grounds that the person would be subjected to torture".
Ms Justice Dunne also found the deportation order, issued on November 24th gave insufficient time for Mr Sebastiao Mpembele Kamalandua to appeal.
The court granted the State liberty to apply within 48 hours to have the ruling overturned.
Mr Kamalandua says he will be killed if he returns home, having already been imprisoned and tortured by the Angolan government in 1999, before escaping and fleeing to Ireland.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties had said that Mr Kamalandua was a "victim of the inadequacies of the asylum process in Ireland. . . . This raises fundamental questions about what information the Minister has when he is signing deportation orders very early in the process."
Mr Kamalandua, who arrived in Ireland in August 2001, was forcibly conscripted into the Angolan army and underwent training for undercover duties but was later accused of disclosing classified information to UNITA, a rival political group.
He was then put in prison where he was beaten, torutured and kept in solitary confinement for five months. He later escaped with the help of his uncle and military friends and made his way to Ireland via Lisbon and London.
He believes his wife and three children remain in Angola but he does not know their exact wherabouts.
The 32 year-old is involved in fundraising for Special Olympics Ireland and was due to travel to Japan with the team for next year's Winter Special Olympics. He is also a client of the Centre for the Care of Torture survivors and a dancer with the Irish Modern Dance Theatre.
Representations were made on his behalf by Special Olympics Ireland director, Ms Mary Davis, and by fellow volounteers, members of the Irish Modern Dance Theatre and members of his community in Inchicore.
