Brazil's supreme court has cleared the way for the extradition of fugitive former solicitor Michael Lynn back to Ireland to face charges relating to the collapse of his property empire in 2007.
The ruling, by a panel of four of the court’s judges, comes with several conditions attached but the unanimous verdict signals the beginning of the end of a seven-year game of legal cat and mouse between Irish authorities and the Crossmolina, Co Mayo, lawyer.
Mr Lynn was not in the Brasília court for yesterday's hearing. He is being held in a prison in the city of Recife where he was arrested in August of last year. In his absence, his defence team mounted a last stand against the extradition request.
Auditorium
As a waiter circulated the auditorium serving coffee to those in attendance, Mr Lynn’s defence lawyer, Verônica Abdalla Sterman, attacked the Irish Government’s case from a podium facing the judges.
They listened attentively as she denounced alleged errors in the extradition paperwork and accused Irish politicians and judges of a political persecution that had turned her client into a scapegoat for the crash of the celtic tiger.
But it was all in vain.
After she had finished, presiding judge Marco Aurélio quickly made clear he accepted the case quietly delivered in favour of extradition by Antenor Pereira Madruga Filho, the local legal heavy-hitter hired by the Irish Government to help guide the case through Brazil’s complex bureaucracy in the absence of an extradition treaty.
Mr Aurélio ordered that Brazil seek from the Irish a commitment only to charge Mr Lynn with theft from those among the 33 charges prepared by the Director of Public Prosecutions. He and his colleagues stipulated all time Mr Lynn spent in Brazilian detention be discounted from any future jail sentence.
Clarification
As the judges moved on to a local habeas corpus case, the two legal teams conferred as they left the session. The defence can now decide to ask the court for clarification on the ruling, but the Irish team said this would just further extend Mr Lynn’s stay in his Recife prison.
Consulting afterwards with Brian Glynn, the Irish Ambassador to Brazil, Mr Pereira Madruga Filho indicated Mr Lynn would not be returning immediately. He expected that by January several years of legal and diplomatic work in Dublin and Brasília would see him home.
