A CO Dublin man has lost the final stage of a six-year battle to prevent his surrender to Britain, where he is wanted for allegedly advertising passports for sale in the names of children who had died in infancy.
The three-judge Supreme Court yesterday unanimously dismissed the appeal by Michael Fallon against an October 2008 High Court order for his surrender under the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003.
Counsel for Mr Fallon then applied for the matter to be adjourned to allow Mr Fallon, who is on bail, to organise his affairs, but counsel for the State sought an order committing Mr Fallon to prison pending his surrender to the British authorities.
Because of issues related to legal documents, the court refused to make a committal order now and adjourned the matter to the next law term to allow the documentary issues to be resolved. Mr Fallon remains on bail.
The British authorities had from 2003 sought the extradition of Mr Fallon (50), otherwise Mícheál Ó Fallúin, with an address at Carysfort Hall, Blackrock, Co Dublin, to face a charge of conspiracy to defraud the British passport agency by the provision of false passport applications in the late 1990s.
A European arrest warrant (EAW) was issued by the British courts in December 2003, and he was arrested under that in June 2004.
During subsequent court proceedings here, the court heard British police believed Mr Fallon and alleged co-conspirators had advertised passports for sale in the International Herald Tribune.
The police claimed that once customers made contact, they were offered a choice of suitable names and dates of birth from a list.
It was alleged that customers then provided a passport photograph and signed a blank passport application form, which were attached to a duplicate birth certificate of a child who had died in infancy and never had a passport.
The alleged scam, according to police, was exposed by the Tonight with Trevor McDonaldshow after a journalist followed up on an advertisement in the Tribuneoffering EU passports for sale for $18,500.
In 2005 the High Court ordered Mr Fallon’s surrender, but he successfully argued before the Supreme Court in January 2007 that he was in unlawful detention and should be released.
This occurred because he had not been surrendered to the British within the 10-day period specified by the EAW Act 2003.
A new European arrest warrant was issued by the British authorities in April 2007, and Mr Fallon was arrested in July 2007.
The High Court in October 2008 made an order for his surrender, and he appealed this to the Supreme Court, arguing that this latest bid to surrender him represented an abuse of court process.
Dismissing that appeal yesterday, Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan ruled the bringing of a second EAW by the British authorities did not involve breaches of Mr Fallon’s rights under the Constitution or the European Convention on Human Rights. While it was part of Irish jurisprudence that there should not be repeated attempts to procure a conviction, proceedings under the EAW Acts are not criminal proceedings, he said. In this case, there was no decision on issues which prevented the latest application for surrender being brought.
The courts are obliged to surrender on foot of an EAW where there is compliance with the EAW Acts, he also ruled. There was also credible evidence before the High Court on which it could conclude the underlying domestic warrant related to Mr Fallon had not been executed, and was not spent.