BACKGROUND:Gardaí investigating Anglo Irish Bank may now come up against some frustrating barriers, writes CONOR LALLYCrime Correspondent
SINCE FORMER Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick was arrested last week much public comment has focused on what other former leading bankers would be next.
The answer came quickly: on Wednesday morning Willie McAteer was detained during a pre-dawn search of his home in Rathgar, south Dublin. Mr McAteer was released without charge yesterday.
But while the arrests of Mr FitzPatrick and Mr McAteer were straightforward – both men were in their beds when gardaí called – other persons of interest in the Garda’s Anglo inquiry may prove harder to pin down.
If gardaí now want to question – either under arrest or informally – Anglo’s former chief executive David Drumm or former head of finance Matt Moran, the detectives will be entirely at the mercy of both men.
Mr Drumm is living in the US and Mr Moran is in Luxembourg. Extradition proceedings can only be used against people for the purpose of charging them with a criminal offence; it cannot be used to get people to Ireland simply to arrest and question them.
It is only when the Garda’s findings thus far in relation to Anglo are put to persons of interest that the case will truly take shape.
The team investigating Anglo will simply have to contact Mr Drumm and Mr Moran and ask them to return for interview. But the men will dictate when they return, if at all, to aid the gardaí.
It would be within their rights if they were to decline or simply ignore any such request from the Garda.
Garda sources said because both Mr Drumm and Mr Moran were senior Anglo figures they are persons of interest to the investigation, even if they were not involved in any of the
alleged irregularities now being examined.
Some sources said they believe that both men will return home if asked.
However, any inability on the part of gardaí to get information on key events from such formerly influential Anglo figures would represent an impediment to what has already proven one of the Garda’s most complex investigations to date into alleged white-collar crime.