A Luxembourg magistrate told Cork Criminal Circuit Court one of the key witnesses in a money-laundering trial will be arrested if he appears in that country.
Mr Georges Oswald said a warrant exists for the arrest of Mr Sven Uwe Palisch, a German, after fraud investigations.
Mr Palisch is expected to give evidence at a later stage of the trial of Ms Maria Bernadetta Jehle and Mr Ernst Gunther Hollman on money-laundering charges.
Ms Jehle and Mr Hollman, of The Priory, Ballymore, Cobh, Co Cork, have each denied two charges of handling money knowing it was the proceeds of other people's criminal activities.
The State's case is that money amounting to nearly £2 million belonging to two investors, Mr Klaus Jurgen Wiese, a German hotelier, and a French dentist, Dr Patric Gueniot, disappeared on the Continent and surfaced in three accounts in banks in Cobh and Midleton, Co Cork, and Cahir, Co Tipperary.
Mr Wiese told the court earlier this week that Mr Palisch and Mr Peter Jehle, a son of Ms Jehle, took his money on the understanding they would raise a loan.
Dr Gueniot said yesterday that Mr Palisch and a third man, Mr Alain Schafer, arranged a loan for him through a company called International Insurances Services. "They both turned out to be crooks," he told the court.