SEVEN PEOPLE being held for questioning over the alleged plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist have had their periods of detention extended at two special sittings of the District Court in Waterford.
The seven were arrested in Waterford and Cork on Tuesday morning regarding an alleged conspiracy plot to murder cartoonist Lars Vilks after his 2007 portrayal of the Prophet Mohammad enraged Muslims.
The images created by Mr Vilks pasted Prophet Mohammad’s head on a dog’s body. The suspects – aged from their mid-20s to mid-40s – are being held for questioning under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007 at stations in Waterford city, Dungarvan, Tramore and Thomastown in Co Kilkenny.
Under the act, they can be held for one week.
Gardaí took a Croatian national and a US national to a special sitting of the District Court at 9am yesterday in order to detain them for questioning for a further 72 hours. After the brief hearings, the suspects, one male and one female, were taken from the courthouse separately in unmarked Garda cars.
On Wednesday, two women and three men were taken to the courthouse in Waterford at about 8pm to extend the period of questioning. Solicitors for the seven suspects, Brian Chesser and Charlene O’Keeffe, spoke briefly with journalists outside the courthouse on Wednesday evening. Mr Chesser said three of the suspects in court on Wednesday were Algerian, one was a Libyan and one was Palestinian.
The exclusion of the media from the hearings was the first time a new law allowing for the hearing to be in private was invoked in a high-profile case.
An application that the hearing into the prolonging of the detention be heard in private was made by An Garda Síochána and the judge granted this application. It was made under section 29 of the 2009 Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act, which provides for the extension of the length of time of detention to allow for further investigation.
This section of the Act, passed amidst controversy last year, provided for the first time that the judge could direct that such hearings be heard “otherwise than in public”. It also provides for the exclusion of all except “officers of the court, persons directly concerned in the proceedings, bona fide representatives of the press and such other persons as the court may permit to remain”.
The judge can also direct that particular evidence be given in the absence of “every person, including the person to whom the application relates and any legal representative”, if the judge considers the nature of the evidence could prejudice the investigation.