A bail application for Jonathan Gill, who is wanted in Northern Ireland in connection with the murder of gangland criminal Robbie Lawlor, has been adjourned to allow his legal team to make a second application for senior counsel in the case.
The respondent (44), with an address on the Malahide Road in Clontarf, on Dublin’s north side, will challenge an attempt by authorities in the North to extradite him on June 3rd next.
Gill is wanted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland so he can be prosecuted, on a “joint enterprise basis”, for the murder of 36-year-old Lawlor, who was shot dead in the front garden of a house at Etna Drive, Belfast, on the morning of April 4th, 2020.
He is also accused of possessing a 9mm self-loading pistol with intent to endanger life on a date unknown between April 2nd and 5th that year. The courts have heard in other cases how gardaí are satisfied that Lawlor, a notorious criminal linked to several violent deaths, murdered Drogheda teenager Keane Mulready Woods in January 2020. The PSNI believe Lawlor’s murder was part of an ongoing drugs feud, involving criminal elements in the Dublin, Sligo and Drogheda areas.
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Gill appeared today before High Court Judge Sean Gillane in order to make a bail application.
However, Leanora Frawley, for the Minister for Justice, said the hearing would not be proceeding today. She said counsel for Gill would be asking to adjourn the matter for a brief time to again apply for senior counsel in the case.
Counsel for Gill, Gemma McLoughlin-Burke, told the judge she had made an application last week for second counsel, which was refused. She said the court had given her liberty to renew that application once the points of objection for senior counsel were filed.
Last week, McLoughlin-Burke told the High Court she was seeking a second legal counsel as there were a number of complex matters in the case relating to the validity and lawfulness of the evidence underlying the charge.
The barrister said the European courts have ruled that the evidence in question could not lawfully be admitted. However, she said that given the unique position that the evidence would be admissible in the UK, a second counsel was therefore warranted.
In his ruling last week, the judge said it seemed to him that junior counsel would be “in as good a position as any senior counsel” to deal with the matter.
McLoughlin-Burke told Gillane today that the preference was to file the points of objection and then renew the application for a second counsel on Friday.
Gillane said he had intended to deal with the matter today. “You want me to list the matter for Friday for renewing the application for second counsel and want the bail application to proceed regardless of how I approach your first application?” he asked.
McLoughlin-Burke told the judge that if he was against her for second counsel, then the court could deal with the bail application on Friday.
The judge said he would list the matter on Friday, but could not guarantee that the matter would be dealt with.
A solicitor from Phoenix Law Solicitors, who are acting for Gill, told the judge that there were “still issues related to surety” so he did not think the bail application could take place on Friday.
The judge remanded Gill in custody until May 1st, when another application for second counsel in the case is expected to take place.
On April 3rd last, Gill was arrested on foot of an extradition warrant issued to the PSNI by Belfast Magistrates’ Court on March 31st.
