Duncan affair raises serious questions from beginning to end

A NUMBER of serious questions remain to be answered by the Government before the latest extradition controversy - the third in less than two years - can be put safely to bed.

Though resonances rang out in the Dail yesterday of the fall out from the Brendan Smyth affair, marks one and two, there is no threat to the Government this time round.

There were, nonetheless, some interesting comparisons to be made with past events and, with the magic rewriting of history, Fianna Fail was quick to remind the House that the last Government fell because the then Attorney General, Mr Harry Whelehan, never saw the Smyth warrant, either.

On the political side, once again, the story cent red on the mysteries surrounding the administration of the Attorney General's Office; what the Minister for Justice knew, and when; and, when the Taoiseach became definitively aware" that the reason for the failure of the extradition application for Mr Anthony Duncan on April 13th rested, for the first time in Anglo Irish extradition history, with the Irish authorities.

The story presented by the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, to the Dail yesterday afternoon - which had to be dragged out of him after two stormy adjournments would be a comedy of extradition errors, if it were not so serious.

The gist of it, filled in later by a statement from the Garda Siochana, is that on Friday evening, April 12th, the Garda received the original warrant and other documentation, five pages, from New Scotland Yard. A copy of the warrant was furnished to the Attorney General's Office and the Department of Justice.

Given the political sensitivity of extradition cases in the past two controversies, there was some consternation in the Dail yesterday when Mr Bruton explained that the Attorney General, Mr Dermot Gleeson, received only a copy, not the original, of the warrant.

In the wake of the guidelines set down by Mr Bruton after the Matt Russell affair, it had been presumed that the original, warrants for all important and sensitive cases, including extradition cases and cases involving minors, would be personally supervised by Mr Gleeson. That is not the case.

Mr Bruton told the Dail that the function of the Attorney General in the matter was to look at the content, as distinct from the originality, of the documents.

It was during the proceedings in Dublin District Court on Saturday, April 13th, that it was discovered that the warrant before the court was a copy, not the original as required by the Extradition Act. The lawyer representing the State, Ms Claire Loftus, told the court at 1.45p.m., after an adjournment, that she was instructed by Mr Gleeson - that there was "a fundamental flaw" - in the proceedings and the documentation before the court. She could not proceed with the application. Both Mr Michael Hanahoe, for the defence, and Judge Timothy Crowley referred in court to the documents "from England" being flawed.

The first political question raised by the latest extradition controversy is: how could it take almost six weeks for the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, to receive a report from the Garda authorities showing that the flaw was on the Irish side this time?

How could "Government sources", who normally speak for Mr Bruton and the Government, or surmise, that Britain was to blame?

How could the Taoiseach, notified of a Dail question on the matter on April 17th which he answered on April 24th, be so unaware of the absence of the original warrant that he told the House that he had "no reason to believe that there was any error or omission on the Irish side in this matter that contributed to any of the difficulties"? This seems very strange given the permanent sensitivity of extradition cases in Anglo Irish relations.

The most serious question posed to the Taoiseach follow his answers to questions in the Dail yesterday. In a jesuitical response to Mr Des O'Malley, he seemed to play around with words to describe when he became "definitively aware", rather than aware, as a matter of probability, that the Irish side made the mistake.

With such recent memory of another Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, pleading with another Attorney General, Mr Eoghan Fitzsimons, for "definitive" information on the Duggan case, Mr Bruton admitted: "The Minister for Justice, in the course of a casual conversation with me at some date that I cannot remember, may have said something to the effect that it may be the problem is on our side."

Though he could not remember exactly when that was said to him, he was certain that it was after he had given a fairly definitive answer to the Dail in April.

There are further answers to be elicited from the Government about the handling of the Duncan affair from start to finish.