The High Court will decide tomorrow whether to grant bail to former Workers Party president Sean Garland whose extradition is being sought by the United States over his alleged involvement in a counterfeiting operation.
Mr Justice John MacMenamin today adjourned Mr Garland’s bail application to see if it is possible for him to be fitted with an electronic monitoring device.
The court was told Mr Garland (75), who was arrested in Dublin last month on an extradition warrant and has been in custody since, would consent to being electronically tagged if it were made a condition of his bail.
In their application, the US authorities claim Mr Garland, with an address at Beldonstown, Brownstown, Navan Co Meath, conspired with others outside the US as part of a counterfeiting operation involving almost perfect copies of US dollars. The alleged counterfeiting also involved the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, it is claimed.
The State is opposing bail for Mr Garland on the basis of its claim he represents a flight risk.
Detective Sgt Martin O’Neill told the court today Mr Garland, while attending a political conference in Belfast in October 2005, was arrested there on foot of an extradition request from the US on the same charges.
He was remanded on bail on condition he sign on with the Police Service of Northern Ireland and also reside at an address in Downpatrick. However, after returning to the Republic for medical treatment, he did not go back to Northern Ireland, the court heard.
Applying for bail, Dr Michael Forde SC, for Mr Garland, said his client had been arrested during a brief visit to Belfast in 2005 and had remained in the Republic afterwards amid concerns his constitutional rights would be better protected in this jurisdiction.
Counsel said the UK and US had in 2003 entered into new extradition arrangements which were highly controversial and, if agreed by Ireland, would very likely be unconstitutional. Those arrangements abandoned the prima facieevidence test for requests from the US and also diluted the political offence exception, he said.
Mr Garland’s solicitor had written to the Garda in Navan in 2005 stating the US or UK may seek his extradition and he would readily make himself available for arrest, counsel added. Mr Garland also gave a similar assurance to the Department of Justice in 2007.
Dr Forde said his client has health problems, including diabetes, a heart condition and cancer. Given those medical problems, to flee would be the equivalent of suicide, he added. As the US had extradition treaties with virtually every country in the world, the only place his client could go to would be Iran, Mongolia or “somewhere more exotic”.
The court also heard Mr Garland is prepared to surrender his passport, reside at his home address in Co Meath and sign on regularly at a Garda station, and would surrender himself to gardaí if his extradition was ordered by the courts.
In an affidavit to the court Mr Garland said one of his defences against the extradition order will be the political offence exception, the details of which would not be gone into at this stage.
Mr Garland was instrumental in persuading the official IRA to cease its campaign of violence in 1973. He was elected president of the Workers’ Party in 2006 and retired from the presidency in May last year. He remains a member of the party’s central executive committee and its national treasurer.