THE warrant for the extradition of Dublin man Mr Anthony Duncan was not only a copy of the original but was also incomplete when presented to the District Court last month.
It emerged yesterday that the warrant did not have the necessary affirmation from a British police officer that he had witnessed the actual warrant being issued by a Bow Street magistrate in London.
However, the warrant produced in court is understood to have been endorsed by an Assistant Garda Commissioner, Mr Noel Conroy.
The court was told on April 13th by a garda giving evidence of arrest that the warrant before the judge was the original.
It is understood the defence solicitor, Mr Michael Hanahoe, and Judge Timothy Crowley detected the omission of the certification from a British police officer. It was on this basis that both judge and counsel indicated that the British authorities were responsible for the flawed documentation.
Meanwhile, the controversy surrounding the mislaying, and possible destruction, of the original warrant continued in the Dail yesterday as the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, confirmed that a Garda sergeant who had custody of the warrant had been transferred.
She told the House during a two hour debate yesterday morning that she had only learned an hour earlier that the transfer took place on the direction of the Garda Commissioner, Mr Patrick Culligan, "on April 18/19th".
This confirmation led Opposition politicians to conclude that the Garda then knew that the document went missing at Garda Headquarters and that it was responsible.
"Otherwise, why take disciplinary action against the sergeant? All the material facts of the case, therefore, were known on April 18th. That is the reality", said Fianna Fail's Mr Willie O'Dea.
Mr Michael McDowell, of the Progressive Democrats, said "a child of 12 with average intelligence would have known within three days of the collapse of Mr Duncan's extradition that the mistake had happened in Ireland. It was "no coincidence" that the sergeant had been removed from his extradition duties.
"What is remarkable is that the Taoiseach could tell the Dail on April 24th that he had no reason to believe that there was any omission on the Irish side", Mr McDowell added.
According to Mr O'Dea, it stretched belief to claim that it took the Garda, at the highest level, almost six weeks to discover that the warrant went missing in its own offices. The Minister and Taoiseach expected them to believe that the Garda did not know about the mislaying of the original warrant until up to five weeks after the incident. "That is a national scandal and has all the essential ingredients of a cover up", he added.