The High Court has ordered the extradition to the United States of a Wicklow man alleged to have been an administrator of the Silk Road website that dealt with illegal drugs and hacking software.

A High Court judge who, be- fore being appointed to the bench wrote a magazine ar- ticle uerying the source of funding of Libertas — the lobby group founded by busi-nessman Declan Ganley — has been asked not to deal with any pre-trial matters in Mr Ganley’s defamation ac-tion against RTÉ.

FINE GAEL has dismissed Libertas’ election prospects, saying the party does not have enough people on the ground to canvass effectively.

THE country’s political watchdog has been asked how €700,000 worth of referendum booklets given to Libertas may yet escape the law governing donations.

FEARS that Libertas is being funded by anti-EU elements in the Pentagon and the CIA were raised in the European Parliament yesterday amid claims the anti-Lisbon treaty group spent more than €2 million on its campaign.