Brazil finally set to extradite Lynn back to Ireland

Fugitive solicitor Michael Lynn should be back in Ireland imminently after Brazil’s supreme court finally cleared the way for his extradition last night.

The court first ruled that Lynn, aged 47, should be extradited in December 2014. A series of delaying tactics by Lynn’s lawyers drew out the legal process, even as their client remained in a dirty and overcrowded jail that he said was making him ill.

The decision comes more than eight years after he fled from justice and almost 30 months since he was arrested in his beach hideout near the city of Recife.

Last night, presiding judge Marco Aurelio dismissed the Irishman’s final request to seek “clarification” of the original decision — a request on a technicality that was almost certain to fail — on all major points. All justices on the panel endorsed his decision.

The judge will now publish a written version of his decision and the case will then be handed over to Brazil’s justice ministry. Officially, the ministry can overrule the court, but a spokesman confirmed last night it intends to abide by the decision.

Brazil’s federal police will then negotiate the logistics of his 7,200km transfer from Recife to Dublin, which could happen within weeks, with Irish authorities.

In legal documents presented to the court, Lynn’s lawyers argued that irregularities in the extradition process rendered it invalid. They said that because of a translation error the Brazilian authorities incorrectly believed there was an arrest warrant for Lynn in Ireland, for example.

The delay in yesterday’s final judgment was because of a huge backlog of cases at Brazil’s highest court, which deals with some 50,000 cases a year. The original judgment was made on December 16, 2014, but was not published until February 26, 2015. It was appealed on March 4, with the outcome delayed for nearly a year.

Lynn faces 33 charges at Dublin’s High Court relating to an alleged €80m mortgage fraud, although some will be dropped as part of the extradition deal.

The more serious charges, of theft, were crucial to his extradition and will remain.

Lynn first failed to attend a hearing at the High Court in Dublin in 2007.

At the time he fled, he had debts of €80m and his company was said to have 148 properties, 154 bank accounts, and assets worth over €50m.

He arrived in Brazil in 2012 and lived in a villa near a beach while teaching English to the locals. He joined a country club and dabbled in the property market.

But his comfortable new life came to an end in August 2013 when Brazilian federal police, acting on behalf of Interpol, swooped at a shopping centre near his home.

The disgraced businessman has now spent 30 months fighting extradition in the Cotel prison with alleged murderers and rapists. The prison, in the grim industrial outskirts of Recife, has a capacity of 700 but has up to 2,400 inmates held there.