Four extradited to UK in year

Four people were extradited from Ireland to the United Kingdom last year, a Government report revealed today.

Three of the people returned to England have been convicted and sentenced and one person has been jailed in Wales after being sent back.

One of the most high profile cases involved the extradition to Britain of a Dublin man in connection with passport offences.

The alleged fraud involves using the names of children who had died in their infancy and never had a passport.

Wanted by the London Metropolitan police, Michael Fallon, also known as Micheal O’Falluin, 50, from Carysfort Hall, Blackrock, Dublin, is to face a charge of conspiracy to defraud the UK passport agency by providing false passport applications in the late 1990s.

The report compiled by the Department of Justice also revealed 29 extradition requests were being dealt with during 2005.

Three people whose extraditions were ordered in previous years were still being hunted and one other person whose extradition was ordered must complete a jail term here first.

Other successful extraditions included a Co Louth man who was returned to Spain where he is wanted for the alleged murder of his wife who died after falling from a hotel balcony on the Costa del Sol more than five years ago.

Michael Dermot McArdle, (aged 36), Brookfield, Heynestown, Dundalk, is wanted for the alleged murder of his wife, Kelly Anne, 28, who died following a fall from a hotel balcony in Marbella on February 12, 2000.

Extradition orders are extremely complex with figures from the United States Department of Justice showing Ireland declined the last 18 extradition requests from America.

In one case the High Court refused to order the extradition to Britain of a priest from the west of Ireland to face charges of indecently assaulting young altar boys in the late 1960s.

The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, said the surrender of the priest should not be ordered on grounds of excessive delay of some 30 years between the alleged offences and the making of the first complaint.

Other high profile ongoing extradition orders include attempts by gardaí to bring from the UK a leading Limerick criminal who they believe ordered and paid for the 2002 murder of security man Brian Fitzgerald,

And a Co Meath man is fighting extradition to Hungary where he is wanted to serve a three-year sentence for negligent driving, causing the death of two children.