Hotel killer's bid to serve sentence in Portugal fails

A Portuguese man jailed for murdering a trainee manager in Limerick’s Jury’s Inn Hotel today lost a High Court battle to serve the remainder of his life sentence in his home country.

Paulo Nascimento, who gunned down Gráinne Dillon during a botched robbery, had claimed a refusal to repatriate him was against his human rights.

The 31-year-old was given a mandatory life sentence in 2003 after pleaded guilty to murder.

Ms Dillon, 24, was shot three times at point-blank range with a single-barrelled shotgun as Nascimento, from the Algarve, robbed around €3,000 from the hotel to travel home on January 5, 2002.

He had worked as a night porter at the hotel for just six days before killing Ms Dillon, of Glounthaune, Cork.

Ms Dillon’s heartbroken family – who strongly opposed the request – welcomed today’s decision.

“I am absolutely delighted,” said the victim’s mother Pat.

“We have another two years I suppose to sit back and relax for a while. It could possible come up again if he takes more legal advice, but for the moment now we are very happy.”

Ms Dillon’s sister Aoife added: “We are delighted with the result that he has been refused leave to return to Portugal on all grounds. We would like to thank all of the state’s legal team for a fantastic job and all their hard work.”

In March, a judge granted leave to counsel for Nascimento to bring judicial review proceedings aimed at quashing the refusal of his transfer.

Lawyers for killer claimed a refusal by former Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to repatriate the killer was unconstitutional and against his human rights under the Transfer of Prisons Act.

Nascimento’s lawyers argued he met all the criteria to be transferred, and that even with remission a Portuguese jail term would still be above the average life sentence in Ireland which ranges from 12 -15 years.

However, Mr McDowell maintained that as the Portuguese judicial system did not have a mandatory life sentence for murder, the fixed sentence proposed by the authorities was “not appropriate having regard to the gravity of this crime.”

Throughout the hearing in June, senior counsel also argued that due to illnesses the man’s family were unable to visit him here and that, as a non Irish national, he had difficulties in prison with the language and other inmates.

Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne ruled the minister had the discretion to do what he had to do.

Dismissing the case, Mrs Justice Dunne said the Minister for Justice was entitled and obliged to consider the manner in which the sentence would have been served in another jurisdiction.

She added that by exercising his discretion, the Minister was not determining a sentence, as the sentence had been determined by the courts.