Govt working on new legislation after overturning of Northern Bank conviction

A money lender jailed for laundering more than STG£3m from the Northern Bank robbery has declared himself “very happy” at having his convictions overturned.

The Department of Justice has said priority is being given to a bill that will address a legal flaw that led to the overturning of financier's Ted Cunningham's convictions for money laundering.

The money lender jailed for laundering more than STG£3m from the Northern Bank robbery has declared himself “very happy” at having his convictions overturned.

Timothy “Ted” Cunningham, 63, of Farran, Co Cork, will face retrial on nine of the 10 counts against him after the ruling by Dublin’s Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA).

But he will not be retried on the most serious charge, relating to STG£2.4m found stuffed into six holdalls in a cupboard in the basement of his home during a search in February 2005.

The other nine charges relate to smaller sums of money allegedly transferred by Mr Cunningham to other people.

After winning his appeal, he said: “I’m very, very happy.”

Mr Cunningham is expected to be released on a number of conditions after signing off on a bail bond at Limerick Prison where he was driven back to after the hearing in Dublin.

The former financier was sentenced in April 2009 after a 44-day trial in which he was found guilty of laundering more than STG£3m from the STG£26.5m robbery of Northern Bank in Belfast in December 2004.

He pleaded not guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to 10 charges of money laundering and later appealed against his convictions.

Earlier this year the Supreme Court declared that certain search warrants previously used by gardaí during investigations were unconstitutional.

The three-judge CCA quashed the convictions on the basis that the warrant used to search Mr Cunningham’s home was under the controversial Section 29 of the Offences Against the State Act and therefore not valid.

A number of other trials have also collapsed since the ruling on the warrants.

Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, sitting with Mr Justice Michael Moriarty and Mr Justice Gerard Hogan, ordered Mr Cunningham to be retried on nine of the 10 counts against him.

The controversial section 29 warrant was introduced in 1976 to allow senior gardaí, not below the rank of superintendent, to authorise an emergency search without recourse to an independent judge.

It was challenged by Ali Charaf Damache who was arrested following an international investigation into an alleged conspiracy to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks for his drawing of the prophet Muhammad.

The 45-year-old Algerian, of John Colwyn House, High Street, Waterford, argued that the warrant for his arrest in Ireland should have not have been issued by a Garda superintendent but by an independent authority, such as a judge or a peace commissioner.

The Department of Justice said it was working on new legislation on search powers.

A spokeswoman said: “The Criminal Justice (Search Powers) Bill is being drafted as a priority and will be published shortly. The minister (Alan Shatter) hopes to have it enacted before the summer recess.”