'Wall Of Silence' Around French Bid To Extradite Briton For 1996 Murder

Dublin, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Jul, 2020 ) :French authorities trying to extradite a Briton convicted of the 1996 murder of a French woman have built a "wall of silence" around the case, an Irish court heard Thursday.

Ian Bailey, 63, is resisting extradition to France after a Paris court last year sentenced him to 25 years for the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

Plantier, the 39-year-old wife of French film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier, was found dead outside her isolated holiday home near the seaside village of Schull in southwest Ireland in December 1996.

She was found wearing night clothes and beaten on the head with a concrete block in one of Ireland and France's most notoriously unresolved killings.

Bailey -- who was arrested and questioned but never charged by Irish prosecutors over the case -- watched from the back of the Dublin court on Thursday.

He did not speak during the second day of proceedings as his lawyer David Smyth said there had been a "wall of silence" from French authorities making the extradition bid.

"Why was there such a delay in prosecuting this matter in absentia?" he asked.

"This is entirely unexplained," he added. "This is part of a package of abuse of process." Smyth also criticised the Paris court for considering a statement from a witness who recanted and for allowing evidence about Bailey's mental state from psychologists who never met him.

Meanwhile defence lawyer Ronan Munro questioned France's claim of jurisdiction over an alleged crime by a foreign national in a third-party country.

"If an English man in France... were to take the life of an Irish woman we wouldn't have jurisdiction," he told judge Paul Burns.

Munro said the French prosecution was based on an Irish investigation but that Irish officials had "a ringside view of the investigation and the shenanigans going on" and had declined to charge Bailey.

- 'Fiasco' - The Plantier case has been plagued by issues from the start.

A forensic officer did not reach the scene for 36 hours and the police investigation was described as "thoroughly flawed" by the then Irish director of public prosecutions.

In 2014 Plantier's family denounced the Irish investigation as a "fiasco" and a "denial of justice".

French extradition bids for Bailey were previously struck down by Ireland's supreme court in 2012 and the high court in 2017, with Munro saying French authorities had now "lost the right" to make a third attempt.

He pleaded with the court to "finally let Mr Bailey get on with his life".

"At what point does the wave of arrest warrants become so oppressive and burdensome that there is a breach of your rights?" asked Smyth.

"We say that date has long since passed in the present case." As the hearing began, judge Burns offered the court's condolences to the Plantier family.

"The dry nature of these proceedings should not be taken as an indication anyone has forgotten the tragic background of this matter."The hearing is due to continue on Friday with a decision expected at a later date.