DUBLIN, Oct 12 — Ireland’s High Court today rejected an attempt by the French authorities to extradite a British man in connection with a long-running unsolved murder case.
Ian Bailey was convicted in his absence at a French court last year of killing Sophie Toscan du Plantier, whose body was found outside her holiday home in southern Ireland in 1996.
The victim, who was 39 at the time, was the wife of French film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier. She was found wearing night clothes and had been beaten on the head with a concrete block.
Bailey, who has consistently denied involvement, had been arrested and questioned but never charged in Ireland in connection with the case.
France has now tried three times to have him extradited to face trial.
Judge Paul Burns, sitting at the high court in Dublin, said he did not approve of the latest request for Bailey to serve a 25-year sentence in France.
“I have refused surrender,” he told the court, but adjourned the case for two weeks to give lawyers for the French state time to lodge any appeal.
At a previous hearing in July, state prosecutors had said there was a “strong public interest” in surrendering Bailey to France, and the family felt justice had not been served.
But Bailey’s defence team countered the French authorities had lost their right to pursue him after the Irish courts rejected previous bids in 2012 and 2017.
Delays in prosecution and a succession of arrest warrants had become “so oppressive and burdensome” it breached his rights, his lawyers said.
Bailey’s legal team also argued the 2019 French trial was flawed, included a witness statement that was later withdrawn, and assessments by psychologists who had never met him.
The block on extradition is the latest twist in the saga, which has been beset by problems from the start.
Irish prosecutors have criticised the original Irish police investigation as “thoroughly flawed” because of long delays in reaching the crime scene. — AFP
