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FRANCE IS SET to charge Ian Bailey over the 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, according to reports in the French media.
Bailey has twice been arrested over the murder of the French filmmaker in Schull, Co. Cork but he has never been charged in connection with the case.
Efforts by French authorities to extradite Bailey have also been unsuccessful.
It appears now, however, that they will proceed with indicting him over the death of the French woman and issue a Europe-wide warrant for his arrest.
The previous decision by the Irish courts not to extradite Bailey means that any French trial of Bailey would likely take place without his presence.
Bailey’s solicitor told TheJournal.ie that this was a “predictable outcome”.
“The French feel it’s the right thing to do from their point-of-view,” said solicitor Frank Buttimer.
I think the conduct of French State in this matter is outrageous. It’s an affront to our justice system.
He said the Irish State’s facilitation of the prosecution against Bailey was also outrageous considering the Supreme Court decision not to extradite him.
French police have made multiple visits to Ireland as part of their own investigations into the case.
In 2014, Bailey launched an unsuccessful civil action against An Garda Síochána, the Minister for Justice and the Attorney General claiming he was wrongfully arrested over the case.
Buttimer says this latest development further prolongs Bailey’s association with a crime his client says he is “completely innocent” of, adding that his “life has been destroyed”:
For Ian this is another chapter in the 20 year association that he’s had with this crime of which he’s completely innocent. His life has been destroyed by this activity and this wrongful connection with this crime which he did not commit.
Buttimer also described Bailey as “a prisoner” in Ireland as he cannot leave the State because he risks being detained by French police.
“He couldn’t go to his mother’s funeral in the UK when she died for this reason,” Buttimer said.
- With reporting by Michelle Hennessey
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Don’t know if he did it or not but I really don’t like the idea of a person being charged in another country for a crime committed in Ireland. Apparently the applicable French law dates back to Napoleon’s time but still. I can’t see him being extradited though.
Ireland has extraterritoriality for its own laws, including murder, but where the suspect is Irish
If the suspect is Irish then I could see a case for Irish law to be applicable, depending on the crime, likewise if Bailey was French I wouldn’t think much of it but this situation just doesn’t sit well with me.
The clowns in Cork who supposedly investigated this were shown up to be amateur, incompetent and downright not fit to be policemen.
And the evidence to support that is ?
Or even worse, working on personal gripes rather than facts and evidence. How any rural community trusts the gardai, I don’t know – stitching up people without evidence, and not pursuing people with new evidence in Donegal. This charges in France will not be acted on, as we have well and truly ballsed up the investigation and the change for extradition. If there is a conviction in France, will the terms of the extradition request change (from being wanted, to be a convicted murderer?)
Specifically in West Cork. It’s not like this happened in the middle of the city, it was way out and the local police were way out of their depth
He should go back to England
@ Rodrigo
Not to mention corrupt.
Ha ha. Go back to England, why England. It’s the French who are looking to extradite him not the English or are you just being racist?
That assertion is not correct Sir. There has been a long court case about all of that, and we all know the result.
He is staying here because he knows the English will send him to France.
If an Irish person was murdered I would hope that Irish legal system would chase and fight for justice
@ the spokesman Why should he go back to England? He is a free man who has not even been charged with an offence in Ireland, because the DPP decided that there was no case against him. The Garda investigation was like something out of a low-budget Hollywood movie and they were so dumb they didn’t even know some of their skullduggery was on tape. Tampering with evidence, manipulating witnesses, you couldn’t make it up!
What are the French going to do, ask the same witnesses – at least those who are still alive or locatable – to tell zem vot zey saw in zat lane so many years ago? If the witness that told the Guardaí what she saw and later withdrew her statement and said they had coerced her into making it going to change her testimony again? And would any court believe her?
The Guardaí have wasted enough of Mr. Bailey’s time and energy already. Time to stop this charade, admit that they cocked up royally and advise the French that this scapegoat is no longer available and that they might start looking if the culprit is not in France.
He has played the guards like the fools they are. The English or French wouldn’t take kindly to his shit.
Oh Good Lord did you not read the reports
@Nick
Agreed, but in this case justice would be trying to find out who the actual killer is, instead of deciding on a hunch who you think is guilty and trying to fabricate the evidence to make it stick. Fit up from start to finish.
You go back too
Very odd that France can bring a case against a person for a crime in another jurisdiction.
Ireland can too
They can charge any one in any country for the murder of a French citizen
It’s part of there legal system. If we refuse to extradite him then they will try him in absence.
And we can tell them to fxxk off
Surely Mr Bailey will welcome the chance to clear his name once and for all. I mean, he admitted himself that he was a suspect and nobody else is being sought for the crime. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this and see who comes out of it the worst. The investigating gardai or Mr Bailey.
Why would he welcome being dragged out of Ireland to face a trial in another jurisdiction? Frances Fitzgerald has a duty to intervene and by ministerial order stop this farce.
The evidence against him always seemed to me to be very poor.
Innocent until proven guilty, obviously there was never any solid evidence to suggest Mr Bailey committed this crime otherwise the DPP would have charged him. Everything is tainted now.
Brian Ward, what has this to do with investigating Gardai?.
You obviously don’t know much about the background to this case Eugene.
Why. I wouldn’t want to be subjected to French justice as an englishperson accused of murder in another jurisdiction. No bail, banged up for years before there would ever be a trial. It should not be up to an accused to clear his name. In this jurisdiction that’s the job of the courts.
Oh believe me, I know much more about all of this than most people that are commenting here. Hopefully, his day will come sooner rather than later.
What exactly do you know that the rest of us don’t Eugene?
Yes Eugene, hit us with the beef man. Were you a witness ?
How in Gods name did this come to be? Fabricated evidence by a few corrupt Gardai. The Gardai have changed the way they do things and thankfully it has much better now but how the Gardai kept their jobs is astounding for stitching this man up simply because he was English and educated. The empty wine bottle was what they fabricated their case around. These Gardai should be in jail or at least the one responsible for most of it.
If there ever was a case of protesting too much. I always believed he was guilty, and his Solicitor repeating the word “innocent” when describing him multiple times doesn’t change that. Send him off to rot in France!
He is just being a coward by not facing his peers
How can you believe he’s guilty when there was, and isn’t any evidence? He was stitched up by the Bandon cops and all kinds of shit went down.
Man with no real evidence against him repeatedly protests his innocence. Yeah, he has to be guilty.
It looks like more than a few posters here – and I suspect many of them did not follow the whole saga the way I did – are so convinced of his guilt that we might as well just erect a guillotine in Bandon and execute him straight away without any need for a trial and due process and other bleeding-heart human rights considerations like that at all.
I’m sure there are many who would pay a hefty entrance fee to witness an Englishman so demonised by the media getting literally topped.
It is fortunate for him, though, that the phone conversations that the bent coppers didn’t know were being taped came to light. Bailey was stitched up, and the real investigation that we need is to find out who and what – both in Ireland and in France – are covering up for the real murderer.
What evidence do tbe french have that makes them think they can convict him? Also it appears to me that the victim was well connected back in France. To think that 20 years later they are still after Bailey with such vengeance.
If they cant charge him here where it happened then France must have a lower threshold for the same crime. Primo reason not to extradite. This is the kerry babies all over again. Trumped up garda BS
Ken thats not how it works with an EWA unfortunately. the main issue here is the extraterritoriality of certain criminal offences
Look they will get him. They try him. Find him guilty and if we refuse to extradite after that then the French will go to europe. And Europe will force us to hand him over
@oliverjumelle
But what would the European Court of Human Rights (if it gets that far) say about the case?
The fact of the matter is that the Supreme Court ruled against a request to extradite Bailey.
The fact is there’s not a shred of physical evidence against Bailey – only witness testimony that was later withdrawn because the witness said she was put under duress by Gardai.
Yes. But you are also looking at a case where the investigating police force made such a mess that the French had to take over. They refused to extradite him over the fact that he wasn’t charged! That’s one view Europe will take. Once he is charged then that’s a diffrent kettle of fish. Read the Wikipedia article about the European arrest warrant.
@oliverjumelle
The Supreme Court ruled that the warrant was invalid because it did not specify that Mr Bailey was wanted for the purpose of charge as opposed to questioning and Irish law only permits extradition for the purpose of charge.
It also ruled by a four to one majority that the French warrant was not valid on the grounds of reciprocity in that Ireland did not have a corresponding piece of legislation to that in France while allows the French authorities to prosecute someone for the murder of a French citizen abroad.
The only provision in Irish law for the prosecution of an offence committed abroad is if the accused person, not the victim as in French law , is an Irish citizen and the Supreme Court ruled that because it breached this principle of reciprocity, the French warrant for Mr Bailey was invalid.
Should we allow this to happen? The French courts should not have jurisdiction for a murder committed in Ireland
One thing’s for sure the french won’t be as incompetent as the Irish in trying to solve this case 00
Guilty as sin.
Guilty as sin
Evidence?
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt?
If you have information, please take it to the Gardai, or the Gendarmerie.
but stop by here on the way to tell us
You probably think oj simpson is innocent too..
@Rapunzel: The evidence suggests you don’t think at all… It’s quite clear the investigation was mishandled and whoever is guilty, whether that’s Ian Bailey or another, is still out there free thanks to Garda incompetence and that’s something the investigation shares with the OJ Simpson one. Now it seems he is getting extradited and comments are closed on all future articles dealing with this case. What I’d like to know is do the French have any extra evidence or are they relying on the debunked evidence provided by Bandon’s bent cops? Are we really going to send a man who is innocent in the eyes of our legal system abroad to face trial on flawed evidence because that makes this a very dark day indeed.
F..K THE FRENCH and the Irish for entertaining them in this soveign state ‘
The French legal system is based on Napoleonic Law – guilty until proven innocent. He could be kept locked up for years while the prosecution hunt for evidence to try him with.
Incorrect. It’s in fact : innocent until proven guilty.
If they send someone to jail, it’s for two reasons: the suspect is dangerous, or may run away.
Try as they did, dirty tricks and all, the Gardaí couldn’t find much evidence to pin it on him, so what chance has Inspector Clouseau got of doing better?
I’ve always felt that the French should have been looking somewhere closer to home, i.e. in France, for the murderer, but the Gardaí gave them an ideal person to frame.
The French must be nuts to believe they will succeed.Not a hope.
“Who’s taking the perp to France?”
Hey! Does anyone remember way back when Justice was predicated on the belief that 10 guilty men go free before an innocent man is convicted?
Clearly Gardai bungled the investigation to begin with. The Gendarmes should have been involved in the original investigation. I don’t understand what evidence they feel they have for a conviction at this point, but hey, a few people on here would have him hung, drawn and quartered even without a trial.
What is the point of this?. The Supreme Court refused to extradite that thing before , won’t the result be the same again.
No because he is now charged with murder
If the French have new evidence that would lead to charges being brought against anyone in relation to this murder they should present it to the DPP in Ireland and see if it stands up to scrutiny here leading the DPP charging someone and an ultimate conviction or acquittal. This crime was committed in Ireland ,therefore any charges should be brought in Ireland. An Irish murder with a French trial would be nonsensical.Can you imagine the Jackal standing trial in Ireland for a murder committed in France. The word incongruous comes to mind.
“Its an affront to our justice system” well if our justice system wasn’t so awful maybe they would have let it go by now.
Is that the same justice system that allows people with multiple convictions walk free?? That says a lot
When
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