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Dublin will accept a ruling by the Irish High Court not to extradite a Briton to France following a murder conviction in a high-profile case dating back decades, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Last year, Ian Bailey was convicted in his absence by a Paris court of murdering Sophie Toscan du Plantier, the 39-year-old wife of film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier.
His body was found outside his holiday home in southern Ireland in 1996, hit on the head with a concrete block and dressed in nightwear.
Bailey has consistently denied any involvement. Although detained and questioned, he has never been charged in Ireland in connection with the case.
On 12 October, the High Court of Ireland rejected a third extradition request from the French authorities.
One judge said it could not afford because while France claims jurisdiction over the murder of a French citizen in a foreign country by a foreign citizen, Ireland does not do the same.
And on Tuesday, Frank Buttimer, Bailey’s lawyer, told AFP that the Irish justice minister had decided that “there would be no request for a certificate from the higher court to obtain permission to appeal.”
“In the absence of some extraordinary event … that is the end of the extradition nightmare,” Buttimer said, adding that his client had expressed “enormous relief.”
A spokesperson for the Plantier family said they were stunned by the latest twist in the long-running saga.
Irish prosecutors have said that the original Irish police investigation was “completely flawed” due to long delays in reaching the crime scene.
In 2014, Plantier’s family described the Irish investigation as a “judicial fiasco” and a “denial of justice”.
