Ross engages NI solicitor and will enter not guilty plea

Cork-born financier Mr Finbarr Ross (53) has engaged a solicitor in Northern Ireland and is to plead not guilty when his case comes to court.

Mr Ross was arrested by the FBI in Oklahoma in March 1998 on foot of extradition warrants from the RUC. It is expected that he will be extradited to Northern Ireland in the coming weeks.

He has argued unsuccessfully against his extradition in a number of US courts and a final decision in his case is now to be taken by the US Department of State. Sources say it would be unusual for the department to go against the courts in a non-political case.

Mr Ross is facing 41 fraud-related charges following the collapse of his company, International Investments Ltd (IIL), in 1984. His solicitor in Northern Ireland believes he has a strong case against all 41 charges on both factual and legal grounds. Mr Ross may also seek a judicial review of the charges against him, where he would argue that, given the period of time which has elapsed since the alleged offences, he could not now be given a fair trial.

Mr Ross argued before the US courts that a five-year statute of limitations in relation to the alleged offences should apply and he should not therefore be extradited. However, the courts found that he had been a fugitive while in the US and that the statute of limitations, as a consequence, did not apply. Mr Ross had argued that he had been living openly in the US since 1983 and that his name had been listed in US telephone directories.

The warrants against Mr Ross were issued in June 1996 and relate to offences as far back as 1983. Some of the central figures in the affair are now dead.

If extradited to Northern Ireland, Mr Ross will be brought before a Magistrates Court and returned by that court for trial in the Crown Court, probably in Belfast. The trial, if it goes ahead, would be likely to take place this autumn or in the spring of next year.

Mr Ross may make a bail application before either the Magistrates Court or Crown Court. If found guilty, it would be open to the Northern Ireland courts to take into account the time he has already served in the US awaiting extradition.

Bail applications by Mr Ross in the US courts were denied on the basis that he was a fugitive. He has been held since March 4th, 1998, in Muskogee City Federal Jail, Oklahoma. Last month, Mr Ross, who is an ordained minister of the New Age-style Light of Christ Church, told The Irish Times he has managed to cope with imprisonment "with prayer and the help of God and Mother Mary".

Some 1,200 investors with IIL lost some £7 million (€8.9 million) when the company collapsed in 1984. Many of the investors were elderly people who lost their savings with the collapse of the Gibraltar-registered company. Most of the investors were residents of Northern Ireland, although some were from the Republic. IIL had offices in Dublin, but no charges were ever brought against Mr Ross by the authorities in the Republic.

Asked last month if he still maintained his innocence, Mr Ross said: "I haven't got any money. They (the RUC) have all my bank records since before I came to the US and after I came. They know I do not have the money."

In a deposition by RUC Insp Noel Leckey, lodged in the court in Muskogee last year, it was alleged that money from IIL was advanced to Mr Ross and to a company in Texas called Pan European Resources Inc, which was controlled by Mr Ross. It was also alleged that unsecured loans were given to certain unnamed individuals.