Agreement with South Africa required for extradition of Irish woman arrested after double murder

The extradition of a Dublin woman wanted to face charges in the Republic after a drug-related double murder eight years ago will not take place until next month at the earliest. As there is no extradition treaty between South Africa and the Republic, agreement between the two countries must be reached, and logistic arrangements put in place, before Ruth Lawrence could be extradited.

The 42-year-old, from Clontarf in north Dublin, was arrested in South Africa last week on foot of an Interpol arrest warrant. It had emerged in June a European arrest warrant had been issued for her after the Director of Public Prosecutions directed she should face charges following the murders of Eoin O’Connor (32) and Anthony Keegan (33) in Co Cavan in April 2014.

Ms Lawrence was arrested in South Africa last week after leaving Ireland following the murders. She was expected to apply for bail at the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court in the Free State on Wednesday following her arrest in Pellissier, a suburb of the provincial capital.

However, her legal representative told the presiding magistrate during Wednesday’s court appearance that she had changed her mind regarding applying for bail. Her case was then adjourned to November 16th for the next hearing in the extradition process.

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The Dublin woman and her former boyfriend, Neville van der Westhuizen (39), had been sought by gardaí investigating the murders having both left Ireland in 2014. However, Mr van der Westhuizen is now serving a sentence in his native South Africa for a murder there in 2017.

Gardaí investigating the April 2014 murders of Mr Keegan and Mr O’Connor, both from Coolock in north Dublin, believe they were shot dead on the day they went missing before their bodies were dumped on an island on a lake between Cavan and Meath, where they were not discovered for six weeks.

Detectives believe when the two men went to Cavan to collect a drugs debt on April 22nd, 2014, on behalf of a Dublin drugs gang they were murdered at a rented house. Their remains were then taken in a boat to an island on Lough Sheelin on the Cavan-Meath border. The remains were wrapped in plastic and an effort had been made to bury or conceal the bodies in undergrowth on the island.

Just after the men disappeared gardaí received intelligence, believed to be from the criminal fraternity, that the best friends had been shot dead and their bodies dumped, though no location was specified in the information.

The search for their bodies was complicated by the fact their car was found in Co Westmeath three days after they were last seen alive. Gardaí believe the car had been moved to confuse investigators. The men’s bodies were eventually discovered after an angler noticed a smell on the island on Lough Sheelin before going to investigate and raising the alarm.