Given it is the most significant extradition of an Irish gangland figure for 25 years, the return of Sean McGovern to his native Dublin is expected to involve a big security operation.
After arriving from Dubai at Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel on an Irish Air Corps aircraft, McGovern is expected be taken immediately under armed escort to the Special Criminal Court to face charges of murder and directing organised crime.
The operation to bring him across Dublin, within a tight mobile security cordon, will likely involve a mix of Defence Forces and Garda personnel, most of them armed. The precise details of how he will be moved are tightly guarded, but such escorted journeys usually involve a convoy of vehicles.
However, in this case it is possible that at least some of the trip to the Courts of Criminal Justice (CCJ) complex in the north inner city could involve a helicopter flight.
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Should even a portion of the escort be done by road it would involve rolling street closures to ensure the fastest journey time possible and minimise any possible security risk while McGovern is on the move, including any effort to free him.
That risk is the prime reason why a helicopter being used to bring him as close as possible to the CCJ has been considered an option during the planning stages.
McGovern (39) has been one of a small group at the apex of the Kinahan cartel living openly in Dubai. He would likely serve 30 years in prison if convicted of the Kinahan-Hutch feud murder of Noel Kirwan (62) in 2016.
His is the highest risk extradition since John Gilligan was brought back from the UK to Ireland 25 years ago to face charges of murdering journalist Veronica Guerin and drug dealing.
Unlike Gilligan’s extradition, performed under oft used arrangements between Britain and Ireland, McGovern’s journey from Dubai is different. It is a red letter day for Irish policing, the Republic’s and UAE’s legal systems and the relationship between the State and the Emirate.
There is no extradition treaty between the EU and UAE, which has previously been slow to co-operate with western countries on law enforcement matters. McGovern is the first person ever extradited to Ireland from the UAE and he was also the first member of the Kinahan cartel arrested in Dubai.
He was being extradited under a special once-off legal arrangement agreed by authorities in the UAE and Ireland. Since he was arrested at his Dubai home last October, on foot of the extradition request by the Irish authorities, a new extradition agreement has been put in place.
However, that treaty, a permanent arrangement, cannot be retrospective. It means it can only be used for cases initiated after it was signed late last year, thus excluding McGovern’s case.
It has taken a near 10-year diplomatic campaign – undertaken by successive government’s and the Garda – to reach this juncture. Former assistant Garda commissioner John O’Driscoll, who died suddenly last year after retiring, was a central player in those efforts.
He was crucial to convincing the US to join the international fight against the cartel, which led to financial and travel sanctions being imposed on its leaders in Dubai. The involvement of the US authorities also ramped up pressure on the UAE to co-operate with Ireland.
Helen McEntee travelled to Dubai to meet her counterparts while serving as minister for justice. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has done likewise. When interviewed in Dubai last year by The Irish Times, Mr Harris said he believed the UAE authorities, including Dubai Police, were co-operating fully with him and his colleagues. He insisted that co-operation would lead to firm results.
That first result is the extradition of McGovern, though the bigger prizes – still being worked towards – are charges being approved against, and the extraditions of Christy Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christopher, who remain headquartered in Dubai.
The murder McGovern is charged with, that of Noel Kirwan in December 2016, was regarded as particularly cruel. He was shot six times outside his home in Clondalkin as part of the Kinahan-Hutch feud, even though he was not involved in it or organised crime.
Mr Kirwan was pictured at the funeral of feud victim Eddie Hutch in February, 2016, alongside his brother, Gerard Hutch, known as The Monk. Gerard Hutch was named in Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) evidence to the High Court as the main protagonist in the Kinahan-Hutch feud on the Hutch side. On the other side, Cab told the court, was Daniel Kinahan, Liam Byrne and Freddie Thompson. Byrne and Thompson have run the Kinahan cartel’s Irish operation at different times.
The fact Mr Kirwan was spotted at the Hutch funeral was enough for the cartel to target him.
As well as being charged with his murder, McGovern is also facing charges of directing organised crime in Dublin.
McGovern was a close associate of Liam Byrne and was a member of his gang – the ‘Byrne organised crime group’ – running the cartel’s Irish operation. However, about a decade ago he began rapidly moving up the hierarchy in the cartel and moved to Dubai to effectively act as Daniel Kinahan’s day-to-day right hand man.
McGovern was wounded in the Kinahan-Hutch feud-related attack at the Regency Hotel, north Dublin, in 2016, and was one of seven men at the apex of the cartel sanctioned by the US authorities in 2022.
At the time, he was described by the department of the treasury in the US as “Daniel Kinahan’s advisor and closest confidant”. It further stated that “evidence indicates that all dealings with Daniel Kinahan go through Sean McGovern”.
McGovern, whose house in Crumlin, Dublin, was seized by Cab in 2019, also “managed communications on behalf of Daniel Kinahan, and he sells multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine”, it said.
