AN aircraft held at Dublin Airport for nearly three years under EU sanctions against the former Yugoslavia should be freed, the High Court ruled yesterday. The Boeing 737 300 was leased by a Turkish air tourism company, Bosphorus, from Yugoslav Airlines (JAT) in April 1992.
In May 1993 the plane was brought to Dublin for a service check by Team Aer Lingus under a contract with Bosphorus. The work being completed, the aircraft was about to leave for Turkey when it was refused permission by the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications.
The plane was impounded on June 8th, 1993. The Minister's order was challenged by Bosphorus and since then there have been a number of hearings before the High Court and Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the Minister said he accepted that Bosphorus was an innocent party which was not in collusion with JAT.
Mr Justice Barr said yesterday the Minister's purported continuing detention of the aircraft under Article 9 of EC Regulation 990/93 had ceased to have validity in law. He directed that the aircraft be returned to Bosphorus forthwith.
The judge said that in August 1994 the Minister purported to detain the aircraft in Dublin under Article 8 and now continued to detain it pursuant to Article 9 on suspicion of having violated the provisions of that regulation.
The aircraft was impounded under Article 8 because a majority or controlling interest in it was held, by an undertaking in or operating from the Federal Republic bf Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenenro).
The possible provision of nonfinancial services within the ambit of Article 1.1(e) was not raised as a potential issue until June 30th, 1994, in a letter from an official at the Minister's Department to Messrs Dillon Eustace, solicitors for Bosphorus.
The judge said there was only one issue which he must address on the present application. That was the question of delay on the part of the Minister in invoking Article 9 and the amount of time which ought reasonably to have sufficed in investigating possible breaches of Article 1.1(e) by Bosphorus to enable the Minister to make a final decision.
The Minister ought not to have awaited the outcome of the challenge to the position he had taken regarding Article 8 before investigating and deciding whether in his view there was breach of Article 1.1(e) to justify forfeiture or indefinite detention of the aircraft.