GARLAND JUDGMENT:THE DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions should consider whether to prosecute Seán Garland for his alleged involvement in the distribution of counterfeit US dollars, the High Court has ruled.
Giving his reasons for refusing to extradite Mr Garland to the US to face trial there, Mr Justice John Edwards said that the alleged offence would have been harmful, either directly or indirectly, to the interests of the State and the Irish courts should be entitled to assert jurisdiction over the alleged conspiracy. He referred the matter to the DPP.
However, a prosecution of the 77-year-old, who suffers from cancer, diabetes and a heart condition, will require an investigation and the preparation of a file by the Garda into the events at the heart of the extradition application.
Such an investigation has not so far been carried out in this jurisdiction.
In an affidavit to the High Court supporting the extradition application, assistant US attorney Brenda Johnson said the US authorities discovered counterfeit $100 bills, known as supernotes, were in circulation from the late 1980s until at least July 2000. They originated in North Korea, she said.
“This case involved a long-standing and large-scale supernotes distribution network (the Garland organisation) based in the Republic of Ireland and headed by Seán Garland, a senior officer in the Irish Workers’ Party,” she said.
Ms Johnson said one of Mr Garland’s alleged co-conspirators, Hugh Todd, later told investigators he purchased more than $250,000 in supernotes from “the Garland organisation” which were redistributed through currency exchanges across Europe.
He maintained that he first met the Irishman in the Radisson Hotel, Moscow, in April 1998, where Mr Garland emptied a leather bag packed with approximately $80,000 of counterfeit notes on to a bed for $30,000 dollars in genuine notes.
Two months later, the pair met in the Savoy Hotel in Moscow, where between $160,000 and $180,000 of counterfeit US currency was handed over, it is claimed.
Records with Scandinavian Airlines prove Mr Garland was in Russia on both occasions, she added.
Ms Johnson’s affidavit states Mr Garland knew the notes were counterfeit, that he travelled circuitous routes and met with conspirators to discuss the supernotes operation and engage in transactions.
“Some members who were apprehended in possession of or passing notes have admitted that Mr Garland was the source and leader of an illegal supernote distribution organisation and that [Christopher] Corcoran was his direct contact, communicator and negotiator,” she said. “Their statements are substantiated by documentary evidence, physical and electronic surveillance and other witness accounts.”
In 2002, David Levin of Birmingham and London, Terry Silcock and Mark Adderley, both from Birmingham, were jailed for nine, six and four years respectively for what police said was the largest counterfeit dollar operation seen in Britain. Silcock alone handled $4.2 million in counterfeit money, the court heard, and the entire operation was worth $29 million.
Mr Garland, of Beldonstown, Brownstown, Navan, Co Meath, was an IRA leader in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was a key figure in securing the official IRA ceasefire of May 1972.
He was initially arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland on foot of an extradition warrant by the US authorities in October 2005 at the Workers’ Party annual conference in Belfast. He fled to the Republic when released on bail.
He was later arrested outside the Workers’ Party offices in Dublin in January 2009 and released on strict bail conditions, which included surrendering the title deeds to his family home. Yesterday these conditions were discharged.
Opposing the extradition, Dr Michael Forde SC had argued during the case that his client had been accused of a complex, sophisticated transnational conspiracy, but that the charge fell under Ireland’s forgery or money-laundering laws. “The rationale is very simple,” said Dr Forde. “If the offence was committed against Irish law, and a substantial part committed in the State, then the State should prosecute.”
Mr Justice Edwards said that Mr Garland, who is Irish, was living in Ireland at all material times, and was alleged to have been a leading party in the conspiracy. As far as the objective of making money was concerned, it was alleged he was doing so for the Official IRA, a proscribed organisation.
“It would be wrong to conclude that acts as were allegedly committed here were, in the circumstances of the particular case, merely incidental to a conspiracy, the principal or main object of which was to commit a crime or crimes abroad,” he said.