THE Special Criminal Court will rule today on a legal challenge by a Scottish man facing charges of having an incendiary device addressed to the British Labour Party leader, Mr Tony Blair.
Mr Adam Busby (48), a native of Paisley with an address at Upper Gardiner Street in Dublin, was due to stand trial yesterday on a number of charges. The court will rule today on the application by Mr Busby's lawyers to have him freed because he is not properly before the court.
The charges allege that on a date unknown between January 1st, 1995, and March 10th, 1995, he had under his control improvised incendiary devices contained in envelopes addressed to Mr Blair, to the Labour Party's headquarters at Walworth Road in London, and to the Shadow Scottish Secretary, Mr George Robertson MP, in Inverness, intending to use the devices to damage property.
He is also charged with the unlawful possession of an explosive substance, namely an improvised incendiary device, in envelopes addressed to Mr Blair, the Labour Party and Mr Robertson on a date unknown between the same dates.
Busby was one of the high security prisoners released and re-arrested earlier this month after confusion over the delisting of Judge Dominic Lynch from the Special Criminal Court. The prisoners had been either charged or remanded by courts at which Judge Lynch sat while, unknown to him, he was no longer a member of the court.
Yesterday Mr Busby's counsel Mr Brendan Grehan, said the court had to deal with a preliminary issue of jurisdiction. He said his client had been in custody since May and had been refused bail.
Mr Grehan said Mr Busby was rearrested on November 7th at Portlaoise Prison. The decision to release and rearrest Mr Busby had been made by the prison authorities and the Department of Justice who were consciously aware of what they were doing.
Mr Justice Barr, presiding, said "a purely technical mishap" had occurred which had nothing to do with Mr Busby's detention except that the judge was, unknown to himself, not a member of the court.
But Mr Grehan submitted that once a decision had been made that Mr Busby was no longer in lawful custody any further detention was "a deliberate and conscious violation of his constitutional right to liberty".
Mr Paul McDermott, for the State, applied for the case to be adjourned until the outcome of the High Court proceedings in relation to the wider issues raised, by the rearrest of the prisoners.