THE Garda Siochana spent a week searching for the original extradition warrant for the Dublin man, Mr Anthony Duncan, fearing that the document might have been lost and could fall into the wrong hands, it has been learned.
The faulty extradition document at the centre of this week's Dail row also made its way into court despite being handled by officers more senior than the sergeant who was moved from his position on April 18th. An hour before the court hearing on Saturday, April 13th, the file was also inspected by a solicitor from the Chief State Solicitor's Office.
The controversy surrounding the mislaying, and possible destruction, of the original warrant continued to rumble on in the Dail yesterday as the Minister for Justice confirmed that a Garda sergeant who had custody of it had been transferred to other duties more than a month ago.
Mrs Owen told the House during a two hour debate on the matter that she had only learned an hour previously that the transfer of the sergeant had taken place, on the direction of the Garda Commissioner, Mr Patrick Culligan, con April 18/19th".
This confirmation led Opposition politicians to conclude that the Garda authorities knew on that date that the document had gone missing in Garda Headquarters.
Otherwise, why take disciplinary action against the sergeant? All the material facts of the case, therefore, were known on April 8th. That is the reality", said Mr Willie O'Dea, of Fianna Fail.
Mr Michael McDowell, of the Progressive Democrats, said that a child of 12 with average intelligence" would have known within three days of the collapse of Mr Duncan's extradition that the mistake had occurred in Ireland. It was no coincidence" that the sergeant had been removed from his duties in charge of the unit dealing with extradition matters.
"What is remarkable is that the Taoiseach could tell the Dail on April 24th that he had no reason to believe there was any omission on the Irish side", Mr McDowell added.
According to Mr O'Dea, it beggared belief to claim that it had taken the Garda, at the highest level, almost six weeks to discover that the warrant had gone missing in its own offices and had been mislaid by gardai.
The Minister for Justice and the Taoiseach expected the House to believe that they did not know about the mislaying of the original warrant until up to five weeks after the incident. "That is a national scandal and has all the essential ingredients of a cover up", he added.
Gardai believe that the mix up occurred during photocopying in Garda Headquarters at about midnight on April 12th/13th, after the original warrant had been delivered to Garda Headquarters by a detective superintendent from New Scotland Yard at 10.45 p.m. on April 12th.
Earlier in the evening, a sergeant in the Extradition Section had been called in to process the warrant due to be delivered by the Scotland Yard officer.
On its arrival, the document was passed to the Extradition Section offices, where it was processed and then delivered across the square in Garda Headquarters to the Security Branch offices by a superintendent.
The document was sent there to be endorsed by the Assistant Commissioner in the Crime and Security Branch, Mr Noel Conroy.
On the Saturday morning, the document purporting to be the warrant to be produced in court was inspected by a solicitor from the Chief State Solicitor's Office. The document was then brought to court, where it was found to be a photocopy and was ruled inadmissible.
The controversy is set to dog the Government in the Dail again next week in spite of assurances from Mrs Owen that the procedures were being reviewed and tightened to avoid a repetition. That process was already well under way, she said.
Mrs Owen told the House yesterday that she had acted scrupulously in placing the facts of the extradition case controversy before the Dail.