Mr Con Pendred, the solicitor representing a Romanian refugee who was deported and then returned to Ireland when he was en route to Bucharest, was stated in court yesterday to have "misrepresented" a High Court judge's order.
Mr Patrick McCarthy SC, counsel for the State, told Mr Justice Quirke that Mr Pendred had misrepresented to gardai and Aer Lingus that a habeas corpus order directing the return of Dumitru Popa to Ireland had been made by the court.
Mr McCarthy said this clearly had not been the case and Mr Justice Herbert had made it quite clear that he had made no order of a habeas corpus nature.
Earlier, Det Supt Michael Finn, of the Garda National Immigration Bureau, told the High Court in an affidavit that a garda escort had left Dublin Airport at 3.55 p.m. on August 1st to travel to Bucharest with Mr Popa.
At 4.40 p.m. Mr Pendred had phoned to tell him he had obtained an order of habeas corpus at 4.05 p.m. directing that Mr Popa was to be produced before the High Court the next day.
Mr Pendred had said the application to the High Court had been based on the fact that Mr Popa had not received notification of the making of the deportation order directing his removal from the State.
Supt Finn said that at about 6 p.m. Det Garda Cormac Brennan phoned him from Amsterdam and said he had been told by the pilot that Mr Popa was the subject of a High Court order.
Based on information conveyed by Mr Pendred to the airline, the flight arrangements to Bucharest were cancelled. He believed he was obliged to return Mr Popa to Dublin and he directed the escort to return with him.
Mr McCarthy said that Mr Popa had been brought back to Ireland from Amsterdam because the State thought a habeas corpus order had been made. Mr Popa had been detained on his return to Dublin Airport for the purpose of producing him before the High Court on foot of a court order which had been misrepresented to the State by his own solicitor.
Dr Michael Forde SC, counsel for Mr Popa, told Mr Justice Quirke that there had been confusion on August 1st.
Mr Pendred, in an affidavit, said that, regarding contacting the gardai and Aer Lingus, his priority on August 1st was to ensure that Mr Popa would not be deported. That process was being carried out. Once he knew that Mr Popa was in the air, it was imperative that he so inform Aer Lingus. Otherwise the court order would have been frustrated.
He said he told Supt Finn that an order in habeas corpus proceedings had been made and that there was injunctive relief against the deportation. He had also said an ex-parte application for habeas corpus would be made on the morning of August 3rd.
He said that his secretary, in discussions with the State Solicitor's Office, may have described Mr Justice Herbert's order as a conditional order of habeas corpus. He felt there was no real difference in substance between an order in habeas corpus proceedings restraining deportation and a conditional order to produce the body of the person being detained.