Vol. 534 No. 5
14 Mr. Noonan asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if the proposed arrangements for dealing with persons on the run who committed crimes in Northern Ireland prior to the ceasefire will also apply to those who committed crimes in this jurisdiction prior to the ceasefire; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8994/01]
166 Mr. Noonan asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform whether the arrangements for dealing with persons who are on the run for crimes committed in Northern Ireland prior to the ceasefire will also apply to those who committed crimes in this jurisdiction prior to the ceasefire; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9950/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 14 and 166 together.
On 29 September 2000 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced that the British Government would no longer pursue the extradition of 21 individuals, including eight from this State, who had been convicted of offences committed prior to the Good Friday Agreement. Those concerned would, under the early release scheme in the Agreement, have had little if any of their original sentence to serve if they returned to Northern Ireland. That decision related only to extradition and did not mean that those concerned were immune from arrest if they returned voluntarily to the North. However, it was made clear that an application for early release in any such case could be made to the sentence review commissioners. This procedure was invoked by some of those involved and last month seven of these persons were released on licence by the sentence review commissioners. An eighth person was, for technical reasons and to avoid an anomaly, given early release using the Royal Prerogative of Mercy.
As regards this jurisdiction, while the issue of extradition is not relevant, provision has been made in the Criminal Justice (Release of Prisoners) Act, 1998, in relation to the early release of prisoners in accordance with the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. While procedures I described earlier apply to persons on the run from enforcement of sentence, there are also those who may be on the run with a view to avoiding prosecution. In this regard, in a statement issued at Hillsborough on 8 March, the two Governments recognised that, with the completion of the early release scheme, there was an issue to be addressed about supporters of organisations now on ceasefire against whom there are outstanding prosecutions and, in some cases, extradition proceedings for offences committed before 10 April 1998. The statement recognised that such people would, if convicted, stand to benefit from the early release scheme. The Governments accepted that, in the context of the agreement of May 2000 being implemented, it would be a natural development of the scheme for such prosecutions not to be pursued and indicated their intention as soon as possible to take such steps as were necessary in their jurisdictions to resolve this difficulty so that those concerned would no longer be pursued.
