Mr Justice Paul Burns delivered his judgment at the High Court this afternoon, in which he ruled that Mr Bailey could not be surrendered to France on foot of a European Arrest Warrant last year.
This is the third time French authorities sought Mr Bailey’s surrender in relation to the death of Ms du Plantier, whose badly beaten body was found outside her holiday home in Schull in December 1996.
The former journalist (63), of The Prairie, Liscaha, Schull, west Cork, was convicted of the French woman’s murder in his absence in a Paris court in May 2019. The three-judge Cour d’Assises (criminal trial court) in Paris accordingly imposed a 25-year prison sentence on Mr Bailey in his absence. Mr Bailey, who denies any involvement in Ms du Plantier’s death, did not attend the French court and had no legal representation in the proceedings, which he has described as a “farce”.
Mr Bailey was never charged with the killing and the DPP ruled in a 2001 analysis of the garda file against Mr Bailey that there was insufficient evidence to merit a prosecution and directed that Mr Bailey should not be charged.
