The Air Corps flight carrying Daniel Kinahan has taken off from Dubai, with the alleged cartel leader expected to land at Casement Aerodrome on Sunday evening ahead of a court appearance.
The Government jet departed Al Maktoum International Airport at about 10.30am Irish time and is expected to arrive in Baldonnel, Co Dublin around 7pm. Kinahan will be arrested on arrival and taken before the Special Criminal Court.
The Defence Forces flight, with a team of gardaí on board, flew out to Dubai on Saturday morning.
The last leg of Kinahan’s extradition was under way on Sunday after years of investigations into his alleged activities by the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.
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Senior Garda members and Government ministers also engaged in a diplomatic process with their counterparts in the United Arab Emirates to ensure an extradition treaty was put in place.
Dubliner Kinahan (49) is the first person to be extradited from UAE to the Republic under the new, permanent treaty, which came into force last year.
His close associate, Sean McGovern, was extradited from UAE last year, under a special once-off arrangement. McGovern has since been sentenced to 24 years for directing the Kinahan cartel’s crimes.
Kinahan, who has lived openly in Dubai for 10 years with his wife and children, is expected to face a charge of directing organised crime when he appears before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin’s north inner city on Sunday night.
A major security operation, involving armed gardaí from the force’s specialist units, will be in place to escort him from Baldonnel across the city to the court building, where security will also be tight.
After his court appearance, which is expected to be brief, he will be taken in a new bulletproof and blast-proof Irish Prison Service van to Portlaoise Prison. It is then expected that he will be remanded in custody at that jail, a maximum-security prison, until his trial next year.
On Sunday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin paid “a very strong tribute” to An Garda Síochana, the Garda Commissioner and successive Ministers of Justice, in terms of the Garda’s success in tackling organised crime “in a very effective way.”
Speaking at Tullamore Show where he was asked for his response to the Daniel Kinihan extradition, Martin said he could not comment on any individual case, but said the Garda deserved “real credit” for their consistent, determined focus on organised crime more generally.
“And also I pay tribute to the authorities in the United Arab Emirates for the strong cooperation with Ireland over recent years in this field more generally. Ireland has worked hard to develop strong partnerships at a global level, because international criminal activity is global, and the connections are global, so global partnerships are essential,” he said.
The Taoiseach added: “We have dealt with threats to the State in the past, very serious threats over a long period of time, and our gardaí and security forces were resilient in the face of those threats.
“And likewise, in terms of the threats of modern gangland crime and the international dimension of that, we have strengthened our capacities, we strengthened our laws, and our capacities to undermine such activity.”
More to follow
