The Fine Gael MEP, Ms Mary Banotti, has agreed to appear at the Old Bailey in London today on behalf of Ms Elaine Moore, the Artane woman on terrorist charges with the three Irishmen.
Her legal team will today make a fresh application for bail at the Old Bailey, the British equivalent of the Central Criminal Court.
Ms Banotti had given a letter of reference for Ms Moore for yesterday's bail application at Belmarsh Magistrate's Court, similar to the district court here. The former Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Peter Barry of Fine Gael, has offered £50,000 towards bail.
Ms Banotti said last night that she has known Ms Moore for a number of years and also knows her mother well. "Elaine is a member of Fine Gael along with her mother Cathy, who was a Fine Gael candidate in Artane at the local elections in 1991."
Ms Banotti said she had canvassed for Ms Moore's mother at the election and both had canvassed for her and Fine Gael in local, European and presidential elections.
Ms Moore's mother asked Ms Banotti for help when her daughter was arrested on July 10th. "Contrary to some newspaper reports, although Elaine completed a modelling course, she is not a model. She works for a computer firm where she got a job in March and five weeks later she was promoted.
"She is a bright, attractive, nice person who was caught up in dreadful circumstances. I am absolutely confident she is innocent."
An official from the Irish Embassy in London has visited her in the all-male maximum security detention prison at Milton Keynes, where she is being held in isolation.
Ms Banotti said Ms Moore said she was being treated very well in the prison but it was totally inappropriate for her to be detained there.
The MEP said Ms Moore had quite innocently allowed someone her brother vaguely knew to stay in her London flat and police had followed him from Dublin.
The prosecution described as "political paraphernalia" found in her flat material on Michael Collins and the first Dail. Ms Banotti said, however, that Ms Moore has a long-standing interest in Michael Collins and owns numerous books on him. "This is considered very sinister," she said. Mr Barry had said in a newspaper interview that "if being a fan of Michael Collins was a crime then the whole of Fine Gael would be in jail".
Ms Banotti referred to the necklace the defendant wore, which the prosecution alleged at her initial court hearing showed she was a supporter of the 32 County Sovereignty Committee. "Her necklace was a Christmas present three years ago from her brother," Ms Banotti said.
