GILLIGAN OUT BY XMAS; Drug baron's plea to President.Byline: By PAT FLANAGAN GANG boss John Gilligan has boasted that he will be back on the streets before Christmas with more than e17million in his pocket. The drug baron's legal team have written to President Mary McAleese asking that she commute his sentence and have him released from jail. Lawyer Giovanni di Stefano Giovanni di Stefano (born 1955) is a European lawyer[] based in Italy who frequently works in the United Kingdom. He has made a reputation advising the defence in high-profile criminal cases in English and international courts. , who has worked for Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic and has been referred to as the "devil's advocate", has gone to the High Court demanding a new trial. And a court judgment in nine days could reverse a confiscation confiscation In law, the act of seizing property without compensation and submitting it to the public treasury. Illegal items such as narcotics or firearms, or profits from the sale of illegal items, may be confiscated by the police. Additionally, government action (e.g. order that threatened to seize EUR EUR In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Euro. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. 17.7million of Gilligan's assets. The High Court has ruled that the confiscation was unlawful but the Director of Public Prosecutions Director of Public Prosecutions n → fiscal m/f general del Estado Director of Public Prosecutions direct (Brit) n → Generalstaatsanwalt m (DPP DPP - Dining Philosophers Problem ) appealed to the Supreme Court. However, leading criminal lawyers believe that Gilligan, who has been in custody since 1996, is likely to win his cash back. Another Supreme Court judgment could also see him released from prison. That appeal, on whether the use of the witness protection programme by gardai and the DPP was legal, has been on hold since July. A spokeswoman for the President said Gilligan's request was received on September 12. The spokeswoman added: "On September 13 a reply was issued to say that this was being referred to the Government for their attention. "Commuting a sentence would have to be on the advice of the Government, be that the Minister for Justice or the Taoiseach, asking for it to be done on behalf of the Government." Mr di Stefano has argued that because Gilligan was extradited from the UK on the basis that his crime - possession of 180kg of cannabis - corresponded to the same crime in Ireland, so should the sentence. He stated: "In the United Kingdom for the offences upon which he was convicted, irrelevant whether rightly or wrongly, the maximum sentence would have been 14 years. For those reasons the application of Mr Gilligan should succeed." Gilligan was sentenced to 28 years in jail for the drugs offences but the Court of Criminal Appeal reduced the term to 20 years. The Taoiseach's office said Mr di Stefano's letter had been forwarded to Justice Minister Michael McDowell. Mr di Stefano added: "This man was convicted of possession of 180kg of cannabis. You don't give a man 28 years for that." CAPTION(S): REQUEST: Gilligan is in prison |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion