Perhaps I was too quick to give credit to the Garda Siochana for its attitude to US (illegal) rendition flights at Shannon.
On 24th November 2007, the new Garda Commissioner urged the public to aid the Gardai in fighting crime.
Five days later, activists at Shannon notified the Gardai of the arrival there of what is allegedly one of the CIAâs busiest rendition Gulfstream private aircraft.
The response of the Garda Siochana was to order the activists to leave the airport and then to arrest them. The activists were waiting at the airport to point out the suspect aircraft. The Gardai refused to search the aircraft.
A junior Government Minister âexplainedâ? the Garda response by stating:
a) The aircarft was only landing briefly;
b) It was owned by a private Las Vegas company
That, in the real world, would suggest inculpatory evidence of a CIA rendition flight, not, as he seems to suggest, exculpatory evidence.
Its not sufficient to suggest that a plane or any vehicle may have been involved in a criminal act at some point in the past where said act took place outside our jurisdiction.
Please provide evidence and the legal powers needed for Gardai to search a private vehicle as none exists.
Are you suggesting that Gardai should have powers to search, detain and possible arrest based on a random person suggesting that a vehicle may have been involved in a crime in another jurisdiction when in fact the information being provided is not even first hand?
This is contrary yo law, the presumption of innocence, jurisdiction and civil rights.
That’s an absurd onus to set in this discourse. Plainly, no one is in a position to evince such evidence. The purpose of making allegations of the sort above is to force the government to make tactical concessions to the effect that there may have in fact been prisoners aboard these flights. This seems very probable given more recent revelations relating to the flight-plans of these rendition-planes.