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Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan has said today that Gardaí are to engage with police services in Jordan as part of the investigation into the killing of Jamey Carney.
Mr O’Callaghan today expressed his condolences to the family of the 43-year-old US national, who was found dead with srrious injuries at her Killarney home last week.
The “person of significant interest” in the case is understood to have travelled on a bus from Kerry to Dublin in the hours before Ms Carney’s body was discovered, before flying back to the Middle East, where he is from.
Speaking on Monday, Mr O’Callaghan said: “No matter where you are, the gardaí will seek to pursue you.”
This is despite the fact that no extradition treaty exists between Ireland and either Jordan or Syria.
Accepting this could make the investigation challenging, the Minister for Justice admitted: “It obviously is difficult. I’m not going to try and make it sound easy. If he’s in a country where we don’t have an extradition agreement, it may be difficult to get him.
“But that situation happened in the United Arab Emirates, and we secured an agreement with the United Arab Emirates, and we returned a person here who has been convicted of a very serious offence of organised criminal activity, and another person is incarcerated in the United States.”
O’Callaghan added: “I know from speaking to the [Garda] Commissioner that the gardaí have great connections with other police forces around the world. And I know that they will be pursuing every line of inquiry to ensure that a person, if that person is charged with an offence, can be brought to justice here.”
The Minister for Justice was also pressed on whether US authorities were working on the case, to which he responded: “The gardaí and I, if I’m required to provide any assistance, will use whatever measure we can to ensure that if a person is charged, that that person is brought back to Ireland to face those charges before the Irish courts”.
It comes as it was revealed that Gardaí believe the suspect, Ahmad al-Saqar, may have reached tribal areas of his native Jordan by way of Turkey and Syria.
It is hoped that elite US agencies may now play a key role in confirming his whereabouts, as Washington has a huge influence on the country, providing €1.3 billion in military and economic aid each year to the Middle Eastern country.
A Garda request to Interpol for help with the investigation into Ms Carney’s death, which is being treated as a murder investigation, will now be monitored by the United States National Central Bureau (USNCB).
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