KINAHAN gangster Sean McGovern’s return to Ireland is out of the Gardai’s hands as his case goes through the UAE’s judicial system, top cop Drew Harris has admitted.
Commissioner Harris said the Dublin thug is “working through” the process in Dubai, where he has been banged up since his arrest there in October.
McGovern is wanted here for murder and for directing a criminal group.
But if the UAE extradition process is successful, the Gardai hope it will provide a template to finally bring wanted mob boss Daniel Kinahan back and put him before the courts.
However, Mr Harris would not be drawn on any specific timeline on how matters might unfold.
Speaking on the McGovern case at the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors conference in Killarney last week, Mr Harris said: “Well my understanding is he’s still working through the judicial process in the UAE.
“When he’s within that judicial process, I don’t think it’s particularly wise for me to comment on either timescales or indeed the outcome. It’s subject to a judicial examination and we await the result of that.”
Asked if it was out of the Gardai’s hands, he replied: “Yes, well in effect it’s with the judicial authorities in the UAE, United Arab Emirates.”
But the Justice Minister, Jim O’Callaghan, said he is also being kept up to speed on the matter and praised the work being done by the Gardai.
He said: “The Gardai have done an outstanding job when it comes to taking on and defeating the Kinahan gang.
“Sometimes that’s just taken for granted. I’m not saying you’re taking it for granted, but sometimes we just assume ‘oh that work is being done’.
“So the Gardai did an excellent job in sort of confronting and combating the Kinahan gang.”
McGovern was collared two-and-a-half years after a European Arrest Warrant was issued for him at Dublin’s City Hall.
BOUNTY OFFERED
It was issued on the same day that the US Treasury announced sanctions on the leaders of the cartel, with a $5million bounty put on the heads of Daniel Kinahan, 47, his brother Christopher Jnr, 44, and their 68-year-old father Christy ‘Dapper Don’ Kinahan.
McGovern was lifted on an Interpol ‘red notice’, a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition.
He is fighting the proceedings to boot him back home.
He is wanted over his alleged role in the 2016 murder of Noel ‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan, 62, during the bloody Kinahan-Hutch feud and for directing a criminal organisation.
On the day of the Regency Hotel attack in 2016, which claimed the life of cartel pal David Byrne, dad-of-two McGovern was wounded by a bullet.
EXTRADITION AGREEMENT
He remained in Ireland during the Kinahan cartel’s feud with the Hutch gang, which claimed 18 lives.
But he relocated with his family to the UAE in 2017 and joined the Kinahan leadership, who saw the location as a safe place given no extradition treaty existed at the time with Ireland.
However, an agreement was signed by former Justice Minister Helen McEntee last year.
After Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh was caged in 2019, McGovern stepped up as the cartel’s second in command.
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