Gardaí pursue extradition of Ahmed Al Saqar for Killarney murder of Jamey Carney

Irish police have received DPP directions to charge Ahmed Al Saqar over the murder of American Jamey Carney in Killarney, but face a diplomatic hurdle: Ireland has no extradition treaty with Jordan.

Irish police move to extradite Killarney murder suspect held in Jordan

Gardaí have taken formal steps to extradite Ahmed Al Saqar (28), charged in connection with the murder of American Jamey Carney (43) in Killarney, Co Kerry, after the Director of Public Prosecutions directed them to charge the man last week, the Irish Times reports.

Carney, a mother of one from Westchester County, New York, was found dead in an upstairs bedroom of her rented home at Homeland on the Muckross Road in Killarney on the afternoon of 7 July. A family member discovered her body. A postmortem examination established that she died as a result of asphyxiation. Carney had moved to Ireland in May 2021 and was employed by a healthcare consulting company in Co Kerry. Her 13-year-old daughter Michaela had been living with her at the address.

Al Saqar, Carney's boyfriend, left Ireland before gardaí learned of the killing. Investigators believe he boarded a bus from Mission Road in Killarney at 4.30am on 7 July, travelled to Bachelors Walk in Dublin, and then took a taxi to Dublin Airport. He departed on a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul at 10.40am — arriving there at approximately the same time gardaí were first informed of the murder.

From Istanbul, Al Saqar is believed to have continued on to his home country of Jordan. Within days of his arrival, officers from Jordan's Public Security Directorate arrested and detained him, even though gardaí had at that stage made no request for his detention. He remains in custody in Jordan. It is believed the fact that Carney held American citizenship may have been a factor in the Jordanian decision to act.

Investigation file forwarded to DPP

Detectives compiled a comprehensive investigation file that included witness statements, CCTV footage, DNA evidence and the postmortem findings, before forwarding it to the DPP. The direction to charge was received last week.

Two senior officers — Det Insp John Kelly of the Kerry Garda Division, the senior investigation officer in the case, and Det Insp Brian Quirke, national interview adviser from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI) — travelled to Jordan in late July to meet officials in Amman.

Gardaí must now obtain an arrest warrant for Al Saqar from a District Court judge. That warrant will be forwarded to the Garda extradition unit within NBCI, which will prepare an international arrest warrant and present it to the High Court for endorsement. If the High Court endorses it, Irish officials will make diplomatic representations to Jordan seeking Al Saqar's return.

No formal treaty complicates process

The central obstacle is that Ireland does not have a formal extradition treaty with Jordan. Extradition lawyer Colleen Gildernew, a partner with KOD Lyons, told The Claire Byrne Show on Newstalk that the absence of a pre-existing treaty will make securing Al Saqar's return challenging.

Gildernew nonetheless pointed to a potential route through Washington. "They can assist with the investigation, and they can also make diplomatic representations — and that may be useful when it comes to Jordan, because the USA and Jordan do have a treaty," she said.

She outlined a scenario in which the United States could leverage that existing bilateral treaty to apply pressure. "It could be the case that the request for extradition is made [by the Irish authorities], and then the American authorities come in and use their influence to see if Jordan will then agree to extradite, even without the formal treaty in place," Gildernew said.

While the US would not be able to seek extradition for a crime committed on Irish soil, Gildernew noted that American authorities could share intelligence and make diplomatic representations that might prove decisive in securing Jordan's cooperation.

Irish law permits extradition only for the purposes of charge or the serving of a sentence already imposed — not for questioning — a distinction that required gardaí to bring a full DPP direction before proceeding with the international warrant process.

Source: Irish Times