LETTER: Abhorrent use of a draconian law

SIR – There is an archaic statute in French law whereby the State can demand people are handed over for alleged crime committed outside of France. This was a draconian law brought in by none other than that murderous French tyrant, Napolean Bonaparte, who when the notion took him, would have perceived enemies to his power transported to France from other countries he was in the process of subduing, and have them tortured and summarily executed.

This is the type of ‘legislation,’ if it can be called that, which is now being used to try Ian Bailey for the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, without a shred of evidence against him, and which the Irish authorities are expected to comply with in extraditing him to France. We have been over this ground so many times; we know of its absurdity pertaining to matters of Irish law and due process.

Yet there always never appears to be a final answer from the powers-that-be here when rejecting French demands. 

That door seems to be never shut in the ongoing persecution of Mr Bailey. 

Why, when even the courts have said that, by his personal responses to the case investigated in Ireland, Mr Bailey has, in essence, shown himself to be an innocent man. 

But people here, and in France, merely point to his dubiously failed court actions for compensation, as a pointer to his ‘guilt.’ Pshaw!

Robert Sullivan,

Bantry.