Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 388: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to the allegation that a person (details supplied) currently in a US prison was not afforded his right immediately subsequent to his arrest under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, of which Ireland and the US are ratified signatories, to be informed of his rights under that article; if his attention has further been drawn to the fact that President George W. Bush stated in a 28 February 2005 memorandum for the US Attorney General, [i]inter alia[/i], that the United States will discharge its international obligations under the decision of the International Court of Justice in Avena and that therefore US courts would now have jurisdiction to determine whether such violations might have taken place and the implications for that person's conviction and sentence if they had been; if his attention has further been drawn to communications between a person and the Irish Consulate in Massachusetts through which that person seeks to have his individually enforceable rights under the Vienna Convention vindicated in court and that, had it not been for the Avena decision of the ICJ, Ireland would have been morally obliged, as Mexico had been in the Avena decision, to bring a case on his behalf to the ICJ; his views on whether, in view of the Avena decision, that same moral obligation has transferred in order that Ireland must do everything in its power to ensure that a person's rights under Article 36 of the aforementioned Vienna Convention are discharged by the US Government, even if that means supporting a person in his efforts to have such rights as have arisen under that international treaty discharged in US municipal courts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5147/06]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs, through the consulate general in Boston, has closely followed the case of the person mentioned by the Deputy since shortly after his arrest in 1997 and has been in regular contact with him throughout his detention. The person in question was found guilty of the first degree murder of his girlfriend on 30 April 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment. I understand that, following his arrest, the person made a full confession and that his history of mental illness constituted his main defence at the trial. His subsequent appeal against the guilty verdict was rejected. In 2002, an attorney was appointed by the Massachusetts judicial system to lodge a fresh appeal in this case. This appeal requested a new trial on two grounds. The first was that his Vienna Convention rights had been denied, as he was not offered a telephone call to the consulate after his arrest. The second was that the testimony given as to his disturbed mental state at the time of the crime was not given enough weight at his original trial. In 2003, this appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. His attorney subsequently lodged a petition for habeas corpus at the federal court. The court dismissed the petition on the grounds that it had been lodged too late.

The Irish consul-general in Boston recently met with the defence attorney and was informed that a further petition has been lodged to the US Supreme Court on the grounds that the person in question is entitled to habeas corpus relief. It is not appropriate for the Department of Foreign Affairs to become directly involved in legal disputes before the courts in other countries. However, the consulate general in Boston will continue to provide all appropriate consular assistance.