Gardaí feel they are in a “race against time” to charge a man suspected of the murder of Jamey Carney, a journalist covering the case has said.
The American mother of one was found dead in her Killarney home last Tuesday.
Gardaí announced that her death was being treated as murder and said they hoped to speak to a man in his 20s who knew Ms Carney.
However, before Gardaí could question him, the suspect left Ireland for Turkey, where he travelled onto Jordan.
Since then, he has been arrested and detained by Jordanian police, which Conor Lally of the Irish Times described as an “unusual move”, which seemed to “catch Gardaí unawares”.
“It is possible that the Jordanian authorities knew that he was a person of interest for a crime here in Ireland,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“So, they decided they would pick him up there and hold him.
“Or he could have been arrested for some other issue - we really don't know that at the moment.
“There is really a lot of uncertainty and a lot of confusion around why he is detained.”
Jamey Carney.Mr Lally continued that Gardaí are “happy” he is being held in Jordan and were concerned that he planned to flee across into war-torn Syria, where it would be “very, very hard to get him back”.
“I think if he's in Jordan, there'll be a better opportunity if he's there,” he said.
“There is no extradition agreement between either Ireland or Syria or Ireland and Jordan.
“But even in the absence of an agreement like that, any two States can work together and they can come to an agreement to extradite a person back from one place to the other.”
If Gardaí decide to charge him, they will have to prepare a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions, who will then have to approve charges.
Only then, can an extradition request be made to Jordanian authorities.
“It's a bit of a race against time now for the Guards, because if this man is freed there, I think it will be very hard to find him again and it will be very hard to get him back to Ireland,” Mr Lally predicted.
“But really, I feel that the Jordanians can really hold them as long as they want to, because quite frankly, their, you know, their legal system and even their system of human rights does not work in the same way as it would in Ireland or any other EU member state.”
Ms Carney’s funeral mass will take place on 15th July in St. Mary's Cathedral, Killarney.
The service will be live streamed.
Any woman who has been impacted by violence can contact Women’s Aid’s National Freephone Helpline 1800 341 900 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Main image: Jamey Carney. Picture by: RIP.ie.
