THE PROSECUTION IN Irish nanny Aisling Brady McCarthy’s Boston murder trial have claimed that a conspiracy exists where the Irish government will grant her a new passport and ‘sneak her out of the country’ when she posts bail.
The 36-year-old Cavan native is currently awaiting trial for the alleged killing of one-year-old Rehma Sabir while baby-sitting her at the child’s Cambridge, Massachussetts home in January 2013.
She was granted bail of $15,000 two days ago by Judge Maureen Hogan after 29 months of imprisonment while she awaited trial.
McCarthy’s defence lawyer Melinda Thompson had told the court that the prosecution had “attacked” the Irish government by suggesting it would attempt to “sneak her out of the country”.
Thompson subsequently presented McCarthy’s passport (which is valid for five more years) to the court saying that she was doing so to remove the possibility that McCarthy would use it to return home.
She said that the suggestion that McCarthy might be granted a second passport is “ludicrous”.
Assistant District Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had insisted that releasing McCarthy on bail would see her returning to Ireland, either of her own accord or by force (given McCarthy, who is married, was living in America illegally), and that the weakness of extradition between the two countries make her a ‘serious flight risk’.
TheJournal.ie contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs with a view to hearing whether the issuing of a second passport to an Irish citizen is in any way plausible.
“The Department cannot comment on matters which are before the courts,” a spokesperson told us.
This suggests that while the possibility of granting McCarthy a second passport may be far-fetched, certain points of diplomacy regarding the situation probably need to be clarified.
In other words, the situation is more complicated than it looks.
When McCarthy is granted bail (which won’t happen for several days it seems), she will be detained under home confinement and will also wear a GPS location tracker at all times.
The prosecution in the trial contends that baby Rehma died as a result of ‘shaken baby syndrome’.
The defence has since produced nine medical reports from a range of specialists who contend that the injuries Rehma sustained occurred some time prior to her actual death and that McCarthy could not have been responsible.
As such the trial won’t begin until July while a medical examiner reviews the new submissions.
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