Irishwoman wanted here in connection with double…

Irishwoman wanted here in connection with double murder led to court in chains

Double murder suspect Ruth Lawrence was led into court in chains yesterday to be told she should be extradited back to
Ireland within four weeks.

South African police and gardai have completed their part of the paperwork and the only signature still required is that of Cape Town’s Justice Minister Ronald Lamola.

She is wanted in Ireland in connection with the murders of two men in 2014.

Lawrence’s defence lawyer requested the right to apply for bail if her extradition process takes longer than a month and asked for her not to be put into prison but kept in police holding cells.

Dubliner Lawrence, 42, has already spent 67 days in the Bainsvlei police cells in Bloemfontein where hygiene is poor, disease is rife and the food said to be almost inedible.

She had already agreed to drop a bail application and decided not to fight extradition in a bid to get back to Ireland as quickly as possible and out of the cell where she is held.

In a bid to speed up the process on-the-run Lawrence has even offered to buy a ticket for her own flight home when she will be accompanied by Gardai who will charge her when she lands.

The suspect sat with her feet shackled in chains for the 10-minute hearing and was then led away by two police officers on what was her fifth and possibly final appearance before magistrates.

If Mr Lamola signs the paperwork in the next four weeks, Lawrence will be taken to the airport in Bloemfontein and deported to Dublin via Johannesburg to await trial.

Lawrence, from Clontarf in North Dublin, is set to be charged over the murders of Dubliners Eoin O’Connor and Anthony Keegan in Co Cavan in in or near her rented home where she was living.

It is thought their bodies were transported by boat onto a nearby island on a lake between Cavan and Meath and buried in a shallow grave.

They were found six weeks later by investigators.

It is understood both men died from gunshots to the head.

Lawrence was arrested by police in Bloemfontein on October 5 at a smart detached bungalow where she had been living and working as a tattooist having dyed her long blonde hair jet black.

Her former partner, South African Neville van der Westhuizen, 40, has already appeared before magistrates in Durban after an Interpol arrest warrant tying him and Lawrence to the double murder was served.