Russell’s extradition ordered

DUBLIN, Ireland – Ireland’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a man accused of killing three Washington State University students while driving drunk to be extradited, ending a yearlong legal battle that began when police arrested the man working in Ireland under a false identity.

The three-judge panel upheld a May 23 order by the High Court, Ireland’s second-highest court, that Frederick Russell, 27, be shipped back to Washington state to face three charges of vehicular homicide – and, if convicted, a potential life sentence.

Russell’s lawyers filed a Supreme Court appeal, but Chief Justice John Murray rejected arguments put forward by Russell’s legal team that he would face an unfair trial and physical abuse in a U.S. prison because of news coverage in Washington over his decision to flee.

Now facing extradition, Russell has applied for some type of asylum – not necessarily political asylum, said Whitman County Prosecutor Denis Tracy.

“I don’t have any details on it yet,” Tracy said Thursday night.

A representative at the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs in Washington, D.C., notified the prosecutor that Russell had made the application for asylum Thursday.

“I don’t know if this will delay the extradition process or not,” Tracy said.

Russell was expected to be flown back to Washington within 15 days and, until then, was ordered confined to Clover Hill Prison outside Dublin. He was present in the courtroom but did not speak during the hearing.

Russell is accused of killing three students and injuring three others in a crash on June 4, 2001, near the Washington-Idaho border.

Killed in the crash were WSU seniors Brandon Clements, 22, of Wapato; Stacy G. Morrow, 21, of Milton; and Ryan Sorensen, 21, of Westport. Seriously injured were John Wagner, of Harrington; Kara Eichelsdoerfer, of Central Park; and Sameer Ranade, of Kennewick.

Lawyers for the Irish government told the Supreme Court that, according to law enforcement reports, Russell had been driving about 90 mph and trying to pass other vehicles when he struck three cars. At a hospital after the crash, they said, his blood-alcohol level measured 0.12 percent, well above the legal intoxication threshold of 0.08, and indicated he also had been smoking marijuana.

In October 2001, Russell fled while on bail awaiting trial. He flew from Canada to London and testified that he traveled to France, Germany and the Netherlands before settling in Ireland.

Irish police arrested Russell in October 2005, nine months after receiving a tip from U.S. law enforcement officials that he was working as a security guard at a Dublin lingerie shop and using the alias David Carroll.

His photograph and details, including a Celtic cross tattoo on his arm, had appeared on the Web site of the U.S. Marshals’ “15 most wanted” list.

During his extradition trial, Russell’s lawyers argued he would be exposed to inhumane and degrading treatment, including rape and isolated confinement, in a U.S. prison. They also argued that Russell would face a much stiffer prison sentence in the United States than in Ireland.

Extraditions from Ireland to the United States, where sentences and prison conditions are harder, are relatively rare. U.S. government attorneys have complained in the past that Ireland has refused the previous 19 extradition requests.