Dublin woman accused of daring helicopter jailbreak in Chile arrested in Croatia

Frances Shannon from Dublin was detained in Croatia last month as a result of an international arrest warrant issued on behalf of the Chilean State.

Yesterday, Chile’s Supreme Court issued a ruling approving an extradition request for the Dublin woman to face charges in the South American country,

She is accused of masterminding the dramatic escape of four Chilean guerrillas from jail in a high-profile jailbreak.

Chilean officials claim Frances, along with her sister Christine, arrived in the country in 1996 posing as a tourists before renting a helicopter locally.

The helicopter later swooped into the main yard of a top-security prison in Santiago and plucked the left-wing guerrillas to their freedom.

Two of the inmates had been serving jail sentences for the murder of a right-wing senator, while they were also convicted of an attempted assassination on the then-Chilean military leader, Augusto Pinochet, in 1986.

Since Frances Shannon was charged in 1998, Chile has repeatedly sought her extradition from Ireland.

However, according to reports in Chile, Ms Shannon was arrested on May 15 at Dubrovnik Airport in Zagreb, Croatia as a result of an international arrest warrant.

Yesterday, in a divided ruling, the Second Chamber of Chile’s Supreme Court ruled that the requirements of international law to request extradition are met.

It also ruled that the alleged “criminal action is not time-barred…it is declared that it is appropriate to request the Government of Croatia for the extradition of the Irish citizen Frances Mary Shannon.”

“Between Chile and Croatia there is no Extradition Treaty, so it is necessary to resort to the General Principles of International Law, as provided for in Article 637 of the Code of Criminal Procedure,” the ruling says.

According a report in the Chilean newsite. Interferencia.cl, there is a “high probability” that the request for extradition from Croatia will be rejected.

It is reported that Croatian officials told their Chilean counterparts that Shannon confirmed “that she was the person sought by the Interpol order of Santiago, Chile, on behalf of the Court in Santiago.”

The woman is said to have told them she would not accept “a simplified extradition procedure, nor a regular procedure for extradition to the Republic of Chile.”

The Zagreb authorities argued that the request from Chile met all the legal requirements to keep her in preventive detention.

“(…) this is a (…) citizen of the Republic of Ireland, who has no family or business relations in the territory of the Republic of Croatia, so there is a danger that she could escape if he were free and thus prevent the extradition procedure,” reads the letter received by the Foreign Ministry and attached to the file.”

In 1996, four left-wing guerrillas escaped from the maximum-security prison in Chile on December 30 in a helicopter equipped with bullet-proof plating.

A gunfight erupted between those involved in the break-out and jail security personnel.

The prisoners were dramatically taken from the jail’s yard in a special metal basket connected to the helicopter.

In State Papers released in 2022, Irish officials seemed unconvinced about the involvement of the Shannon sisters in the jailbreak but noted the similarities between the prison escape and an IRA operation conducted at Mountjoy in 1973.

Six months after the prison break, the Supreme Court of Chile requested documentation from the Irish authorities in respect of the two women that Santiago police had identified – the Shannon sisters, of South Circular Road, Dublin.

Ireland’s ambassador to Argentina, Art Agnew, who was also responsible for consular operations in Chile, warned his superiors that it was “an extremely high-profile and sensitive” case.

“It would cause very serious damage to the image of Ireland if we were to refuse co-operation,” he warned.

One Department of Foreign Affairs file indicated that gardaí considered the two Irish women to be “subversives”.

However, both gardaí and department officials were highly dubious of Chilean claims that the two women could have been involved.