A 22-year-old Nigerian woman was remanded in custody until December 3 while the Gardai and other authorities try to establish who she is and the action the state will take. Edith Johno was arrested by Detective Garda Declan Sweeny when she failed to produce a passport or immigration documentation in Castlebar last week.
Solicitor for Ms Johno, Aidan Crowley, told the court that his client had travelled from Lagos, Nigeria on September 28 in the company of a man and woman she was introduced to by her aunt. The couple gave her a passport with her picture on it and an Irish travel visa, they travelled to Ireland via Amsterdam. Once she arrived in Dublin the documentation was taken off her and she was brought to a house in Dublin where she was kept for five days. She was then transported to Castlebar where she was placed in another house where she stayed for a period of time in the company of another individual. She had never left the house until she was arrested by Detective Garda Sweeny and she was remanded in custody to the Dochas women’s centre in Mountjoy prison.
Judge Mary Devins commented that she would probably be safer off back in the Dochas Centre than anywhere else at this moment in time and remanded her there to appear again in Castlebar District Court on December 3.
