By Mairead Carey

There were angry exchanges in the Dail (Parliament) on Tuesday night as the Green Party and Sinn Fein called for the resignation of Justice Minister Michael McDowell over his handling of the Frank Connolly affair.

In an unprecedented move last week McDowell claimed that Connolly, the well known journalist and head of the Centre for Public Inquiry, a body funded by U.S. philanthropist Chuck Feeney, had travelled to Colombia on a false passport and was involved in a sinister IRA plot to provide FARC guerrillas with explosives training in return for drug money.

In a further extraordinary development, McDowell admitted giving copies of documents from a Garda (police) investigation into Connolly to Irish Independent journalist Sam Smyth, a personal friend of McDowell’s.

The minister also showed the documents from the confidential garda file to Feeney, resulting in his withdrawing funding from the CPI.

The CPI, which was set up to expose corruption in political and business life, is now threatened with closure. In recent months it had begun researching the controversial decision by McDowell to buy a €30 million site in north Dublin for a new prison complex.

Allegations that Connolly travelled to Colombia on a false passport have been circulating for the last three years. But the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided that there was not enough evidence to bring a charge against Connolly, and he has always denied the claims.

McDowell insists that he did not act unlawfully in leaking the information to Smyth and that he was defending national security.

But his decision to use Dail privilege to find Connolly guilty of a criminal offence, when the DPP decided there was not enough evidence to even charge the journalist, has been roundly criticized by lawyers, human rights activists and members of the opposition parties.

McDowell has also been accused of breathtaking hypocrisy for anonymously leaking documents to the Tony O’Reilly-owned newspaper, given that he has introduced controversial legislation this year which could see members of the Gardai, who pass on information to journalists, jailed for five years.

Curiously, McDowell only provided Smyth with copies of an application form for a bogus passport which he claims Connolly submitted to the Irish passport office. He did not pass on the photographs used in the application.

On its own the passport form proves nothing against Connolly as it could have been submitted by anyone.

Smyth has admitted on national television that he had not seen the photographs used for the application, but claimed that he had been told that the passport pictures were that of Connolly.

On Tuesday Labor’s Joe Costelloe said McDowell was acting as DPP, judge, jury and executioner.

Former Justice Minister Nora Owen says she can never recall a situation where an individual was named in this way in the Dail.

Leading criminal law expert Professor Dermot Walsh of the University of Limerick said McDowell’s actions were turning Ireland into a “police state.”

“The principle of innocence until proven guilty is fundamental to civilization throughout the world. Leaking documents from a criminal investigation to a particular newspaper — that’s subversion of the state,” he said.

“Michael McDowell is the minister for justice. He is the state. The state cannot declare a person guilty without the benefit of a trial and the presumption of innocence. He’s saying he has the right to subvert the criminal process in this case. Connolly has not had the chance of seeing the evidence against him.

The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern has defended McDowell and said he was informed of McDowell’s actions at all times.

However, Fianna Fail backbenchers may not be as forgiving for drawing such a controversy on the government just days after Junior Minister Ivor Callely was forced to resign.