Edwin Minihan, originally from New Ross, Wexford spent time behind bars after being accused of carrying ten kilos of gold then worth €340,000.
Edwin Minihan, who was arrested in Cochin in southern India eight years ago in an alleged gold smuggling scam, won a final court battle proving his total innocence last December.
Despite this he had had been refused permission by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office to leave for Ireland, according to the Times of India.
The failure by customs’ official to issue ‘a no objection certificate’ was cited in court as the reason for this refusal.
The registration office has now been given two weeks to issue all the paperwork needed for Minihan to leave the country.
He had told the court that there was an urgency to his request in that he wanted to see his 83-year-old mother in Ireland who is seriously ill.
It was pointed out that there were no longer any criminal charges against him and the case had already been examined by two courts and the officials could be give details of address in Ireland.
Edwin in one of his acting roles
Edwin Minihan, originally from New Ross, Wexford spent time behind bars after being accused of carrying ten kilos of gold then worth €340,000 on a flight from Dubai.
Described as a businessman who worked with telecoms and software firm in Dubai, Minihan also turned his hand to acting in India, according to his posts on social media.
He spent at least a month in prison as the case went through the notoriously slow courts system in India following his arrest at Cochin International Airport in July 2015.
In December the High Court of Kerala in southern India dismissed an appeal by prosecutors over Minihan’s acquittal in a 2019 judgement
It was heard in court then that his defence counsel argued that “the entire prosecution story was fabricated and the acquittal of the accused ought to be sustained”, according to the written judgement.
Counsel pointed out that a statement the prosecution claimed the Irish man had made was retracted, the smuggled gold wasn’t produced in court and there were was no CCTV footage of his airport arrest.
The court’s ruling upheld the original acquittal and pointed out that the language used in a retracted statement suggested it was not made voluntarily by Minihan.
“A perusal of the three statements does not inspire this Court to believe that it was made voluntarily. The statements have the trappings of a document written under the dictation of another.”
It was added that “despite being an Irish National” the accused man referred to specific statutory provisions in Indian law and used terms that would be unknown to lay persons especially to foreign nationals.
The judgement also noted there was “absolutely no evidence regarding any previous smuggling of goods by the accused”.
Under cross-examination the prosecution “had not dented” Mr Minihan’s account of travelling to Kerala on a regular basis for business reasons.
It was reported at the time of Mr Minihan’s arrest in 2015 he had been living in Dubai for the previous nine years.
There were two address given for him on the most recent judgement one in Dubai and the other at an Indian hotel.
Hehas not responded to an attempt by the Sunday World to make contact with him via social medai.
Minihan worked for a number of telecommunications companies in Dubai and worked for Enterprise Ireland in Germany, according to previous reports.
In a 2018 story by the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium on the Dubai property market Edwin Minihan was asked about the gold smuggling allegations.
He told the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project the gold he was carrying was his personal possession, which he declared in the customs form.
“I deny any allegations of being involved in a gold smuggling racket and I’m trying to reclaim the gold,” he said.