The legal defence of a man accused of arson in Longford Town has been criticised by a presiding judge for their failure to meet a court appointed deadline.
Guo Zhong Chen, of 9 Belvedere Terrace, Mullingar, was arrested and charged with arson over the July 28th fire that caused €3 million worth of damage to Grafton Court in the town centre.
Longford Circuit Criminal Court was due to hear an application for the trial to be held in Dublin instead of Longford yesterday, due to defence concerns over securing an impartial Jury due to media coverage.
At Mr Chen's last appearance in court in February, the defence were ordered to provide the application for the change of venue at least three weeks before yesterday's sitting.
This was not furnished and the state disclosed that they had only received a draft affidavit the day before.
Defence for Guo Zhong Chen stated the work in translating the book of evidence from English to Mandarin and a subsequent need to have elements of the translation dictated to spoken mandarin due to the accused's difficulty reading, has caused a significant work load.
Christina Burke BL, indicated that there are several parts of the book of evidence that have yet to be dictated, and more work is needed to identify further sections.
Legal aid had previously been extended to Mr Chen's team to allow a documentary junior counsel to aid with the translation.
Judge Kenneth Connolly signalled his displeasure with the delay to the case and stated that excuses or not, he expects court orders to be followed.
He originally stated that he was considering removing the legal aid certificate for the junior counsel before setting a new deadline for the translation and submission of the change of venue request to no more than four weeks from yesterday's sitting.
Guo Zhong Chen was remanded in custody to Castlerea Prison, with Christina Burke BL indicating a bail application may be submitted at the next hearing on July 15th.
Judge Kenneth Connolly stated that he would not hear any bail application should the defence fail to give the state the required three weeks notice of an application.
