THE HIGH COURT has adjourned the hearing of a request by Spain to extradite a Louth man who has not served his two-year sentence over the manslaughter of his wife in Marbella 11 years ago.

Spanish judicial authorities want Michael Dermot McArdle, 41, with an address at Heynestown in Dundalk, to be extradited back to their jurisdiction over the sentence handed down in 2008.

McArdle had been allowed to return home to Louth in the aftermath of the sentence being handed down, but had never returned to Spain in order to serve that sentence.

McArdle was arrested two weeks ago on foot of a European arrest warrant, when he presented himself to Dundalk Garda Station. A High Court hearing held the same day consented to bail pending this morning’s hearing.

This morning, RTÉ reports, McArdle’s lawyers said the case was being appealed to Spain’s Constitutional Court and that their client could therefore expect not to have to return to Spain until that appeal had been heard and ruled on.

Kelly Ann Corcoran died on February 11, 2000, after falling from the balcony of a holiday apartment in Marbella. The court rejected McArdle’s assertion that she had tripped while trying to stop her son Mark, then 3, from playing on a handrail.

McArdle had previously appealed an extradition to Spain, but lost his challenge in the Supreme Court in 2005.

The case will be heard again next month.