Ireland has refused most extradition requests from the United States in the past two decades, and it is unclear if Russell will be returned to Washington to be tried on three charges of vehicular homicide and four counts of vehicular assault.
"The Irish government is certainly a stickler for procedure," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Hopkins, who is involved in the case. "There are no guarantees."
Russell was arrested Sunday, four years to the day after he fled the United States, at a store in Dublin, Ireland. He reportedly is in an Irish jail.
He made a court appearance on Tuesday to be advised that the United States was seeking his extradition, and a bail hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday, said Scott Malkowski of the U.S. Marshals Service in Spokane.
Authorities actually learned from an Irish tipster in January that Russell was in Dublin. But the task of preparing a 160-page packet requesting his arrest took months, Hopkins said.
The packet was largely the work of Whitman County Deputy Prosecutor Carol LaVerne.
It required a detailed narrative of the events leading to the charges against Russell, copies of state laws involved, and affidavits from surviving victims, witnesses, law enforcement officers, doctors and anyone else with involvement in the accident and its aftermath.
Many of those people had to be brought into courtrooms around the country, as far away as Baltimore, to make sworn statements, Hopkins said. They were not told that their testimony involved an extradition because authorities did not want to leak the news that Russell had been found, he said.
After that, the packet had to be processed by Irish officials and an order signed by a judge before the arrest could occur.
Families of victims say their relief that Russell was captured is tempered by fears they may not ever see him in a U.S. courtroom.
"That makes me a little sick," said Karen Overacker of Wapato, mother of Brandon Clements, one of three people killed in the crash. "I would be very, very surprised if he doesn't fight it (extradition)."
Even worse is the prospect that Russell will be released on bail, and disappear again, she said.
Family members of the three dead and three injured students have already talked about mounting a campaign to pressure the U.S. government to demand Russell's extradition, she said.
The United States and Ireland have only had an extradition treaty since 1984, when it was negotiated by the Reagan administration.
"I think if the U.S. request, pursuant to the treaty, is properly drafted and filed with Ireland, we ought to be able to get the gentleman back to the states," McNabb said.
There is nothing in the treaty that would appear to make Russell's case difficult, unless he is married to the woman he lives with in Ireland, McNabb said. That could complicate the case, he said.
Russell's status as an illegal alien in Ireland should also make it easier to extradite him, McNabb said. Hopkins said Monday there is no record that Russell legally entered that country after flying to England.
But others noted that Ireland has rejected most extradition requests from the United States since the treaty was signed.
Hopkins said Monday that the past 18 extradition requests from the U.S. have been rejected in Ireland. None have been granted since 1999.
Last week, The Sunday Times of London said of the last 12 extradition requests, five failed, five are still being considered and two were dropped because the suspects fled Ireland.
Officials for the U.S. Department of Justice, which seeks extradition, did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
Russell, 27, was living under the alias David Carroll and worked for years as a security guard at "Extrovert Boutique," a lingerie store in Dublin.
The Marshals Service received a tip about Russell in January, shortly after he became the first accused drunken driver to make the agency's 15 Most Wanted list.
On Monday, the Marshals' site was updated to place the word "CAPTURED" over Russell's picture.
A former Washington State University student, Russell was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and four counts of vehicular assault in a 2001 accident that killed three people and injured four others on state Highway 270, the two-lane road that connects the college towns of Pullman, Wash., and Moscow, Idaho.
Accident reports said Russell was driving an SUV at about 90 mph and trying to pass other vehicles when he struck three cars the night of June 4, 2001. All the dead and seriously injured were returning from a movie in one car.
Killed were WSU seniors Clements, 22, of Wapato; Stacy G. Morrow, 21, of Milton, and Ryan Sorensen, 21, of Westport. Seriously injured were John Wagner of Harrington, Kara Eichelsdoerfer of Central Park and Sameer Ranade of Kennewick. The fourth vehicular assault charge involves a person in another vehicle.
Russell suffered minor injuries. At a hospital after the crash, his blood-alcohol level measured .12 percent, well above the legal intoxication threshold of .08.
A few days before his trial was to begin, a friend drove Russell to the airport in Calgary, Alberta, on Oct. 23, 2001. Federal officials now believe he flew immediately to England.
Russell sent a letter to his father and several newspapers, saying he feared he could not receive a fair trial and feared for his life.
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