A leading expert in international human rights law has said Ireland had both the authority and jurisdiction to prosecute a senior Chinese official during last week's visit here.

While the focus was very much on economic ties between Ireland and China on the arrival of communist party official Li Changchun, a criminal complaint was filed with gardaí but not pursued. It related to his alleged ties to the mass genocide of the Falun Gong spiritual community in China, which claims more than 3,000 murdered in the past 11 years.

Gardaí in Store Street received the complaint last Sunday evening from the Irish Falun Dafa Association (IFDA) who brought a subsequent and ultimately unsuccessful application for an arrest warrant before the courts.

They were refused the application as, under Irish law, they did not have the legal standing to directly seek a warrant.

The IFDA said they had no time to arrange a barrister and claim gardaí, the channel through which they were required to go, did not respond to their complaint.

However, Dr Shane Darcy of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway said that while he could not comment on the individual case, there were provisions in Irish and international law to bring action through the Irish courts.

Ireland is legally obliged to uphold both the Geneva Conventions on torture as well as domestic legislation enforcing the prosecution of those suspected of inhumane acts.

Such legislation allows a country to arrest, detain and even try somebody for human rights violations even if it is outside their jurisdiction, the most famous example being Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Arrest warrants have also been issued in some countries for individuals associated with politically turbulent parts of the world.

"The Chinese official in question might not enjoy... immunity, as he is neither the head of state nor a foreign minister, although a national court may consider that he does as a high ranking official," said Darcy.

Amongst allegations against Li Changchun was that he was a "key architect" of the elimination of Falun Gong practitioners in the Guangdong province and was linked to torture, extrajudicial killings and genocide.