15 October 1998 Edition

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USA POWs in court ruling breakthrough

By Laura Friel

Long Kesh escapees, Pol Brennan, Terry Kirby and Kevin Barry Artt, who have been fighting extradition proceedings in the USA for over six years hope to be reunited with their families after San Francisco's Appeal Court overturned an earlier district court order to return them to British jurisdiction.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the three Irish POWs described last week's judgement as a ``major victory''. The Court of Appeal called for fresh extradition proceedings which will question the reliability of the original convictions. Faced with public scrutiny by a US court of the operation of legal system in the Six Counties, the British government may decide to abandon their extradition request. The court has requested information on the operation of non-jury Diplock courts and RUC interrogation.

Brennan, Kirby and Artt fled to America after the 1983 mass escape from Long Kesh. The three were arrested in California between 1992 to 1994. All have American partners and children born in the USA. After a series of court battles they were remanded on bail. Despite compliance with bail conditions, two years ago the three were ordered to return to jail.

Terry Kirby's wife Colleen was pregnant when Terry was first arrested in San Francisco in 1994. When he was later granted bail, the court's restrictions kept him under virtual house arrest. While Colleen worked, Terry cared for their child at home. It was therefore particularly traumatic for the then 2-year-old Keeley when her father was imprisoned in 1996.

Kevin Barry Artt has a ten year old daughter and Pol Brennan a teenage step child whom he has raised since she was 3 years of age.

The men's families are calling on the British government to drop the extradition request as a gesture of goodwill given the current peace process and Good Friday provision for the release of political prisoners. James Broanahan, attorney for Kevin Artt, described the court's ruling as ``very good news''. Broanahan said he had requested a meeting with Mo Mowlam who is currently in the USA promoting investment in the North.

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness described the three men as having been ``pursued by successive British administrations, not with any sense of justice. I call on the British government to halt its relentless attempts to extradite these men by notifying the American authorities that it is withdrawing its extradition warrants in line with the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.''

•Meanwhile there has been no good news for Richard Johnson, the last Republican prisoner jailed in the USA. In Ireland Republican POWs continue to be released under the Good Friday Agreement, but Johnson recently learned that his petition for clemency to President Clinton had been denied. Johnson is in Allenwood minimum security prison in Pennsylvania and has served eight years of a ten year sentence.

Welcoming the decision in the case of the H-Block Three whom he visited in jail in California in November 1997, Caoimhhgín O Caoláin TD called for the release of Richard Johnson. The TD called for Johnson, pending his release, to be transferred to a jail nearer his parents who are in their 80s and must travel 1000 miles to see him.

 

Councillor debates with Unionists in US



Chrissie McAuley, Sinn Fein Councillor for Upper Falls, returned recently from a two-week series of speaking engagements in the Mid West and East Coast of the USA.

Joining McAuley to debate the way forward in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement were Sean Farren of the SDLP, Denis Rogan, Chair of the Ulster Unionist Party, Stuart Deignan, DUP, Barbara McCann, Women's Coalition and Canadian political scientist John McGarry.

Students and faculty members of the renowned Grinnell College in Des Moines, Iowa were given ample food for thought during an at times intriguing and revealing four-day symposium entitled `Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland'.

Chrissie McAuley said: ``I said that the Agreement, for republicans, represented a gateway towards our legitimate objective of securing an agreed, independent Ireland.

``I think the audience went away with a more realistic view of where the various political parties stand at present and the difficulties we face along the way. For instance they had a rare insight into the arrogant, backwoods attitude of the UUP and DUP towards Sinn Fein and nationalists in general when their representatives refused to make eye contact with me on campus - a place which Grinnellians expect their guests to respect as a neutral space.

``Inclusion verses exclusion, whether as individuals or as national minorities/majorities was a very prominent theme running throughout the debate. I think that the students and faculty members alike were in shell-shock altogether when DUP member Stuart Deignan, Peter Robinson's researcher, subjected them to an hour-long rant entitled `Feeding the Crocodile'. The analogy was that just as Chamberlain had been mistaken in appeasing Hitler, similarly every British government had given concessions to the ``Sinn Fein/IRA crocodile''. Deignan stated that the `crocodile' would bite off the government's hands and gobble everyone else up with it. His `ultimate solution' to this was simple: put the ``Sinn Fein/IRA scum in the electric chair'' or better still, turn us into `crocodile handbags'''.

``Needless to say, the issue of decommissioning came up time and again with the SDLP joining the UUP and DUP in seeking a ``gesture'' and a ``timeframe'' for decommissioning. It was hardly surprising though that Sean Farren came back at me harder on this issue than the unionists. I had made a point to deal with this up front and often, so the students had largely no difficulty in appreciating that at this juncture in the process, it was imperative that those issues which gave rise to the conflict needed to be resolved if the hard-won space we negotiated wasn't placed in jeopardy by preconditions''.

McAuley also travelled to Pittsburgh where she addressed a dinner hosted by leading Irish/American activists and organisations in advance of Gerry Adam's visit to the city. The following night she attended a 1798 Pageant organised by the Irish American Unity Conference.

Her second week was spent talking with Noraid, AOH, IAUC, and many other support groups in the New York and Philadelphia areas.


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