Conference tallis::celt

399.0. "US Govt: Lackey of the brits." by BRAT::DROTTER () Fri Jun 24 1988 10:45

                    IRA FUGITIVE CASE A CAUSE CELEBRE

                               Peter Lucas
               (Reprinted from the Boston Herald 6/17/88)

NEW YORK -  Joe Doherty, 33, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, has been in 
federal prison for five years now on a misdemeanor charge -- entering the 
United States without a passport.  

	Some drug pushers and killers have served less time in U.S. 
prisons, but for Doherty there is no light at the end of the tunnel.  It 
seems that the Reagan administration and Attorney General Edwin Meese are 
determined to please British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by sending 
Doherty back to Belfast -- where he is wanted on murder charges -- 
despite the fact that U.S. courts have ruled Doherty should not be 
returned because his offense was political in nature.  

	Meese, seeking a loophole, simply has ignored the findings of the 
courts and insists that Doherty be deported.  

	For Doherty, an Irish Republican Army fugitive, who will appeal 
the ruling, it is all the same because back in merry old England he faces 
a sentence of 30 years for killing a British Army captain in a shootout.  

	I was visiting Doherty in the federal Metropolitan Correctional 
Center in Lower Manhattan just after he received word of the Meese 
decision.  

	"I'm not surprised," Doherty said, "because he (Meese) has held 
these court decisions in contempt.  He has totally ignored what the 
courts have said.  

	"If the Soviet Union were in control of Northern Ireland instead 
of the British, I wouldn't be in prison.  I would be in the Oval Office 
giving advice to the president," Doherty said.

	In 1980, Doherty, a member of the IRA's Active Service Unit, got 
into a gun battle with a unit of civilian-dressed British soldiers 
attached to the dreaded SAS (Special Air Service), the same 
counter-insurgency unit that killed the three unarmed IRA agents in 
Gibralter recently.  In that Belfast shootout a British soldier was 
killed.  Doherty and his IRA companions were captured, tried and 
convicted in a "Diplock" court, which is a trial before a judge with no 
jury.  

	Before his trial ended, Doherty and seven others escaped from the 
Crumlin Road Jail.  All were captured except Doherty, who made his way 
south to the Republic of Ireland and then to New York City.  Two days 
after his escape the court, with Doherty absent, convicted him of murder 
and other crimes and sentenced him to life imprisonment.  

	Doherty worked construction for a while and then tended bar at 
Clancy's Bar in New York's East Side.  It was there that FBI agents 
dressed as construction workers picked him up June 18, 1983, for entering 
the country illegally, and it is on that misdemeanor charge that he has 
been held ever since.  

	Since the federal courts ruled against Doherty's extradition 
because his offense was "political," and because the decision was upheld, 
the Reagan administration moved against him legislatively.  The Senate 
approved a new British-proposed treaty eliminating the "political 
offense" exception to extradition proceedings, and it made the treaty 
retroactive so it now applies to Doherty.

	Both Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry voted for the 
treaty.  "But he stuck the knife in my twice," Doherty said of Kennedy, 
because a vote for the treaty was also a vote for making it retroactive.  
Kerry opposed retroactivity in committee.  

	Rather than continue the extradition battle here, Doherty sought 
to be deported to the Republic of Ireland and fight it there.  An 
immigration judge ruled in his favor.  But the Immigration Service 
objected and appealed, claiming it was prejudicial to the country's 
national interest to deport Doherty to Ireland.  

	Last March, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in Doherty's 
favor and against the INS, saying that he should be deported to the 
Republic of Ireland and not to the United Kingdom's province of Northern 
Ireland.  Then, by law, the case went to Meese, the man who lost 
throughout the judicial and regulatory proceedings.  He ruled that 
Doherty be deported to Northern Ireland.

	"The whole thing has brought the Justice Department to a new 
low," Doherty said.  "By this decision, the loser at the end of the day 
is not Joe Doherty.  I'm prepared to spend another 40 years in prison 
fighting for our cause.  The losers are the American people because their 
Constitution has been trampled upon."

	"Reagan and Meese are saying that the IRA has got to be crushed," 
he said.  "We are not terrorists.  We did not attack civilians, but armed 
British troops.  And I am a soldier of the IRA.  This is a war."

	"After 800 years of British occupation of my country, we have the 
right, the moral right, to take up arms for my country."
                           *************

    THE AMERICAN SHOULD CERTAINLY LOOK TO THEIR GOVERNMENTS DEALINGS
    WITH GREAT BRITIAN. MAKING LAWS RETROACTIVE IS A SPECIALITY OF THEIRS
    TO BE USED WHENEVER CONVENIANT.
    	THEY SHOULD ALSO BEAR IN MIND THE FACT THAT THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
    HAS BEEN FOUND GULTY OF TORTURE BY THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS.
    	THE LATEST ITEM TO COME UP IS THAT AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HAS
    RELEASED A REPORT ON THE SHOOT TO KILL QUESTION. THEY SAID ON IRISH
    RADIO THAT THEY HAD GRAVE REVERSATIONS AS TO WHETHER THE BRITISH
    GOVERNMENT ARE BEING TRUTHFUL IN THEIR ASSERTATIONS THAT THEY HAVE
    NO SHOOT TO KILL POLICY. 
    	THE REASON FOR DOUBT IS CAUSED BY STALKER BEING STOPPED FROM
    INVESTIGATING THE ALLEGATIONS (IN A VERY NASTY WAY), THE REFUSAL
    TO PUBLISH THE REPORT, THE REFUSAL TO PROSECUTE THOSE WHO PERVERTED
    THE COURSE OF JUSTICE (IN THEIR OWN WORDS).
    	FOR THIS AMNESTY WAS ACCUSED OF PREJUDGING THE RESULTS OF A
    POLICE INQUIRY THE RESULTS OF WHICH WILL OF COURSE NOT BE MADE PUBLIC
    THAT IS IF THEY EVER GET A RESULT (THE INQUIRY HAS BEEN IN PROGRESS
    FOR  5� YEARS NOW. NEED I SAY MORE.

    ....."We did not attack civilians."...
    
    The victims of the Enniskillen, Harrods, Abercorn Restaurant and
    school bus in Co. Fermanagh attacks might dispute this.

    re: .2 <re: .0>
    
    Pat
    
    I think Joe Doherty was referring to the shoot-out with the SAS
    and not the other incidents which you mention.
               
    -Dermot

    RE .2
    THE DISCUSSION IS ABOUT AMERICAS REACTION TO MAGGI
    
    THIS OBVIOUSLY MEANS THE BRITISH "JUSTICE" SYSTEM. TO DEMONSTRATE
    THAT ITS NOT JUST THE IRISH WHO SUFFER CONSIDER THE GENETIC TESTS
    NOW USED IN COURTS. THESE CAN NOW BE TAKEN BY FORCE IN N.I.
    THE TEST IS CONSIDERED ACCURATE ENOUGH FOR MURDER OR TERRORIST CRIMES
    NO ARGUMENT THERE BUT IN THE CASE OF IMMIGRATION TO G.B. WHERE PEOPLE
    FROM THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT ARE TRYING TO PROVE A RELATIONSHIP
    THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT HAS DECLARED THAT GENETIC TESTING IS NOT
    ACCURATE ENOUGH TO BE USED AS EVIDENCE.
    
    IS THAT A MOVING GOALPOST OR NOT
    

    re .3
    
    Dermot
    
    Yes I take your point and agree that there is massive doublethink
    on the part of the British (and dare I say it the Americans!) when
    it comes to "legit targets". The point that I was making was that
    there is equal fuzzy thinking on the Provo side. By no stretch
    of the imagination can protestant farmers in Fermanagh be considered
    part of the British War Machine and yet it is hard to avoid the
    conclusion that a very primitive land grabbing campaign is behind
    much of what happens there. The provos would no doubt justify this
    on the grounds of rectifying the injustices of the 16th and 17th
    century plantations. -- Give back all land to the Fir Bolg ---!!!
    
    The attitude in the U.S to this Hesbullah in Lebanon and the Mujihadin
    in Afghanistan are examples of 'subtle distinctions' on terrorism.
    
    re .4
    
    I agree 100%. However (there always is a "however"), in my limited
    experience the presentation of complex and non black and white issues
    in the U.S. media is less than remarkable. (There are notable
    exceptions).
    
    Also, and I say this hesitantly, we have an enormous number of people
    in this country (Ireland) who use slogans as a thought substitute;
    I wonder whether the some of human understanding by a chorus of
    equally profound slogans (ironic!) from the Irish diaspora.
     

    last para should read : .... sum of human understanding is increased..
    
    sorry, my slogans ran ahead of my two fingered typing!