Germany taking the lead in tidying up loose ends?
The 35 year old woman arrested in Coalisland on a European Arrest Warrant for terrorist offences allegedly committed in Germany is believed to be confirmed as Roisin McAliskey, daughter of Bernadette McAliskey, who the German authorities had previously tried to extradite in 1998. It follows last year’s successful prosecution of Leonard Hardy for an earlier attack on the British Army’s Osnabruck base. Adds The Deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, is objecting.. and follows Alex Maskey’s lead by contacting the British government
“Sinn Fein have already spoken to the British Government on this matter this morning and we would expect the Irish Government to back calls for Roisin`s immediate release.”
Update
Belfast Recorders Court was told that the German authorities issued a warrant for her arrest in October last year. Ms McAliskey will appear in court again next month to face an extradition hearing and was released on bail of £2,500.
Er why?
have SF got a cosy wee deal with Germany, er no.
It’s funny when the quirks of the process are exposed by the harsh glare of external scutiny.
“The arrest this morning of Roisin on the foot of an extradition request from German prosecutors will be seen by many as petty and vindictive.”
Could someone from SF present a timetable for when it’s good time to arrest a republican? third sunday of the month?
Any chance the German Gov’t got a little nudging from the Brits to do this?
Hurrah! It’s almost enough to make me Pro-EU!!
IRiA
Oh aye, I can just se it now:
Ring, ring, ring, ring!
Angela: Guten tag?
Tony: Hello Angela, it’s Tony here
Angela: Ah Hello Herr Blar, how are you today?
Tony: Fine…..look I couldn’t as a wee favour could I?
Angela: I’m sorry Tony, I don’t have a big holiday home you can use this summer, why don’t you ask Cliff Richard or Silvio again?
Tony: No, it’s not that – look there’s a wee Provo in Coalisland I want you to have arrested.
Angela: Oh, OK, just give me a second while I get my pen.
Grow up IRiA.
Ginfizz
Obviously you’re right that Tony and Angela wouldn’t quite have worked it out like that, but extradition is a process that goes beyond the traditional limits of the judiciary, in that it necessarily involves politicians and not just judges. Extradition requests aren’t just fired off at random. So the chances are the government would have been informed, prior to the arrival of the request, and would have had to decide how to proceed. But I think IRiA’s feeling that ‘the Brits’ cooked this up in some sort of malign spirit is wide of the mark.
I wonder how much notice, if any, the executive would have had of this, from the PSNI?
I don’t know the full details about this, but hasn’t Roisin already served more than a year on this – without trial and pregnant – then released without charge by the Brits because of lack of evidence? A totally broken woman?
merrie
Broken or not, the Germans clearly think there is a case to answer. The fact that she’s a Republican or that, to use McGuinness’s phrase we have made “progress” here does nothing to alter that fact.
If the Germans have evidence that the Brits did not, why didn’t they share it with them at the time?
Daniel
By rights the executive should have no notice of this given that security is still a reserved matter?
Herr Blar
It is spelt Bliar isn’t it?
this must be the first time in a number of years that the circumstances were right for this extradition. with reference to IRiA’s comments, he/she couldn’t be more wrong. i would say if anything the brits were trying to delay the request, not provoke it in the first place
Hogan
Right, yes, that’s true.. So this means that, at their own discretion, the Home Office, upon receiving the request, *could* have contacted the NIO, who then *might* have contacted the OFMDFM? Meanwhile the red phone in Hugh’s office starts to glow and the Coalisland Batmobile is scrambled. Would the Exec really only find out about it over their elevenses, courtesy of Radio Ulster, like everyone else?
Could the timing be related to recent cases in Germany where members of the RAF(Bader Meinhof) were seeking parole or early release from jail. I believe in the most recent case this was refused. The German authorities may feel sensitive about refusing to release one of their own citizens whilst failing to pursue a non-national suspect
Interesting…
Monika Harms, the newish Federal Prosecutor, seems to be making a career out of trying to convict more people for old terrorist offences.
We have this case and the Siegfried Buback case, which has recently been opened in an attempt to convict another RAF member of Burback’s murder (even though three RAF members where convicted previously)…
Combined with those raids against anti-G8 groups it seems she’s trying quite hard to build an image of being tough on terrorism…
Fritz,
Me thinks that the extradition hearing may be partially motivated by a desire for the German authorities to keep up an appearance of being tough on terror after the succesfull paroling of one of the RAF members involved in the Buback case (though recently another member was refused)…
It almost seems like someone was going through old terrorism cases looking for something that would back up Germany’s anti-terrorist credentials, then they stumbled across an extradition hearing for terrorism temporarily put off due to ill-health… they must have been jumping for joy
“A totally broken woman?”
More like a totally broken record from Sinn Fein, ok so they have been able to get away with whatever they want to do and flout whatever laws they want here but it really shouldn’t be such a shock that in other countries in the world when someone does something like plant a bomb, the authorities might be interested in pursuing them and bringing them to justice. Time for republicans to grow up.
Why are people upset after the second attempt by Germany to extradite this mother of two in nine years, for charges which the British CPS decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute her in Britain seven years ago (at the request of the then German attorney general)? They should extradite her and that other one it took 40-plus PSNI officers to lift last week.
[i]the authorities might be interested in pursuing them and bringing them to justice.[/i]
Aye, look how well they pursued their own Nazi war criminals.
“Aye, look how well they pursued their own Nazi war criminals.”
erm, ever hear of the Nuremberg trials?
I must say it does look to be a little vindinctive, especially at this time.
[i]erm, ever hear of the Nuremberg trials?[/i]
Read my email address. Thousands of them escaped your vaunted German justice. Hundreds of them lived out their lives freely in Britain.
If she has nothing to fear from supposed lack of evidence let her stand trial.
[see commenting policy - edited moderator]
If Germany can get tough on terrorists, why must we acept them in our government.
This is ridiculous!
Surely those Germans should know that IRA members are exempt from prosecution for stuff like bombing and murdering. It’s against our human rights in the Occupied North-East 6 Counties of Ireland to be tried for stuff like this.
I think we should open up an official enquiry into this outrage and everything should be translated into Irish.
Hi,
quote I think we should open up an official enquiry into this outrage and everything should be translated into Irish.unquote
LOL
“I think we should open up an official enquiry into this outrage and everything should be translated into Irish. ”
I object most strongly at this further example of Republican hegemony and discrimination. The enquiry must be jointly chaired by one Catholic and one Prod so we can be guaranteed a fair result and must be simultaneously translated into Ulster Scots as well as Irish so we can all understand what is going on.
“Why are people upset after the second attempt by Germany to extradite this mother of two in nine years, for charges which the British CPS decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute her in Britain seven years ago (at the request of the then German attorney general)? ”
Well a court will decide if the evidence stacks up, wont it.
And interestingly the European Arrest warrant has replaced extradition in the EU and the grounds for refusal to effect the warrant are:-
“Each Member State may refuse to execute a European arrest warrant if:
* final judgment has already been passed by a Member State upon the requested person in respect of the same offence (ne bis in idem principle);
* the offence is covered by an amnesty in the executing Member State;
* the person concerned may not be held criminally responsible by the executing State owing to his age.
In certain other circumstances (e.g. criminal prosecution or punishment is statute-barred according to the law of the executing Member State, final judgment passed by a third State in respect ”
http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l33167.htm
Does this mean that the old political test by the Home Secretary has now disappeared in EU cases?
So we have a former CoS of the PIRA eating crumbs off Paisleys plate whilst another young republican is dragged through the courts for carrying out his orders. Instead of eating Paisleys left over potato cakes perhaps the great freedom fighter should have been outside the court house to welcome Roisin, after she was granted bail, as it seems no one in the NIO is answering the deputy dogs calls.
How the mighty blot their biographies to become the but of Paisleys jokes and for a ride in a limo.
D O
You just don’t get it, do you? The Germans and the English are both linked by Anglo-Saxon genes, and have clearly been working in secret for centuries to oppress the Celtic peoples. It was only a matter of time before the mask slipped, and all the Irish “friends of Adolf” like Sean Russell, and Lord Haw haw were revealed to be Englischer pigdog spion.
How do you seriously expect the Irish to hold on to the coveted Most Oppressed People Ever title without a vast international conspiracy designed to crush the flower of irish maidenhood?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pope wasn’t behind it all -sure didn’t his predecessor give Strongbow the green light- and ..he’s German. See- it’s all falling into place. Dan Brown has probably written his next bestseller about it- “the Coalisland Code”-hmm has a ring to it, dontchathink?
Darth
So American-born William Joyce(to an English Protestant mother and Irish Unionist Father) is Irish now? Ho hum…
You’ll be telling us Diana Mitford was from Cork next..
Sinn Fein & the Provos made their bed, NOW LIE IN IT.
Warrant issued in October eh?
Two months after the failed train bombings in 2006, something that seriously undermined Germany’s attempts to redeem its anti-terror crdentials following the 9/11…
I doubt Germany will back down on this one, in saying that though I doubt they will actually manage to secure a conviction. Its all about grandstanding and appearing to be tough on terror, even if they don’t have the evidence they still create an atmosphere that they are actively targetting terrorist suspects…
Darth
I think you’re onto something here. WWII was really a smokescreen – behind the machinations of which the top-secret German-Anglo alliance was working over-time. It was a joint plot contrived by Churchill (who as we all know is the bain of the Irish people) and Hitler to make De Valera and Sean Russell look like Nazis by getting them get all cosy with the 3rd Reich. Hitler’s ill-timed suicide meant that he could never get the chance to convince the world that he wasn’t really a Nazi but an uber-Prod – simply trying to suppress the Irish Catholic people instead of being a megalomaniac hell-bent on world domination.
The veil has slipped on this secret pact over the years, what with Prince Harry dressing up as a Nazi when going to that party. But I suspect that the Nationalist folk of Ireland have known for a long time – that’s why whey call us evil Prods ‘Huns’ don’t you know?
I say bravo to Miss McAliskey for uncovering this complex plot and choosing to expose the Germans for what they really are by bombing them. She should be given the ‘Crown of Thorns’ to signify her emergence as champion of ‘The Most Oppressed People on Earth’ – not be put on trial.
Saoirse the German one now!
Should be brava unless you know something that we do not?