SAOIRSE32

International Herald Tribune
Associated Press
14 Nov 2008

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas: A former IRA militant facing deportation after nearly 25 years in the United States testified Thursday that he is fighting to stay because he has built a life for himself.

Pol Brennan had been living in Northern California for years under murky immigration status before border agents in Texas detained him in January for having an expired work permit.

“I’ve actually lived longer in the United States than I did in freedom in Northern Ireland,” Brennan said at his federal immigration hearing.

In 1983, Brennan escaped from a Northern Ireland prison where was serving a 16-year sentence for transporting explosives and a revolver for the Irish Republican Army. With help from IRA sympathizers, he flew to New York and then on to San Francisco, where he quickly settled in with a large Irish expatriate community.

A 1993 arrest for fraud on a passport application began a seven-year fight against extradition that ended when Britain dropped its extradition demand in 2000. Brennan, who worked as a carpenter, had since received work-permit renewals before his Texas arrest while he and his wife were on a trip.

Brennan, 55, spent several hours Thursday telling his story to U.S. Immigration Judge William Peterson, but when the prosecutor, Assistant Chief Counsel Lessa Whetmough, asked who helped him apply for the U.S. passport, Brennan refused to answer. His attorney Jim Byrne said Brennan did not want to incriminate anyone who helped him.

Brennan denied being a sworn member of the militant group but said he did them favors and probably delivered explosives for them about six times.

The only recent mark Brennan concedes is a 2005 misdemeanor assault charge for a scuffle he had with a contractor who Brennan alleged owed him wages.

Whetmough said, however, that a search of Brennan’s fingerprints turned up two other arrests in 2005 — one for battery on emergency personnel and the other assault with a deadly weapon. Brennan denied committing those crimes or knowing anything about them.

Brennan hopes to convince Peterson that he should not be deported, but be granted political asylum or given permanent residency.

If deported, Brennan, who holds an Irish passport, would be sent to the Republic of Ireland, where sectarian violence is non-existent.

The last IRA parolee to be killed was in December 1997, before Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday accord. Since then, several hundred IRA inmates have been freed from prison or returned home from abroad without incident.

British authorities have not been prosecuting IRA militants for crimes committed before 1998 because of the peace deal.

International Herald Tribune

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas: A former IRA militant facing deportation after nearly 25 years in the United States testified Thursday that he is fighting to stay because he has built a life for himself.

Pol Brennan had been living in Northern California for years under murky immigration status before border agents in Texas detained him in January for having an expired work permit.

“I’ve actually lived longer in the United States than I did in freedom in Northern Ireland,” Brennan said at his federal immigration hearing.

In 1983, Brennan escaped from a Northern Ireland prison where was serving a 16-year sentence for transporting explosives and a revolver for the Irish Republican Army. With help from IRA sympathizers, he flew to New York and then on to San Francisco, where he quickly settled in with a large Irish expatriate community.

A 1993 arrest for fraud on a passport application began a seven-year fight against extradition that ended when Britain dropped its extradition demand in 2000. Brennan, who worked as a carpenter, had since received work-permit renewals before his Texas arrest while he and his wife were on a trip.

Brennan, 55, spent several hours Thursday telling his story to U.S. Immigration Judge William Peterson, but when the prosecutor, Assistant Chief Counsel Lessa Whetmough, asked who helped him apply for the U.S. passport, Brennan refused to answer. His attorney Jim Byrne said Brennan did not want to incriminate anyone who helped him.

Brennan denied being a sworn member of the militant group but said he did them favors and probably delivered explosives for them about six times.

The only recent mark Brennan concedes is a 2005 misdemeanor assault charge for a scuffle he had with a contractor who Brennan alleged owed him wages.

Whetmough said, however, that a search of Brennan’s fingerprints turned up two other arrests in 2005 — one for battery on emergency personnel and the other assault with a deadly weapon. Brennan denied committing those crimes or knowing anything about them.

Brennan hopes to convince Peterson that he should not be deported, but be granted political asylum or given permanent residency.

If deported, Brennan, who holds an Irish passport, would be sent to the Republic of Ireland, where sectarian violence is non-existent.

The last IRA parolee to be killed was in December 1997, before Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday accord. Since then, several hundred IRA inmates have been freed from prison or returned home from abroad without incident.

British authorities have not been prosecuting IRA militants for crimes committed before 1998 because of the peace deal.

Aine McEntee
Belfast Media
North Belfast News

www.bobbysandstrust.com

North Belfast assemblywoman Caral Ni Chuilin helped to re-launch the Bobby Sands Trust website which recently updated its contents to exhibit reams of information, photos and personal writings from the hunger strikers.

The internet portal contains thousands of facts about Bobby Sands, the 27 year old Member of Parliament who went on hunger strike in 1981 after years of solitary confinement along with nine other men.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said that due to the diligent work of some republican activists at that time, material was kept and archives were developed.

“I think this is really important,” he said.

“It means that those who want to learn about aspects of the situation at that time are now able to read, in the words of those who were involved then, their thoughts and ideas and fears and hopes, and then to be able to form their own judgements based upon all the information provided.”

The Trust has the aim of archiving all Irish republican prison-related poems and songs since the founding of the United Irishmen, and to also eventually archive prison protest songs from other anti-imperialist struggles and anti-fascist struggles around the world.

The Trust is made up of comrades of Bobby and his republican contemporaries.

Originally, North Belfast civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane, who was assassinated in 1989 by loyalist paramilitaries, was an advisor to the Trust.

The legal firm Madden and Finucane continues to act for the Trust whose original members were Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Tom Hartley, Tom Cahill [deceased], Marie Moore and Danny Devenny. For a time Bobby’s two sisters, Marcella and Bernadette, were members of the Trust.

Current members are Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Tom Hartley, Jim Gibney, Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane, Sile Darragh, Carál Ní Chuilín and Peter Madden.

Aine McEntee
Belfast Media
North Belfast News

There is no mistaking Tim Losty’s determination when he talks about the regeneration of Crumlin Road Gaol as having “tremendous potential” to transform the landscape of North Belfast.

“Let’s go for the big vision, why not? If we manage expectations and get everybody to agree on the way forward, then it could have the ability to lift every community in North Belfast,” the former head of the Northern Ireland Bureau in Washington insisted.

With 27 acres to plan for, it’s no surprise the draft masterplan for the site published in July 2007 aims high.

Apart from moves to expand both the Mater Hospital and St Malachy’s the draft pencils in a community epicentre; a new Belfast City Council leisure centre; car parking; sites for mixed-use development and of course tourism initiatives connected to the gaol itself.

Preliminary plans for the prison include two of the four wings being turned into a museum and the others into a hotel.

Buildings that formerly housed guards are to be renovated as a restaurant and an international art gallery, and yards that prisoners once walked are to be turned into community gardens.

A clearest sign yet of the huge interest in the Gaol alone has been the success of the tours. Over 15,000 people have taken the tour so far according to the North Belfast Community Action Unit (NBCAU).

It is a huge project all told and one that will involve decisions from practically every single department in Stormont, especially planning.

And what is proving challenging is marrying the needs of the people who live around it.

Nationalists and housing campaigners have lobbied hard for social housing to be placed on the site considering North Belfast’s housing stress.

However unionist politicians and some community groups believe this will take away the site’s neutrality.

They also feel building social housing will create another interface to add to North Belfast’s already high tally of walls.

With an Equality Impact Assessement currently out for consultation, it is clear that above everything else, the NBCAU must strike a careful balance.

“We want to hear everybody’s views,” Tim explained.

“It is important that this is developed where the community can take ownership.

“We want the ripple effect, and that means benefits will affect the people living beside the development but also those who pass through it every day.

“Community and political leaders along with ourselves have to manage expectations.

“Organisations are articulating their own current needs but we have to have an eye on the future needs 10 or 15 years from now. It has to be an asset for the next 100 years.”

Taking on a project that is an urban regeneration, historic preservation and community empowerment scheme rolled into one might seem daunting, but Tim Losty is optimistic.

Tourism has quadrupled over the past three years, with 1.2 million international visitors to the city in 2007, he explained.

“We do see the whole gaol site as being a lead tourism project that will stimulate interest and generate visitors to North Belfast. It should serve to complement the whole Belfast tourism product,” said Tim.

“The more things of interest we can offer, the more chances we will have of increasing our share of tourist market and we’re already seeing that with the success of the open top buses and black taxi tours.

“We see the Gaol as a brand that will contribute to the overall Belfast brand. West Belfast has the Gaeltacht Quarter, South Belfast has the university and Golden triangle, North Belfast has the Gaol and the East will have the Connswater Community Greenway development.

“The Gaol has to be North Belfast’s unique selling point. All communities must buy into it, no one must feel excluded and people must feel confident about this place.

“We need to change the image and perception people have of North Belfast. We want to reconnect this part of the city back into the city.

“The Westlink hasn’t helped, which is an emotional, physical and cultural separation, cutting off North Belfast from the city centre. But times are changing. Once people wouldn’t have socialised in the city centre, now they do.

“Everyone has to play their part and agree a way forward otherwise this opportunity will be lost.”

BBC
13 Nov 2008

Police have said a pipe bomb that exploded beside a car in north Belfast could have caused serious injury if it had gone off at a busier time.

The device exploded on the Antrim Road, close to the junction with Dawson Street, in the New Lodge area at about 0030 GMT on Thursday.

The pipe bomb exploded on Dawson Street in the New Lodge area.

There was no one in the car at the time and there were no reports of injuries or damage.

Detective Inspector Alan Little said it was still unclear who the target was.

“Thankfully last night there was no damage or injuries caused, but obviously the explosion occurred on a main arterial route into the city with quite a number of houses,” he said.

“Nobody was close to it this time, but if it had gone off at the wrong time, the potential for serious damage or injury was obviously there.”

Police have also appealed for information about a car seen speeding away from the scene.

By Lesley-Anne Henry
Belfast Telegraph
Friday, 14 November 2008

Hundreds of pensioners are expected to picket Stormont on Monday to protest over the spiralling cost of living in Northern Ireland.

The ‘Can’t Heat or Eat’ rally, organised by the Age Sector Platform, Help the Aged and Age Concern, is demanding the Government takes immediate action to help the elderly this winter.

“This gathering will act as a well-needed outlet for older people across Northern Ireland, who feel that Government should be doing more to help them. With pensioner inflation reaching 7.4% in the last few months — its highest since 1991 — it is no surprise that older people are struggling. This rally will mean that Government can no longer ignore its older population,” said Bill Carson, chair of Age Sector Platform which represents 200,000 older people across Northern Ireland.

Senior citizens will be calling for the winter fuel payment to be increased to £500 and for pension credit to be automatically paid for a period of three months. The protesters also want to see better promotion of benefits and social tariffs as well as the establishment of an emergency winter trust fund.

Calls will be made for the Government to restore the earnings link for the state pension immediately and not in 2012.

Seamus Lynch, public affairs officer at Help the Aged in Northern Ireland, said the demands came directly from older people.

“These calls for action have been conveyed clearly by older people across Northern Ireland, through our consultation with them. As a result, they have been added to a campaign postcard for older people to sign and return to the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. This represents yet another channel for older people to campaign on this issue,” he said.

New statistics have revealed that nearly two-in-five (39%) people aged 50 and over said they are planning to cut back on heating their homes as a result of current financial circumstances, with one-in-three (33%) planning to cutting back on electricity.

Anne O’Reilly, chief executive of Age Concern NI, said: “This public rally is part of a much wider ‘Can’t Heat or Eat’ campaign, which will continue to run over the winter months. It is essential that Government acts now in order to prevent unnecessary hardship for older people in Northern Ireland.”

Anyone wishing to join the ‘Can’t Heat or Eat’ rally is asked to meet at Stormont Buildings on Monday, November 17 at 11am.

Belfast Telegraph
Thursday, 13 November 2008

Bonuses totalling £1 million paid out to leading civil servants are to come under the spotlight, it was confirmed today.

A Stormont scrutiny committee is to ask why the majority of top civil servants were handed the 2007 bonuses.

Chairman of the Assembly’s Finance and Personnel Committee Mitchel McLaughlin said he would be asking why the payments were made despite concerns over the performance of elements of the civil service.

“We were alarmed to learn that, in 2007, almost 75% of the 200 senior civil servants received bonuses, amounting to over £1m,” said the Sinn Fein representative.

“Our unease over these bonuses is heightened by our concerns with the performance of the senior Civil Service in certain key areas, including in financial management, (especially in view of high levels of departmental underspend), sick absence management and in achieving business targets generally.”

He said the committee would be seeking information on the issue as a matter of urgency.

The committee has now requested updated information from the Department of Finance and Personnel by November 21.

The union for public service workers, Nipsa, hit out at the news.

Its General Secretary John Corey said: “Nipsa has always opposed performance pay bonuses for civil servants.

“We believe such systems are unnecessary and divisive.

“It is unfair that some senior civil servants should be receiving large bonus payments while thousands of low paid civil servants are denied pay rates to meet the increased cost of living.”

Last month it emerged civil servants were continuing to lose almost three weeks of work each year on sick leave.

Despite government efforts to radically cut absenteeism data from the Statistics and Research Agency today showed sick absence had only dropped from 13.7 days last year to 12.9 days in the year 2007/2008.

Nipsa said government should deal with the causes of illness, including high levels of stress, rather than pursuing policies that demoralise staff.

Finance Minister Nigel Dodds conceded at the time that the reduction fell short of targets set by government but said he was determined to bring the figures down.

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Guardian
Thursday November 13 2008

The paths of several of the world’s best-known armed groups, including Eta and the Colombian Farc movement, converged at a Dublin house yesterday after police and explosives experts searched the home of James Monaghan, a republican wanted by Colombia for training rebel guerrillas.

Two people were being held last night after police investigating a bomb planted near the headquarters of the Shell oil company in Dublin two months ago raided the house on Tuesday.

The arrests came on the same day that a Spanish judge issued a European arrest warrant for a former member of the Basque armed separatist group Eta, Iñaki de Juana Chaos, who is also believed to have given the address of the house in Abbeyfield Road when applying for a passport at the Spanish embassy in Dublin in September.

Neither Monaghan nor De Juana Chaos is thought to have been detained.

The two people in custody could be held for up to 72 hours under Ireland’s Offences Against the State Act, which is used for terrorism and other serious crimes, a police spokesman said.

Two other people arrested during the raid were released without charges.

“The army explosive ordnance disposal team were called … following arrests that were made at the house,” the police spokesman said.

“Two people are still being detained at stations in Dublin.”

The Irish army said a suspect device found at Abbeyfield Road had turned out to be a hoax.

The Irish police believe a bomb left outside Shell’s Dublin headquarters in September was part of a protest against a gas pipeline project in Co Mayo, in the west.

The bomb was defused. Experts described it as “crude and highly dangerous”.

The so-called Corrib pipeline is expected to bring up to 28bn cubic metres (1 trillion cubic feet) of gas ashore from a field about 50 miles from the coast over the next 20 years. Shell says it will cover up to 60% of Ireland’s gas needs.

Monaghan, now 61, was arrested in Colombia, along with Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly, in 2001.

They fled the country before a court imposed a 17-year sentence on them in 2004.

An extradition request was turned down because Colombia has no extradition treaty with Ireland.

Monaghan was once named as a senior IRA man by a Democratic Unionist, Peter Robinson, using absolute privilege in the Northern Ireland assembly. Eta reportedly put the men in contact with Farc.

De Juana Chaos was released in August after serving 21 years in Spanish jails for killing 25 people and then making threats in newspaper articles he wrote from his prison cell.

On Tuesday a Spanish judge issued a European arrest warrant for him after he failed to turn up at court to answer allegations that, in a letter read out in his name at a rally after his release, he had urged Basque separatists to continue Eta’s 40-year campaign of violence.

The judge said that Interpol believed he was in the Irish Republic or Northern Ireland and was using a false identity

Irish News
**Via Newshound
12/11/2008

Lawyers for convicted Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt have resisted attempts to have a book on the dissident group being introduced at the Omagh bombing civil trial.

Their opposition was made clear during admissibility arguments at the High Court in Belfast.

Legal representatives of relatives of some of the people killed at Omagh want to use the book Black Operations: The Secret War Against the Real IRA as part of their multi-million-pound compensation case against five men they hold responsible for the outrage.

Brett Lockhart QC told the hearing: “Mr McKevitt has a history, a very well-known history and this book seems to tie in with that.”

But Michael O’Higgins SC, representing McKevitt who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the Republic for directing terrorism, said it would be a “bridge too far” to allow a book published around the same time as his client’s criminal trial in 2003.

Mr O’Higgins said he would then be forced to call the authors, John Mooney and Michael O’Toole, to question them on the source of their information.

“I can foresee that Mr Mooney and Mr O’Toole, like all journalists, would say they conducted their interviews in confidence and would not reveal what their sources are,” the barrister said.

Mr O’Higgins warned that the legal arguments could then take months.

He referred to the book reading like the “finest of fiction”.

Mr O’Higgins also insisted that the Civil Evidence Order was not meant for such situations.

“Legislators never intended that the purpose was so that popular books would be read out in court and tendered as actual evidence,” he said.

McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Seamus McKenna, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly all deny liability for the bombing.

Meanwhile, a man who worked for Murphy and claimed to have unwittingly lent his mobile phone to his boss the day before the terrorist attack is due to appear at the trial today where a judge will decide whether he is fit to be cross- examined by barristers.

Lawyers for three of the defendants want to question Terence Patrick Morgan about claims he made during police interviews after the August 1998 Real IRA attack, which killed 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins.

During those sessions it was also alleged that he falsely signed in one of them, McKenna, as being at work on the day of the bombing.

The judge hearing the case, Mr Justice Morgan, has been told that the witness is undergoing psychiatric treatment.

After the judge studies a medical report he will decide whether to put him in the witness box.

Graham Keeley, Madrid
Times Online
13 Nov 2008

A notorious Eta terrorist who is the subject of an international police hunt is to give himself up at a court in Belfast.

Inaki de Juana Chaos, 52, who killed 25 people in a bloody bombing campaign in Spain during the 1980s, will appear before the court on Monday, his lawyers said.

De Juana left prison in Spain in August after serving 21 years for terrorist offences and writing threatening newspaper articles from prison, and moved to Ireland.

He was made the subject of a European arrest warrant last week after failing to answer fresh charges at a Madrid court.

The British lawyers for De Juana, Kevin R Winters & Co, told the Spanish news agency EFE yesterday that De Juana had agreed to attend the extraordinary court hearing at the Belfast Recorder’s Court.

De Juana, whose whereabouts are unknown but who is thought to be staying at an IRA safe house, is wanted in Spain for allegedly calling on Basque separatists to continue the armed struggle, a crime in Spain.

In a letter read out in his name at a rally after his release, De Juana allegedly urged Basque separatists to continue ETA’s 40-year campaign of violence.

A Spanish judge, Eloy Velasco, said Interpol believed he was in either Ireland or Northern Ireland and had started using a false identity.

Court sources in Spain yesterday told The Times the case against De Juana was flimsy and the former terrorist had probably decided facing justice was a more prudent move than remaining on the run.

After leaving jail, De Juana left Spain and was thought to have lived in a house in Dublin, which is owned by James Monaghan, a Republican who is wanted by Colombia for allegedly training Marxist Farc rebels.

De Juana gave the address of the house in Abbeyfield Road in the north of the city, when applying for a new passport at the Spanish embassy in Dublin in September.

Mr Monaghan, 61, was arrested in Colombia, along with two other men in 2001.

A court imposed a 17-year sentence in 2004 on the “Colombia Three”, but they fled the country before they were jailed. Extradition requests were refused by Ireland.

Mr Monaghan was once named in the Northern Ireland Assembly as a senior IRA man.

The same house was raided on Tuesday by Irish police in connection with a bomb attack on Shell offices in Dublin. Two people were arrested.