Extradition safeguards passed into law

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 8

Extradition safeguards passed into law

NZPA-Reuter Dublin The Irish Parliament has passed into law by a sizeable majority extradition safeguards that have been sharply criticised by the British leader, Margaret Thatcher. London and Dublin have been involved in a diplomatic row over Father Patrick Ryan, an Irish priest whom Britain wants to extradite as a suspected Irish Republican Army guerrilla.

Under new extradition safeguards introduced last year and put up for Parliamentary review, the Irish Attorney-General

has to be satisfied that sufficient evidence has been presented by British police to merit extradition.

Britain wants to charge Ryan with conspiracy to commit murder and cause explosions in connection with the I.R.A.’s fight to end British rule in Northern Ireland. The Irish Attorney General, John Murray, is expected to decide later this week if there is a case to answer.

Mrs Thatcher attacked the Irish Prime Minister, Charles Haughey, over the Ryan affair and accused Ireland of being soft in

the fight against terrorism.

Irish Opposition leaders accused her of highhanded interference in the legal affairs of a sovereign State and, in a rare show of consensus in Irish politics, backed Mr Haughey.

So the extradition safeguards were passed comfortably into law by 95-59 votes after a five-hour debate in the Irish Parliament.

Mr Haughey told Parliament, “The kind of comment on individual cases that we have seen in sections of the British press and heard from

some speakers in the House of Commons demonstrates the need to have safeguards in the extradition process.”

One British tabloid called Ryan “the devil in a dog collar.” Mr Haughey urged his fellow Irish deputies not to get into a slanging match with Britain, colonial rulers of Ireland for 700 years.

“We in this House have been critical, and justifiably so, of comments which have been made elsewhere about this case — comments which were clearly unwarranted and unjustified.”