Roisin McAliskey freed
In January, a London magistrate signed an order for the extradition to Germany of Roisin McAliskey on charges that she was involved in an IRA bomb attack on a British army base in Osnabruck in June 1996. On March 10, that order was reversed by British home secretary Jack Straw after medical evidence showed such a move would be "unjust and oppressive".
Preparations are now under way to bring McAliskey home to Coalisland after her 16-month detention in England. The 26-year-old daughter of nationalist former MP Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, who gave birth to a baby girl during her detention, is unable to travel home due to post-traumatic stress disorder. She will remain in Maudsley Hospital in south London for the time being.
Devlin McAliskey said: "Expectation of good news from the British government is never something I have lived with easily. And yet I have it and I appreciate it."
Solicitor Gareth Peirce said her client had been unable to take in the news of her release. "I had to repeatedly promise her that this was true."
McAliskey's mental state had been caused by her arrest and seven-day questioning in November 1996. "She was in effect given the makings of a complete mental breakdown by reason of the interrogation process in Castlereagh holding centre in Belfast", Peirce said. "The doctors who have had her under their care, and the doctors for the home secretary, agree that whatever happened to her in Castlereagh has caused this ongoing effect for this length of time. You have to ask what is being allowed to go on there."
She said her client would now consider legal action against the RUC and the Home Office.
Paying tribute to all who had campaigned to achieve the decision, Sinn Féin's Mid-Ulster MP, Martin McGuinness, said the decision was welcome. "I always believed that there was no case against Roisin and that the previous British government was driven by spite in its treatment of her", he said.