Ramsey Clark Calls for Roisin's Release
	  id CAA20746; Thu, 16 Oct 1997 02:30:30 -0400


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    Irish News Round-Up 
    Tuesday, 14 October, 1997

 http://irlnet.com/rmlist/

 Former US Attorney-General call for Roisin's release

Ramsey Clark, former United States Attorney-General yesterday
called for the immediate release of Irish human rights victim
Roisin McAliskey from custody.

Clark is heading an international commission of inquiry into the
case of the Tyrone woman now caught in a legal deadlock after
seven months behind bars without formal charges against her.

The daughter of prominent Irish Republican and former MP
Bernadette McAliskey is presently recovering in Maudsley hospital
in London, nursing her new-born daughter, Loinnir, pending
extradition to Germany.  No evidence has yet been presented
against her in regard of an attack on a British army base in
Osnabruck in June 1996.

Mr Clark is to examine extensive documentary evidence along with
Norwegian human rights lawyer and extradition expert Heidi
Bache-Wiig.

He said: "There is great concern in the United States about
Roisin's case and disbelief that there is any justification for
her arrest.

"The European Convention seems to say, and British courts seem to
accept as the law, that you can seize and detain a person and
interrogate them without probable cause. That's contrary to
everything we have hold dear in English and American
jurisprudence.

"You just can't hold people because you want to - you have to
establish that there is a basis and that there is probable cause.
And they are not permitting that to be challenged.

"Here you have this anomaly where this young woman has been held
for 11 months now on the request of Germany when she couldn't
have been so held on the request of the United Kingdom itself.

"The real point is that they have no evidence, they have shown no
evidence and she ought to be released."

Mr Clark said the case was jeopardising faith in both the German
and British governments, adding: "I would hope that Tony Blair,
who is in town today, and the highest officials in Germany...
would examine this and decide whether in accordance with law and
justice they have not made a bad mistake."

The former attorney-general also called for an immediate human
rights investigation into the abuse Ms McAliskey had been
subjected to.

Ms Bache-Wiig said the case was clearly political and that the
fact Ms McAliskey had been at her workplace in Northern Ireland
at the time of the attack had been ignored.

Ms McAliskey's mother Bernadette said legal proceedings were
currently "stuck". The magistrate in charge of the case will not
order her daughter's extradition until she is fit enough to
attend court, which seems unlikely in the foreseeable future.

"The hospital says that while there is no resolution to Roisin's
legal situation they cannot more than manage rather than repair
the situation," said the former MP.

"They are therefore very anxious, in so far as what is humanly
possible, that Roisin has some idea of what the future holds for
her and that in the interim it is crucial to her health that she
not return to prison in terms of waiting for these proceedings to
be resolved."
 
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