• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• NI: Smyth Extradition Hearing

NI: Smyth Extradition Hearing

01 September 1993

A San Francisco court is considering an application to extradite Jimmy Smyth (see Statewatch, July/August, 1993). His main defence is that his life would be threatened if he were to return to Northern Ireland. Ironically, one of his defence witnesses, Bernadette McAliskey, was warned by the RUC that should she go to San Francisco in support of Smyth, her life would be in danger. Another witness, Ken Livingstone MP, told the court that "any British Member of Parliament will be willing to say off the record, yes there had been an unofficial shoot-to-kill policy". Witnesses for the prosecution have included John Chilcot, Permanent Under-Secretary for State for Northern Ireland, Special Branch officer Woolford Monahan and Brigadier Alastair Irwin who, as commander of the 39th Infantry Brigade, currently has responsibility for the greater Belfast area. These three witnesses have had some difficulty answering questions, in effect claiming a right to silence under the British Official Secrets Act. Chilcot has replied on seventeen occasions: "I am not authorised to answer that question". Keeping an eye on the proceedings are three dark- suited Englishmen who will only admit to the court that they are "government observers". As Phil Reeves reporting for The Independent observed, "in a nation where the Secret Service hands out visiting cards, such tactics do not win many admirers".

Independent 1.10.93; Irish News 8.10.93; Belfast Telegraph 8.10.93