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I can only speak truthfully and accurately concerning my own case where the Irish Government have failed to implement the Good Friday Agreement, ie their decision to arbitrarily exclude me from the early release scheme. The scheme was set out in the GFA, for the phased release of all Political Prisoners, and a completion time scale of two years meant that any POWs remaining after June 2000 would automatically be released. The Irish and British Governments passed appropriate laws to facilitate the releases and began processing the POWs - which basically went on the lines of first in first out.
The British released almost immediately those Prisoners who had served out most of their sentence, then prisoners who were deemed the least threat to the Peace Process were released and after that they began releasing high risk prisoners and finally they began releasing those who had just begun their sentences. These phased releases continued for two years until the cut off date (28-06-02) was reached,and on that day all the remaining political prisoners were released en masse. But I wasn't released on that date with all the remaining prisoners, so I immediately began legal proceedings to contest the legality of my detention, citing that under the Good Friday Agreement I should have been released by June 2000 and was therefore illegally detained. The legal proceedings went by way of judicial review. Initially the government said that I failed to apply for release under the GFA So when this was done, they shifted the goalposts and said I wasn't a POW proper! So when my application to rejoin the INLA wing in the Prison was accepted, they then shifted the goalposts again by saying my case could not be processed because I wasn't speaking (I had taken a yogic vow of silence and hadn't spoken for six years). When I made a forty page written submission, they simply rejected it and said I would have to speak! So I spoke, which led them to shift the goalposts yet again and this time they stooped to Siberian tactics and said I wasn't complying with the process by refusing to allow a psychiatric report. So this forced me to acquiesce and allow a psychiatric report (which resulted in a clean bill of health). Then two months after that report was made they ordered another one, and when that psychiatric report failed to turn up anything detrimental that they could present in court, they then ordered a different psychiatrist! And when this report was also a favourable one, they then ordered a fourth report from another doctor, this time their own clinical psychologist from the Dept of Justice and after exhaustive interviews conducted over three days with Dr Des O'Mahony, I received a further healthy Compus Mentis report. The disgraceful and malicious intent of those who put me through all these hoops is all the more accentuated by the very fact that both Republican and Loyalist Prisoners who were convicted of very serious crimes including capital murder were all released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and not a single one of them was submitted to the demands that have been placed on me, Anyhow, after a years protracted legal wrangling in the courts the then Minister for Justice John O'Donohue officially recognised me as a Qualifying Prisoner under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The Governments started releasing the first POWs under the terms of the GFA four years ago and I am beginning my 23rd year behind these prison bars. I have been in this jail continuously since 1979 (with one years exception 1987) and in all of them 22 years I haven't been given a single days temporary release despite many family tragedies and the death of my father (RIP) The double standards prove there is no parity of esteem being shown in my case, every spurious excuse the Dept has used to deny me my freedom has been deemed null and void; yet the Dept continues to hold me as a Political Prisoner when most other Qualifying prisoners have long been released. Even my Co-accused who were giving the same sentenses as me have long been released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Reneging on the decision to release me only adds insult to the spirit of the GFA, the very same spirit of peace and reconciliation that was born in the prisons, surely someone can muster up the courage to release one of the last qualifying Prisoners,
Yours in solidarity |