A DAUGHTER of the former Mid Ulster MP and civil rights activist, Ms Bernadette McAliskey, is being held by the RUC in Belfast as documents seeking her extradition to Germany are processed.
A spokesman for the German Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe confirmed yesterday that Ms Roisin McAliskey is wanted in connection with an IRA mortar attack on Osnabruck barracks in June.
"We are preparing an extradition warrant against Ms McAliskey on charges of attempted murder and explosives offences on the basis that there is a strong suspicion that she was involved in the Osnabruck attack," he said.
Ms McAliskey (25) was arrested last Wednesday and is being held at Castlereagh Detention Centre. A warrant for her extradition to Germany in connection with a mortar attack on a British army barracks at Osnabruck last June was sworn in London yesterday.
The RUC confirmed that a woman was in custody, but did not name her. A spokeswoman said the German authorities had been in touch with the RUC with regard to their inquiries "into serious terrorist crime in their jurisdiction."
She added: "A female is currently in custody in Northern Ireland, and an extradition warrant has been sworn by German authorities in London regarding the matter."
No one was seriously injured in the Osnabruck attack, in which three mortars were fired, only one of which landed inside the barracks.
Ms Roisin McAliskey is understood to have been arrested at her mother's home outside Coalisland, Co Tyrone, last week. The house was visited again yesterday by the RUC. Officers searched it and removed items.
The German authorities have previously named two men they wish to interview in connection with the attack. One is from Northern Ireland and the other is a former British soldier, now believed to be in the Republic.
Ms McAliskey is the eldest of three children of Ms Bernadette Devlin, the former independent nationalist MP for Mid Ulster from 1969-74. She is a former student at Queen's University, where her mother was an active civil rights organiser in the 1960s.
Television film of the funeral of the former INLA leader, Dominic McGlinchey, in 1994 showed Ms McAliskey and her mother assisting in carrying his coffin. Ms Bernadette McAliskey gave a graveside oration.
Ms Roisin McAliskey and the other children were in the family home in 1981 when Ms Bernadette McAliskey and her husband were each shot several times by loyalist gunmen. The former MP was hit by seven bullets and critically injured while dressing two of the children.
The IRSP, in a statement yesterday, denounced the raid on the McAliskey home and said it was part of a political witch hunt being waged against Ms Bernadette McAliskey.