NEW LEGAL argument which could free Ms Roisin McAliskey will be heard next Wednesday at the High Court in London.
During a 10-minute hearing at the High Court, Mr Justice Sedley said the new argument against her extradition to Germany deserved to be raised as soon as possible, but pointed out that the British Home Office "will clearly want to be heard on any application for bail".
Mr Justice Sedley adjourned yesterday's hearing because the Crown Prosecution Service's barrister, who was to represent the German government, failed to turn up.
The German government wants to extradite Ms McAliskey, who is six months pregnant, in connection with the IRA mortar bomb attack on the British army barracks in Osnabruck last June in which no one was injured.
Ms McAliskey (25), a community worker, is the eldest daughter of former nationalist MP and civil rights campaigner, Ms Bernadette McAliskey.
However, her barrister, Mr Edward Fitzgerald QC, will argue that Germany has no right to ask for Ms McAliskey's extradition because, under the European Convention articles, it refuses to extradite its own nationals.
On this basis, the authority of the British Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, to grant the extradition will be challenged at the habeas corpus hearing next Wednesday. If this argument is accepted then Ms McAliskey will be released from prison immediately.
The Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, accepted this argument on Tuesday, when she released Mr James Corry, who was also alleged to have been a member of the five-member IRA gang wanted by the German authorities in connection with the mortar attack.
After yesterday's hearing, Mr Fitzgerald said: "We will be saying that Germany should never have asked for her extradition because they don't allow the provision in their own country ... this interpretation of the law is seriously opposed by the Crown Prosecution Service."
Earlier, a London magistrate, Mr Peter Badge, again rejected Ms McAliskey's application for bail and remanded her in custody for a further 28 days.
Outside Bow Street Magistrate's Court, her mother said the British government was holding her daughter illegally at the behest of the German authorities.
"The Germans are not entitled to ask any of the European countries to extradite their own nationals from their own country. Therefore Germany in seeking the extradition of my daughter, in failing to provide any support of papers until the last minute and in failing to provide anything more than the most questionable evidence on the charge, had no right to ask for her in the first place," she said.