Amid angry scenes outside the Four Courts yesterday, Sinn Fein demanded that the Government quash the warrant for the extradition to the North of the convicted IRA killer, Angelo Fusco.
The call came from Mr Martin Ferris, following clashes between gardai and protesters after Fusco was denied bail by the High Court and sent to Castlerea prison, Co Roscommon.
Belfast-born Fusco (43) was granted leave for a judicial review against an order for his return to RUC custody, to serve a sentence for his part in the 1980 murder of Capt Herbert Westmacott of the SAS.
More than 50 demonstrators fought briefly with gardai as they cleared a path for a convoy bringing Fusco to prison. Sinn Fein claimed several people were injured. A Garda officer said no arrests had been made. The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, had attended the court hearing.
A date will be set at the end of the month for the full High Court hearing of Fusco's case. His legal team will argue that extradition warrants against him should no longer apply on the grounds of "profound changes" brought about by the prisoner release programme generated by the Belfast Agreement.
Fusco was arrested near Tralee, Co Kerry, last Monday, and moves for his extradition on foot of a 1998 Supreme Court decision were activated. The court heard he was driving a van with English registration plates and gardai found two fake driving licences in the vehicle.
Conflicting accounts were given in court yesterday of Fusco's visibility in Tralee following the Supreme Court ruling, which gave gardai the power to arrest him.
Det Sgt Kevin Dillon said Fusco had been missing from his home address in Tralee since the court's decision "and wasn't to be seen anywhere in Kerry or the Tralee area".
However, Fusco said he had stayed at home for six weeks after the court's ruling which brought his six-year legal battle against extradition to an end. When he was not arrested during this time, he "thought the gardai were not going to do it," he said.
Fusco said he was staying in Coolock, Dublin, with his brother until his arrest, working as a builder. He said he travelled to Tralee almost every weekend to see his wife, Mary, and their three children.
Fusco's extradition after his arrest this week was dramatically halted by the High Court as he was heading for the Border, after a legal move by his lawyers.
Mr Ferris, who lives near Fusco's Tralee family home, said nationalists and republicans were very angry. He said the pursuance of warrants against Fusco had "created a loss of confidence" that had built up since the Belfast Agreement. "It is necessary to restore that confidence. Therefore I call on the Government to rescind the warrants immediately," he said.