A former US attorney general has warned that if Ms Roisin McAliskey is not released immediately from detention in Britain, the threat to the Northern peace process will be "absolutely staggering". Mr Ramsey Clark gave his warning at a press conference after addressing the House of Commons yesterday. Presenting the evidence of an independent inquiry into Ms McAliskey's case at the Commons, Mr Clark and Ms Heidi Bache-Wiig, a Norwegian human rights lawyer and expert in extradition, said the case would be raised with the talks chairman, Mr George Mitchell.
If Ms McAliskey's case was the cause celebre it ought to be, Mr Clark insisted, "the outrage would be enormous. I intend to talk to George Mitchell and tell him what a risk the peace process runs for no good reason". Mr Clark said he also intends to raise Ms McAliskey's extradition with the US administration, the human rights constituency in the US and the Irish-American lobby.
It is understood, however, that the current difficulties surrounding Ms McAliskey's case will be resolved within days. Mr Paul May, a spokesman for the Britain and Ireland Human Rights Centre, yesterday said a London magistrate will visit Ms McAliskey at the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital where she is being held on conditional bail with her four-month-old daughter pending an extradition hearing next week.
On her doctors' advice, Ms McAliskey has not attended court since the birth because she is suffering from extreme stress. However, a compromise has been reached whereby the magistrate will inform Ms McAliskey in person that the British authorities have agreed to her extradition.
This will allow her to move to the next stage in the legal process and apply to the High Court for a writ of habeas corpus or ask the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, to rule on the case "in the interests of justice".
Ms McAliskey is facing extradition to Germany in connection with an IRA mortar attack on a British army base at Osnabruck on June 28th, 1996. Within days the German authorities released the names of two men they wanted to find in connection with the attack, but crucially, according to Mr Clark, during the next five months Ms McAliskey remained at her home in Coalisland, Co Tyrone. "Had she played a part of it," he explained, "she would have thought she was next and moved to [the Republic of] Ireland, but she remained".
The inquiry team had interviewed alibi witnesses in Coalisland and in Belfast who put Ms McAliskey in the North in the two weeks before the mortar attack. German witnesses, who retracted statements identifying Ms McAliskey from computer enhanced photographs, were highlighted as key elements of the "impossible" evidence gathered against her.
Ms Bache-Wiig insisted that the evidence against Ms McAliskey should be seen by a British court before she is extradited.
Mr Clark and Ms Bache-Wiig also met officials from the Irish Embassy in London yesterday. The meeting was described as "extremely courteous".