Prospect of ‘imminent’ Massereene extradition
EXTRADITION proceedings against a key Real IRA suspect in the Massereene army base murders may be “imminent”, security sources have revealed.
Sappers Cengiz ‘Patrick’ Azimkar and Mark Quinsey were shot dead by the Real IRA outside their barracks in Antrim on March 7.
Two men, Colin Duffy and Brian Shivers, have been charged with the murders.
In July a senior PSNI detective said police had tried to make another arrest in the investigation but feared that a key suspect had fled Northern Ireland.
The Irish News has learned that during the summer the suspect, originally from the Donaghmore area of Co Tyrone, was arrested and questioned by gardai in Monaghan about the barracks attack.
The man in his late thirties served a prison sentence for IRA offences in the 1990s.
It is understood that the PSNI may be close to officially requesting his extradition to question him about the killings.
The development comes as Shivers (44) applies for High Court bail in Belfast this morning so that he can receive hospital treatment for cystic fibrosis.
His lawyers say he may need a new lung within three weeks if his condition continues to deteriorate.
Efforts to have Shivers released from Maghaberry Prison for hospital treatment have been supported by Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four and Paddy Joe Hill of the Birmingham Six.
Veteran civil rights activist Bernadette McAliskey has also backed the campaign.
In a letter in The Irish News today she says “compassion and reason” demand that the lord chief justice should grant bail and set an early date for Shivers’s trial.
All three campaigners have united to condemn the murders but have urged the defendant’s release on humanitarian grounds.
Last night Shivers’s mother Betty condemned the murders but pleaded for her son to be allowed to receive hospital treatment.
“Leaving aside the awful charges he is faced with, he is a sick man and purely on humanitarian grounds he needs to be released,” she said.
Meanwhile, one of Northern Ireland’s most senior judges yesterday warned that anyone convicted of involvement in dissident violence should expect to spend a long time in jail.
Mr Justice Treacy made the remark as he sentenced three Co Armagh dissidents to 15 years’ imprisonment each for possession of a mortar bomb.
“Those who are seduced by the false glamour of terrorism, perhaps those too young to remember or blinded to its horrific consequences, should not allow themselves to be deluded,” he said.
“Upon conviction they face lengthy deterrent sentences.”
