Irish Republican News · September 28, 2012

Marian Price unable to attend court

Interned political activist Marian Price is reported to have suffered another lung infection, preventing her from receiving a complicating treatment for her arthritis. She was unable to communicate with her legal team ahead of a court hearing this week.

It was confirmed that the Marian has E. Coli in her lung.

The veteran republican has been moved to another area of the hospital where she will undergo a heavy course of intravenous antibiotics for a second time in a matter of weeks.

Doctors at this point are trying to trace the source of the infection.

“Her immune system is so suppressed that one infection is just following the other,” said a member of the Free Marian Price campaign.

“They are looking at alternative treatments to deal with the arthritis which is steadily getting worse.

“She has been having steroid injections but is only allowed a limited number of these. Marian is in a lot of pain, nurses are applying gel to her knees and legs to give her some relief.”

Her family say she looks terrible and that they are desperately worried about her. “Please keep Marian in your thoughts and prayers,” they said.

On Thursday, a lawyer for Marian old Dertry Magistrates Court that his client was too ill to appear and that her condition is not expected to improve.

Peter Corrigan said that the consensus of UN, prison and defence doctors who examined Price was she was too ill to give proper instructions to him or others in her legal team.

He also told the court he would be making an abuse of process application due to the delay in bringing the charges, of supporting a ‘terrorist’ organisation, to trial.

West Belfast Sinn Fein Assembly member Jennifer McCann said that from the court hearing, it was clear once again that Marian was unfit to stand trial and should be released immediately.

“The added weight of the UN doctors opinion alongside both prison and defence doctors all agreeing that she is unable to give instructions to her defence team makes her continued imprisonment unjustifiable,” she said.

“There should be no delay as her further detention is an affront to natural justice.”

The case was adjourned until October 19.

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