Martin McCauley extradited

Veteran republican Martin McCauley has been handed over to British forces after ending an appeal against his extradition from the 26 Counties.

A Dublin court ordered the County Armagh man’s extradition earlier this month after the British police’s ‘Operation Kenova’ called for his prosecution on IRA charges dating from 1982.

Mr McCauley appeared in court in Craigavon last Thursday after handing himself over to Gardaí police in County Kildare. Released on bail, he will appear in court again on February 26.

In 1982, at the age of 19, Mr McCauley was targeted by a Crown ambush. He survived the attack, only to see it claim the life of his 17-year-old friend, Michael Tighe.

Arrested and charged with possession of three rifles, he was convicted but the conviction was quashed in 2014, after it emerged that MI5 had bugged the hayshed where the shooting took place.

The RUC was found to have destroyed a surveillance tape within 24 hours of the shootings. He is now being pursued for a separate incident by former RUC figures who remain in controlling positions within the PSNI.

Mr McCauley’s legal team fear his extradition is part of a plot by British authorities for his onward extradition to Colombia, where he has intermittently faced prosecution on spurious claims that in 2001, he and two others had supported rebels in the country’s civil war.

Independent Dublin Republicans, a group of grassroots activists, condemned the move.

“Extraditing Irish Republicans in modern times is akin to doing the same to renowned Irish Republicans of times past like Tom Barry or Frank Aiken in the 1960’s or 1970’s for their actions in the conflict period of 1919 - 1923,” they said.

“Extradition should never have become a normal legal process between two countries with an ongoing unfinished political conflict in Ireland and will be vehemently opposed by Irish Republicans.”

Anti Imperialist Action said the extradition is part of an “ongoing British strategy of waging a low intensity war” against Irish republicans. They said the move placed his life “in direct danger” and was an abuse of his human rights.

“In ordering the extradition of Martin McCauley, the Free State is showing its slavish semi-colonial subservience to British Imperialism.

“That it would sink to the low of putting the life of an Irish Citizen in direct danger to please their Imperialist masters is shameful and completely unacceptable.

“Anti Imperialist Action Ireland calls for all Republicans to raise their voices in support of Martin McCauley and demand that the extradition case against him is dropped. Republicans must stand up and hold the Free State to account for its complicity in British Imperialism’s ongoing war in Ireland.”

Urgent Appeal