`Traumatised' McAliskey to attend court

Her family claims she is suffering from post-traumatic stress, and she has an eating disorder. But bomb suspect Roisin McAliskey has been told she must be in court to hear her extradition case.

Steve Boggan reports

A magistrate yesterday ordered the terrorist suspect Roisin McAliskey to be brought to his court from her hospital sickbed so he could extradite her to Germany.

Nicholas Evans, sitting at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in London, said he was prepared to grant an extradition application from the German government, but only if Ms McAliskey, 25, were present.

His ruling angered her supporters and appeared to astonish lawyers acting for both sides. Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Ms McAliskey, and James Lewis, for the Germans, argued that an order committing her to be extradited could be granted in her absence after psychiatrists ruled she was too ill to attend.

She was arrested more than 10 months ago on attempted murder and conspiracy charges after a mortar bomb attack on the Quebec barracks in Osnabruck in June 1996 in which no one was injured. Despite being heavily pregnant and suffering from an eating disorder, she was classed as a category A high-risk prisoner and was granted conditional and highly restrictive bail only days before giving birth to her daughter, Loinnir, in May.

Both sides asked Mr Evans to grant an order yesterday so the case could move on to the High Court, which can overrule extradition in certain circumstances, or to Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, who also has the power to prevent extradition if he were satisfied that the case against Ms McAliskey were flawed. She has always denied the charges and insists she has never visited Germany.

Yesterday, Mr Lewis, acting for the Germans, said he accepted that Ms McAliskey was too ill to attend. But Mr Evans said: "I am not prepared to commit her in her absence". He adjourned the hearing to 9 October, when he said he would take "just five minutes" to make his ruling with Ms McAliskey present.

After the hearing, her mother, Bernadette McAliskey, the former nationalist MP, said doctors had warned that attendance would have a terrible effect on her daughter's health. She is suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress following her arrest and detention in prison while pregnant.

"We wanted this to move on up through the courts so we could argue there was no prima facie case against her," she said. "Her doctors have told me that her recovery would take 18 months ... more stress like this will set her right back and I won't allow it."

Paul May of the Britain and Ireland Human Rights Centre said her lawyers had proof that she was in Northern Ireland throughout the period the German authorities claim she was there. Her presence at a cottage from which the bombing raid was launched has also been put in doubt. Annaliese Schmidt, whose husband owns the cottage, has told investigators that Ms McAliskey was not the woman - known as Beth - who stayed there before the bombing.