Duo face extradition to NI to face charges linked to death of RUC officer half a century ago
Ryan Dunne, Belfast Telegraph, March 21st, 2025
Two men in their 70s are to be handed over to the authorities in Northern Ireland to face charges relating to the murder of an RUC officer nearly 50 years ago.
It comes after a court rejected their argument that their extradition would be an abuse of process.
At the High Court extradition hearing today in Dublin (Thursday), Mr Justice Patrick McGrath said there was no evidence to suggest that John Edward McNicholl (73) and Seamus Christopher O'Kane (74) would not receive a fair trial in Northern Ireland.
He ruled that a delay in serving warrants on the respondents was not grounds for refusing their surrender to Northern Ireland.
Both men escaped from the Maze Prison in a dramatic tunnelling breakout in May 1976 before they could be put on trial.
Mr O'Kane has been living openly in the Meath area for almost five decades while Mr McNicholl, who was deported from the United States, has been here since 2003.
Mr McNicholl, of Newmills, Letterkenny, Co Donegal, and Mr O'Kane, of Scalestown, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath are wanted in the UK.
They face charges arising from an investigation into the murder of 25-year-old Constable Robert John McPherson in Co Londonderry on July 26, 1975 and the attempted murder of a second constable.
Mr McNicholl is charged with murdering Constable McPherson and attempted murder, while Mr O'Kane is charged with possession of firearms, including an RUC-issued firearm taken during the ambush on Constable McPherson.
At the High Court last year, Mark Lynam SC, for Mr McNicholl, said his client had been in Ireland since 2003 but for reasons unknown, the UK made no effort to seek his surrender until now.
Significant abuse of process
Mr Lynam said he was arguing that this was a "significant abuse of process".
Counsel said the UK had made repeated decisions over several decades not to seek his client's surrender but then "the political wind has changed and the Legacy Act has come in and Mr McNicholl was in the unfortunate cohort of people who were now going to be proceeded against".
The extradition warrant was issued four days prior to the commencement of the Legacy Act, which limits criminal investigations and prosecutions related to Troubles-era offences. It was submitted that Mr McNicholl is now a "frail" man with severe health problems.
John Berry BL, for Mr O'Kane, said he was also making an objection on grounds of an abuse of process.
He said the delay in the UK authorities seeking his client's extradition has not been adequately explained. Following a failed extradition attempt in 1978, Mr Berry said his client "got on with his life" and lived normally and unexceptionally in the Republic for nearly half a century.
In delivering judgment today, Mr Justice McGrath said that in the case of both men, while there was no doubt that their surrender would impinge on their family life, this was “a regular if not inescapable consequence of surrender”.
He said this disruption was not so exceptional that it would constitute a breach of their family rights.
In the case of Mr McNicholl, Mr Justice McGrath noted that the respondent had argued that due to the delay and the lapse of the warrant, the refusal of his surrender would be in the interest of justice.
He noted that the respondent was now 73 and had a number of health issues, but he found these issues were well controlled at present, while there was nothing put before the court to suggest Mr McNicholl would not receive proper medical treatment.
The judge said that in the absence of any evidence that suggested otherwise, the UK courts will provide a fair trial.
“There is no basis to suggest he will not receive a fair trial in Northern Ireland, and no evidence has been put before the court to raise any doubt that he will be shut out from challenging this prosecution in Northern Ireland,” said Mr Justice McGrath.
Public Interest
He went on to say that there was a public interest in Ireland honouring its various extradition treaties.
Saying that he did not think this was a case where the respondent’s surrender would be an abuse of process, Mr Justice McGrath rejected the grounds of objection and said the court would make an order for his surrender.
In the case of Mr O’Kane, Mr Justice McGrath said that an explanation had been offered by the requesting state for the passage of time between the alleged offence and the extradition request.
“Although a long number of years have passed, there is no reason to doubt he will receive a fair trial,” said Mr Justice McGrath.
Finding there were also no grounds to conclude this was a case where surrender was an abuse of process, Mr Justice McGrath rejected the application and made an order for the respondent’s surrender.
The matter was put back to April 3 next, with both men remanded on continual bail to that date.
Warrants for the arrest of both men were issued following a request by the authorities in Northern Ireland last year as part of an ongoing investigation into Constable McPherson's murder.
Constable shot in neck
Constable McPherson was from Leck, outside Coleraine. He was shot dead in an INLA ambush in Dungiven Main Street around midday. He was hit by a single shot when he and a colleague were ambushed as they investigated a report of a suspect car. His fellow officer was hit multiple times but survived.
Both Mr McNicholl and Mr O'Kane face four charges relating to the possession of explosives and firearms on February 16, 1976 at Garvagh. The court heard that an RUC-issued firearm retrieved at that location had been taken during the ambush on Constable McPherson.
The extradition warrant relating to Mr O'Kane states that on May 5, 1976 he and others escaped from custody at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland prior to a decision being made to prosecute him for the four offences.
At a previous hearing of the High Court, Detective Garda Tony Keane, of the Garda Extradition Unit, said that following a search of the premises at Garvagh in 1976, the RUC recovered two electric detonators, two improvised pressure mat switches, two Walther pistols, one Browning pistol, a 0.22 rifle, a Remington shotgun and 104 rounds of ammunition.
Detective Keane said the warrant issued by the Northern Irish authorities states that Mr O'Kane and two other males were found hiding in an upstairs bedroom in the property and were arrested.
The warrant continues that Mr O'Kane was interviewed on February 17 1976, where he made a full admission to possessing the explosive substances, firearms and ammunition recovered from the property at Brockaghboy in Garvagh.
Pair who escaped Maze to face charges over RUC officer’s murder 50 years ago
Irish News, March 21st, 2025
TWO Maze escapees will be surrendered to the north to face charges relating to the murder of an RUC officer in Derry nearly 50 years ago.
At a High Court extradition hearing yesterday, Mr Justice Patrick McGrath said there was no evidence to suggest that John Edward McNicholl (73) and Seamus Christopher O’Kane (74) would not receive a fair trial in Northern Ireland.
Both men escaped from the Maze Prison in a dramatic tunnelling breakout in May 1976 before they could be put on trial.
Mr O’Kane has been living openly in the Co Meath area for almost five decades while Mr McNicholl, who was deported from the US, has been in the Republic since 2003.
Mr O’Kane, of Scalestown in Dunshaughlin, and Mr McNicholl, of Newmills in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, are wanted in the north.
They face charges arising from an investigation into the murder of Constable Robert John McPherson (25) in Co Derry on July 26 1975 and the attempted murder of a second officer.
John Edward McNicholl (73) and Seamus Christopher O’Kane (74) escaped from the Maze Prison, left, in May 1976 before they could be put on trial. Right, RUC constable Robert John McPherson
Mr McNicholl is charged with murdering Mr McPherson and attempted murder, while Mr O’Kane is charged with possession of firearms, including an RUC-issued firearm taken during the ambush.
At the High Court last year, Mark Lynam SC, for Mr McNicholl, said his client had been in the Republic since 2003 but for reasons unknown, no effort was made to seek his surrender until now.
Mr Lynam said he was arguing that this was a “significant abuse of process”.
It was submitted that Mr McNicholl is now a “frail” man with severe health problems.
John Berry BL, for Mr O’Kane, said he was also making an objection on grounds of an abuse of process.
He said the delay in authorities seeking his client’s extradition has not been adequately explained.
Failed extradition attempt in 1978
Following a failed extradition attempt in 1978, Mr Berry said his client “got on with his life” and lived normally and unexceptionally in the Republic for nearly half a century.
In delivering judgment, Mr Justice McGrath said that in the case of both men, while there was no doubt their surrender would impinge on their family life, this disruption was not so exceptional that it would constitute a breach of their family rights.
“There is no basis to suggest he will not receive a fair trial in Northern Ireland, and no evidence has been put before the court to raise any doubt that he will be shut out from challenging this prosecution in Northern Ireland,” the judge said.
He went on to say that there was a public interest in the Republic honouring its various extradition treaties.
Finding there were also no grounds to conclude this was a case where surrender was an abuse of process, Mr Justice McGrath rejected the application and made an order for the respondents’ surrender.
The matter was put back to April 3, with both men remanded on continuing bail.
Warrants for the arrest of both men were issued following a request by the Northern Ireland authorities last year as part of an ongoing investigation into Mr McPherson’s murder.
The constable was shot dead in an INLA ambush in Dungiven Main Street.
He was hit by a single shot when he and a colleague were ambushed as they investigated a report of a suspect car.
His fellow officer was hit multiple times but survived.
Comment
I'm sorta conflicted about this: No one despises the Provos as much as I do (well, not too many!) but the idea of someone being charged after 50 years is hard to be comfortable with.
Mike Jennings
A mutually acceptable 'fleg' for NI?
No, because there's little value in something none of us would want to burn or destroy
John Laverty, Belfast Telegraph, March 20th, 2025
No, because there's little value in something none of us would want to burn or destroy
For a place that's so obsessed with 'flegs', it's ironic that Northern Ireland doesn't have a separate one to call its own. Ah, you thought that big St George's cross with red hand and crown in the middle was the official flag of our wee country?
Not so, but at least the 'Ulster Banner' isn't a target for the UK's Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, who's currently pushing to give the PSNI additional powers to seize terrorist-related flags and emblems here.
Good luck with that, Mr Jonathan Hall KC. I think you'll discover that our cops have more pressing matters than the removal of traditional territorial markings, which we all know will be restored within hours of being taken down.
The very existence of such staunch sectarian symbolism is one of the reasons why finding a communal flag for this place has proven to be so challenging.
In the meantime, the coat of arms for the long-defunct Stormont Parliament lives on in, among other things, band parades, Ulster rugby, Northern Ireland football matches and Commonwealth Games events.
As you're no doubt aware, local athletics bigwigs caused a stir late last year when proposing a replacement for the Ulster Banner.
That didn't go down well, to say the least, and the Commonwealth Games NI office had to close amid online threats.
The argument — that the flag was not representative of the entire NI community — was a valid one.
It'll still be there, however, when our Commonwealth athletes step out in Glasgow next year, with medal winners — most of whom were born after the Good Friday Agreement — more than happy to wave it.
No doubt the majority are unaware of the history and symbolism and couldn't care less either.
Our most globally recognised sports star, Rory McIlroy, has shown in the past that he has no issues being associated with either the Ulster Banner or the Irish tricolour.
But the backlash against the Commonwealth Games plan has, to all intents and purposes, ended the latest of many attempts to get this place its own distinct flag; one you wouldn't want to pull down or burn on a bonfire.
There were a couple of designs drawn up by the Northern Ireland Office 30 years ago but not adopted; ditto the Alliance Party's 2003 proposals (one of which was a blue flax flower on a white field) and the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition's 2021 recommendation that a newly-designed 'Civic Flag' be flown at Executive and district council buildings.
When green represented grass
My favourite effort, however, was comedian Eddie Izzard's — which featured a white dove flying eastwards carrying an olive branch. Izzard has skin in the game: he spent his formative years in Bangor, attended Ballyholme Primary School and, until his family decamped to Wales, sported a strong Norn Iron accent.
Aware of the divisive politics of this place, he brandished his new flag when running a series of marathons for Sport Relief.
His only mistake was using a green background but, to be fair, it was meant to represent a field of grass... oops, back to the drawing board, Eddie.
Ironically, the most appropriate representation of Northern Ireland would have been a tricolour with orange on one side, green on the other and a white panel depicting peace in between — but someone beat us to it a century ago.
Even so, it still wouldn't have been a proper adumbration for this place as it is today.
Previous flag designers have always assumed there are only two 'sides' here.
The 2021 Census, however, disproves that notion, with 31.5% identifying as 'Northern Irish' — and I'm one of them; pray tell, where's my fleg?
The lines are more blurred than ever now, which ain't a bad thing.
Our dual nationality entitles us to seamless travel and employment within the European Union, and among other things, exemption from Spanish 100% 'super tax' on buying property there.
No wonder so many GB citizens are trawling family trees desperate to find an Irish grandparent.
British applications for Irish passports — which improve your CV and job prospects in the UK even if you've never been to Ireland — rose by 15% last year to a new post-Brexit high of over 23,000.
But unearthing long-forgotten relatives from the oul' sod isn't the only way to go.
Any British citizen has the right to work and live in the Republic of Ireland and, after five years, apply for citizenship.
In the meantime, the Union flag remains the only official one for Northern Ireland — although (like Wales) we're not explicitly represented on it.
In a macabre irony, last year's anti-immigration rallies saw the Union flag and Irish tricolour flying side by side on the streets of Northern Ireland for the first time.
It would appear that, apart from communal xenophobia, the only thing we have in common here is inflexible indifference to anything that might possibly unite us.
Paramilitary groups must accept their day has gone
Pro Fide, Pro Patria, Irish News, March 21st, 2025
THERE have been regular suggestions over recent years that some of the paramilitary groups which remain in existence in both loyalist and republican areas want to move towards permanent disbandment.
While there has been considerable scepticism over attempts to link this process to the investment of public money in particular districts, it is still essential that the authorities take reasonable steps to encourage the final removal of all illegal organisations from our society.
It is even more important that all those who still use paramilitary structures to facilitate serious criminal activities know they are under an intense spotlight and can expect to receive lengthy jail terms when they are brought before the courts.
“ It was clear from the start that Mr Ogle, a 45-year-old father of two, was targeted and viciously assaulted by members of the UVF, which still holds a malign grip over many parts of east Belfast
The sentencing of nine people at Belfast Crown Court earlier this week in connection with what amounted to the public execution of Ian Ogle in January, 2019, was a significant development in this regard.
Five of the defendants were convicted of murder, with three to serve at least 20 years and two others were handed minimum tariffs of 17-and-a-half years, while four others were given suspended sentences for lesser offences.
It was clear from the start that Mr Ogle, a 45-year-old father of two, was targeted and viciously assaulted by members of the
UVF, which still holds a malign grip over many parts of east Belfast.
The victim, who was from a loyalist background, knew he was under threat, and was standing on a busy street close to his home and praying with a pastor when a gang ran up at around 9pm on a Sunday.
Mr Ogle was beaten with a baton and a knife, stamped on the head and stabbed at least 11 times before bleeding to death on the pavement at Cluan Place as his traumatised family members arrived on the scene.
The perpetrators plainly believed they were untouchable, but Mr Ogle’s relatives courageously campaigned for justice and a major police investigation resulted in a series of charges against the main suspects.
Although there will be concern that the legal process took more than six years to reach a conclusion, the PSNI deserves full credit for gathering the overwhelming evidence which eventually put some particularly vicious thugs behind bars.
Attempts by the UVF to disassociate itself from the outrage were pathetic, and the evil group, as well as its counterparts in all other sections of society, was sent a powerful message by the outcome of the case.
Paramilitary organisations must accept that their day has gone, and they will face the full force of the law if they do not disband once and for all.
There can be no ‘neutrals’ when a border poll is called
Alex Kane, Irish News, March 21st, 2025
I QUITE like the idea of taking all of the baggage we’ve gathered up over the decades in Northern Ireland, putting it in the hold of a very cheap but not very cheerful holiday mumbo jumbo jet, and then allowing the staff to lose all of it somewhere over the Bermuda Triangle.
We’ve too much baggage anyway: hauling it behind us from one generation to the next, like a big belligerent tortoise.
Conflict baggage is the worst of all. It’s stuffed with memories, most of which aren’t the property of our children and grandchildren.
They’re our memories, yet too many of us are expecting our post-1998 offspring to take possession of them for us: and to keep carrying them around until they, in turn, pass them on to their children and grandchildren,
And that’s what happens – that’s what always happens – when we don’t deal with our own past. It just sits there. Blocking up our driveways and hallways. Serving as an obstacle course when we try and negotiate ourselves to a less cluttered place where the kids can curate and store their own memories.
Memories not soured with the darkness of our conflict years. Memories not interrupted with the present telling them: “Count yourselves lucky that you didn’t endure what we endured.”
Past as Master and Gatekeeper
Letting the past be master of your present and gatekeeper to your future does nothing more than ensure that your children and their children are hostages to the same disputes and antagonisms which dragged my generation down and the generation before that: all the way back to that moment when, to paraphrase Churchill, “the integrity of our quarrels trumped everything else”.
People sometimes ask me why I worry about the past so much. Or, as one young person put it to me a couple of weeks ago: “You’re an old man, Alex. Your past really isn’t our past. Your world has gone. This is our time.”
I wish I could bring myself to believe he was right.
I have Megan (26), Lilah (15) and Indy (7) and I don’t want them to deal with what I had to deal with from 1969 to 1998.
I want their world to be one in which the arguments they have about local politics won’t start with 1690 or 1171.
But at some point – and I really do believe it is inevitable – there will be a border poll. Maybe not in my lifetime (I’m giving myself another decade, although the Pimm’s and Jaffa Cakes may have a different timescale in mind), but it will probably be not long after I’ve shuffled off to a world where 221B Baker Street is real and it’s always 1894.
Border poll will invoke past as well as future
And when that border poll is called we will experience an almighty clash between the past – that long, long, long ago past – and the present.
There can be no neutrals in a border poll. No neutrals when it comes to confirming and affirming your identity: that sense of who you are and who you want to be.
And that sense of who you are is, more often than not, steered by what you grew up hearing around your home, from parents and grandparents.
In other words, their past and present becomes your past and present. You believe yourself to be Irish because that’s what they say they are. You believe yourself to be British because that’s what they say you are.
People not even born before 1998 will find themselves caught up in the identity quarrel.
All that nice, comfortable, let’s not frighten the horses or upset the flow of banter over the dinner table will disappear. All those soft conversations that post-1998 people have about every sort of politics except their own will be muted.
Because they will have to cross a line one way or the other over identity. Take a stand for once in their lives. Let’s face it, you can’t just shrug your shoulders and say you don’t really care what you are.
Packing up your Troubles in an old kit bag?
So, what happens when that moment comes? What will all the people presently boasting of their cross-community circle of friends – “Honesty, I don’t even know their religion or their political beliefs” – do?
“ People not even born before 1998 will find themselves caught up in the identity quarrel
What will they do when their parents and grandparents start asking them about what way they will vote?
For this won’t be a simple vote: it will be a vote which could see Northern Ireland cease to exist and a new united Ireland emerge.
A moment when people who described themselves as British would become British in name only.
Or people who dreamt of ‘a nation once again’ found themselves stuck with the status quo.
Past, present and future colliding. A lot of baggage, none of it unclaimed, crashing around.
Baggage. Baggage. Baggage. The worst future.
Governments can never ‘draw line under the past’
Irish News, March 21st, 2025
FEENEY ON FRIDAY
The Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen), north west of Madrid, where thousands of victims in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil war were buried
“What people need to realise is that this Labour government is doing exactly the same as the Conservatives while pretending it’s all sweetness and light
YOU may have read last weekend about the town in Spain, Magallón, burying the remains of some of those whom Francoists murdered in August 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
There were six men shot on that occasion, but Francoists murdered 16 others from the surrounding town, Borja, and other villages.
Their bodies were all thrown into a pit in Borja where they would remain until 1959, when they were secretly disinterred and moved to the Valley of the Fallen near Madrid.
There they were buried in the gigantic mass grave which is said to contain the bodies of 34,000 victims of the civil war.
Since Franco’s death in 1975 and the return of democracy to Spain, relatives of the men killed in Magallón and other Spanish towns have been campaigning for the return of the remains, if they can be identified.
Thanks to legislation Pedro Sanchez’s socialist government passed in 2022, the Democratic Memory law, people can apply to have remains removed from the Valley of the Fallen (now known as the Valley of Cuelgamuros) and reinterred by their families.
Retrieving bodies
The reburial is a victory for the Association for the Relatives and Friends of Those Murdered and Buried in Magallón. Many similar societies and associations across Spain have also been campaigning for decades to have remains returned.
It’s 89 years since the Spanish Civil War broke out, but the legacy remains as virulent as ever.
There’s been a sort of legislative tit-for-tat going for decades as a leftwing government introduces a law to open up what happened in Franco’s time, while the next right-wing government repeals the law and tries to, altogether now, draw a line under the past.
You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Successive British governments can try all they like to cover up the past and particularly the illegal actions of its army, its covert units like FRU, SAS, MI5, RUC, etc, etc, but it won’t work. It will never go away.
We’re only 30 years since the first ceasefires, 56 since the outbreak of serious violence. In Spain it’s nearly 90 years since the civil war began.
Like Spain, we also have many groups like the Magallón association campaigning for justice, and like the Magallón relatives and friends, they won’t go away either.
Retrieving Justice
However, groups here face a more complex task than in Spain.
There were only two sides in Spain. Here there were three and the most powerful combatant, the British government, refuses to acknowledge its complicity in the Troubles.
We’re pretty sure how many people the IRA, UVF and UDA killed and officially how many the British army and RUC killed. However, it’s becoming increasingly more evident that British governments authorised what’s called a ‘dirty war’ here.
Paid agents were used as proxy killers, particularly of IRA suspects and operatives. British security services decided who should be killed and who protected.
At least Conservative governments were open about protecting their security forces. What people need to realise is that this Labour government is doing exactly the same while pretending it’s all sweetness and light. It ain’t.
Labour promised to repeal the infamous Legacy Act. What could be easier – but they haven’t. Instead, they’ve decided to retain part of the act, the satirically named Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Retrieval (ICRIR), which the Conservatives set up intending it to fail, which it will. The courts have already decided it is incompatible with human rights law.
Our proconsul has said he will introduce new safeguards. That’ll be interesting because the MoD, Home Office, MI5, etc are determined they will have the last say on what’s made public.
The latest Police Ombudsman’s report on the killing of Colum Marks in Downpatrick in 1991 shows it’s impossible for the ICRIR to fulfil its objectives.
Marks’s killing contains all the elements the British government intend to keep secret: evidence of a plot to ambush an IRA squad rather than arrest them, involvement of SAS, MI5, refusal to cooperate, destruction of records and so on.
Given that the British have already closed some records until the 2060s, it’s likely the friends and relatives of the victims of British security services will still be agitating a century after the Troubles began. They aren’t going away you know.
Scottish authorities probe IRA chanting as Deputy Prison Governor claps hands
By Philip Bradfield, Belfast News Letter, March 20th, 2025
Scottish police and prison authorities are looking into allegations that a Deputy Prison governor was filmed clapping along while revellers sang a pro-IRA song.
Scottish police and prison authorities are looking into allegations that a Deputy Prison governor was filmed clapping along while revellers sang a pro-IRA song.
The video was reportedly filmed in a Scottish pub following last weekend’s old firm game between Celtic and Rangers.
John Docherty, the deputy governor of Glenochil Prison near Stirling, was allegedly seen clapping his hands in the clip while Celtic supporters sang:“….Tiocfaidh ár lá…. sing Up the RA…. Oooo, ahh, up the RA… Oooo, ahh, up the RA.”
The song, Celtic Symphony, has caused offence to many IRA victims across the island of Ireland as it contains pro-IRA chants.
Fined €20,000
In 2022 The Football Association of Ireland was fined €20,000 by UEFA after the Republic of Ireland women's team used the chant in celebrations after their World Cup play-off win over Scotland.
UEFA described the incident as "a violation of the basic rules of decent conduct".
Scotsman David McCaughey, whose cousin was murdered by the IRA in Belfast in 1971, was deeply concerned after seeing the video.
His cousin, Dougald McCaughey, 23, was murdered by the IRA with his colleagues John McCaig, 17, and Joseph McCaig, 18. All three were off duty members of the Royal Highland Fusiliers.
Mr McCaughey told the News Letter: "On seeing this video circulating, I was absolutely shocked. It turned my stomach to think someone employed by the Scottish prison service may have been clapping along to a song supporting a terrorist organisation, namely the IRA. This has got to be addressed at the highest level and should be raised in the Scottish parliament.
"A number of families in Scotland lost loved ones during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, my family included. Others were also killed in the IRA bombing at Narrow Water outside Warrenpoint in 1979."
Speaking about the video, a Police Scotland spokesperson said: "We have received a report and enquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances."
It is understood that The Scottish Prison Service is also carrying out an investigation.
A spokesperson said: “We do not comment on individuals. We expect the highest standards of behaviour from our staff, and will treat seriously and investigate any complaints made.”
