In the company of my compatriot, Gerry Hanratty, I was arrested on the German/Dutch border.
What happened immediately afterwards held a foretaste of what was to come. Handcuffed,
kicked and punched by several police and border guards, I was flung into a vehicle and with
an automatic pistol jabbed in my ribs, driven to the police station at Heinsberg. Once
there, I was again manhandled, stripped semi-naked and thrown into a bare cell with my arms
handcuffed behind my back for the entire night - Welcome to Germany!
On one occasion, having asked in English to use the toilet, and having received no response
from the German police, I asked again, this time in German, only to be informed by one of
them (auf Deutsch) that he only spoke Dutch and consequently didn't understand my request!
This type of logic extended to the charges I received the next day at the Federal Supreme
Court at Karlsruhe, where we were flown by military helicopter. Practically every IRA
attack against British military targets which had taken place on the Continent in previous
years was attributed to me and I was designated as a 'dangerous terrorist' and therefore
eligible to rigorous maximum security imprisonment.
In September, 1988 I was taken from my isolation cell, handcuffed and driven to the police
headquarters in Wiesbaden. There, dishevelled, unshowered and disorientated, I was stood
alongside four well spruced up German policemen - Spot the Irishman! - while people viewed
us from behind a reflective glass partition. One of these people, a Dutch second hand car
dealer, whom I've never met at any stage, 'positively' identified me as the man who bought
a car from him eighteen months earlier. Apparently this car was subsequently used in a bomb
attack on a British military base at Möchengladbach in March 1987. For the record I am
being falsely accused, a fact which is common knowledge in Ireland.
I spent the first five months of my imprisonment in solitary confinement; I had my arms
tied behind my back during recreation for 116 consecutive days despite a heavily armed
security presence; I was prohibited from attending religious services or partaking in
sports or having access to educational facilities.
In short, I was subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment which was totally
inexcusable and unnecessary from a 'security' point of view and was, quite obviously, a
tactic aimed at 'breaking me'!
Needless to say, I am unbroken, though, nonetheless, disgusted at the German authorities
for the conditions they have (presumably at the behest of the British) forced me, an
unconvicted foreign prisoner, to endure!
By judicial decree, I am permanently held in a small, maximum security cell in the prison
punishment block and, other than one hour's recreation early each morning, I spend the
entire day under lock and key...
In the months after our arrest, at least six international police forces engaged in frantic
activity in an effort to secure 'evidence' to support the charges that had been leveled
against us. Heavy diplomatic pressure was brought to bear on the Swedish government in an
attempt to have them betray their own rules and make available confidential alleged
political asylum papers for police use in the 'investigation.'
These papers were supposedly given to the Swedish political refugee authorities by me while
allegedly seeking political asylum in that country in 1983. The Swedes, who like to
promote themselves as guardians of international democracy, justice and human rights, gave
in to the pressure and the normally slow-moving Swedish bureaucracy moved with lighting
speed to empty their archives of alleged asylum papers which are, by rule, subject to fifty
years confidential secrecy.
The outcome of all this being, that these alleged political asylum papers are now being
used as evidence against me in the German legal process - seven years after they were
originally compiled.
As the months in remand wore into years most of the serious charges against me were
whittled away and, eventually I was left with 'only' the Möchengladbach attack plus one of
a similar nature in Duisburg.
My attitude to all this has varied from disgust and anger to amazement, disbelief, despair
and back to disgust and anger again. All of which is exacerbated not only by the despicable
prison conditions under which I am held, but also by the fact that all but the tiniest
fraction of the legal documentation sent to me over the months has been in German and
therefore beyond my comprehension. I consider it my civil right to be in a position to
defend myself through understanding all the material relating to the charges brought
against me. Repeated requests to have this official documentation translated into English
have been ignored, leaving me at a significant disadvantage.
The German Public Prosecution, doubtless under pressure from the British to make an example
of any Irish Republican they can lay their hands on, has shown itself to be morally bankrupt
in light of the fact that, after almost two years the only significant charge against me
is a completely false one.
Meantime the British Government enjoys the circus and British troops continue to occupy
north-east Ireland, killing, torturing and harassing Irish civilians and without a word of
international protest or concern. Good old Western capitalist democracy at its best!
© Searc's Web Guide 1997-2007
|
