Relatives distressed over possible extradition
Reports that a triple-killer may be extradited from a Dublin prison to the North is disturbing relatives of his victims, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said tonight.
Belfast soldier Michael McAleavy was convicted in 1983 of murdering three Irish UN peacekeepers in Lebanon a year earlier, and jailed for 30 years.
Mr McDowell said tonight that he was unable to confirm media reports that his department had received an extradition request from the Mountjoy Jail prisoner to serve the remaining months of his sentence in Northern Ireland.
He told reporters in Dublin: “I’m not in a position to confirm that. I’ll have to check from the files in the Department. But I have heard that some relatives of some of the people who were murdered by him that they have heard these reports and that they have been very disturbed by them.”
He added: “If I receive such a request it is my duty as minister to consider it and I don’t want to prejudice any consideration by remarks made off the cuff.”
One of the Republic’s longest-serving prisoners, McAleavy, 45, is seeking a transfer to Belfast’s Maghaberry Prison to be closer to his ill father.
He shot dead his colleagues Corporal Gregory Morrow 19, Private Thomas Murphy 19, and Private Peter Burke 20 on October 27, 1982, at an Irish Army observation post at Tibnin, in Lebanon.
McAleavey, from Belfast’s Falls Road, opened up with automatic rifle fire following a row over allowing members of the Israeli secret service through the checkpoint.
He took issue with the fact that Jews were waved through UN checkpoints while Arabs were stopped and searched.
