| Pol Brennan deported in shackles aboard US spy plane |
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Belfast Telegraph IRA fugitive is deported in shackles aboard US spy plane By Jim Dee Saturday, 22 August 2009 Maze escapee Pol Brennan is on Irish soil for the first time in 25 years after being deported from America in irons on Thursday in a Homeland Security spy plane. “I was shackled, hands and feet, the whole way,” said Brennan during an interview with the Belfast Telegraph from an undisclosed location in the west of Ireland. “And the plane was as cold as a refrigerator once we got out over the Atlantic,” added the Ballymurphy native. “You could have hung meat in that sucker. I couldn’t feel my legs for about six hours. I couldn’t sleep. How could you sleep in a refrigerator?” An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official told the Telegraph that “the restraints were for officer safety and are standard procedure when deporting aliens with criminal convictions. Mr. Brennan had significant criminal convictions.” Brennan, who had been in America since entering under an alias a year after breaking out of the Maze prison alongside 37 IRA prisoners, said the operation began at 8am Texas time on Thursday. He said that he was first taken to a processing room at the Port Isabel detention center in Los Fresnos, Texas. Five guards stood watching him strip out of his inmates’ clothes and change into his civilian clothes. He said: “They then did this very extensive search of me. They searched me for 15 or 20 minutes, all my clothes.” Brennan was then taken outside and put into a van and driven in a three-vehicle convoy about 28 miles to an airport at Harlingen, Texas. Brennan was flown from Texas to Norfolk, Virginia, where the plane sat for a few hours before flying to Ireland. He arrived in Shannon at 8am local time, where his shackles were removed. Two American officials and an Irish immigration officer then boarded the plane, and asked Brennan to sign “some documents”. He was then escorted by the Irish official to an immigration processing room in the main airport terminal. “And the Irish officials were extremely helpful. They didn’t cause me any bother and helped me in every way that they could. They were just great,” said Brennan. Brennan then met members of his family who drove him away from Shannon. He told the Telegraph that he’ll remain in the Republic “for quite a while” before deciding whether to travel into Northern Ireland. Sentenced to 16 years in prison in 1977 for ferrying explosives through Belfast, Brennan was never convicted of IRA membership. However, during last November’s deportation hearing he admitted to occasionally moving packages for the IRA in the mid-70s, some of which he’d believed to contain explosives. The judge who ordered him deported cited that admission as one reason for his deportation. He also listed Brennan’s 1995 felony gun conviction stemming from the purchase of a pistol using an alias, and a 2005 misdemeanor assault over a fight with a contractor who owed him money. Brennan had been in US custody since January 2008 when he was detained at a Texas immigration checkpoint over an expired US issued work permit. He had applied for the permit’s renewal on time, but never received a new one. After the Maze escape Brennan lived undetected in America until arrested by the FBI. After Britain dropped its extradition case against him in 2000 he was given permission to remain in the US until officials decided whether or not he would be deported for illegal entry in 1984. Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/ira-fugitive-is-deported-in-shackles-abo ard-us-spy-plane-14463435.html#ixzz0P7XM0M7J
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