TORONTO -- Northern Ireland MP Owen Carron, free on bond pending a trial for attempted illegal entry to the United States, says he spent a 'terrifying' week in an American prison harried by staff who expected 'blind obedience.'
Carron was released Thursday from a U.S. jail to return to Canada along with Danny Morrison, a member of the Irish Republican Army's Sinn Fein political wing who was also arrested Jan. 21.
The two had been in Canada before their separate arrests at two different border points to counter publicity for the Protestant cause in Northern Ireland stirred during a speaking tour by Rev. Ian Paisley.
Carron said late Thursday he hoped to return to Northern Ireland either today or Saturday and that Morrison was likely to follow in a few days' time.
Both men Thursday were given visitors' permits by Canadian immigration authorities allowing them to stay in Canada until Feb. 8. They must return to the United States in early March to stand trial on federal charges in U.S. District Court.
'I will be returning to Ireland as soon as it is possible for me to get a flight,' said the 28-year-old Carron from a private home in Toronto where he and Morrison were dining with supporters.
Carron said he and Morrison had been kept together in a segregated area at Erie State Penitentiary. Authorities had relented when they refused to wear prison clothes and had allowed them to wear their own, he said.
They had not been allowed contact with other inmates because officials feared their 'bad influence,' he said.
'We were segregated because we claimed to be political prisoners. They asked us to strip and wear prison uniform. This we refused to do because we were Irish political prisoners and 10 men died including Bobby Sands to prove that fact.'
Carron succeeded Sands as MP at Westminster for the Northern Ireland seat of Fermanagh-South Tyrone after Sands died from a hunger strike. Neither man ever reported to Westminster to take his seat.
Carron termed his stay in the U.S. jail as 'quite unpleasant -- in a way a terrifying experience -- we were held incommunicado.'
During the daytime, he said, both men had been restricted to exercising in a corridor about 36 feet by 4 fee with no television or radio privileges. Each was permitted to read a book brought in with them.
It was 'totally unpleasant,' he said. 'The food was horrible - the biggest problem was no rights whatsover. He said prison officials had 'expected blind obedience -- they tried to dehumanize us.'
Carron said he spent his week reading 'The Year of the French,'a book by Thomas Flanagan dealing with the French invasion of Ireland in 1798.
He said he planned to return quickly to Ireland in order to help support sympathetic candidates in the mid-February elections in the Irish Free State.
'We have been treated very well in Canada,' said Carron. 'The Canadian authorities have been very good to us, helpful and considerate. It was a different story in the United States. It was very vindictive.
'We were discriminated against. We were not given visas. We were treated harshly, as criminals ... charged with being in a criminal conspirary.'
The pair returned to Canada via Buffalo, N.Y., Thursday after each posted a $10,000 bond. A bomb scare forced U.S. Customs official to close four border bridges for about 25 minutes shortly after they crossed but a search turned up nothing.
Two Canadians, Helen Quigley and Patrick Morrell, who allegedly drove the pair to separate border sites -- at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Whirlpool Bridge in Niagara Falls, N.Y. -- were also charged in the case.
Mrs. Quigley's hearing was adjourned, and she was escorted to the border by federal marshals after posting bond. Morrell was acquitted of the immigration charges and also released after posting bond.
