SAN FRANCISCO -- Fiery activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey defended violence by members of the outlawed Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland during an extradition proceeding Tuesday for an IRA member seeking asylum in the United States.
McAliskey, a former member of the British Parliament who once served six months in jail for her participation in nationalist activities, gave a second day of moving testimony about life under colonial rule in Northern Ireland in support of Maze Prison escapee Jimmy Smyth.
'Nationalist areas are swamped with security check points,' she said. 'You can't walk down the street without walking into or stepping over a British soldier in a nationalist area. In loyalist areas, you don't see that.'
Smyth is fighting the British government's extradition request by trying to prove he would be subjected to persecution on religious or political grounds if he were returned to Northern Ireland.
Smyth entered the United States illegally after escaping from Belfast's Maze Prison, and lived under an assumed name in San Francisco for seven years until his capture in 1991.
Under cross-examination by a federal prosecutor, McAliskey said the IRA's activities were a response to the 'violence' of British authorities in suspending civil liberties and forcing large numbers of Northern Ireland's Catholic minority to live in poverty.
'The last violent act in a very long cycle is when the people on the bottom strike back,' McAliskey said. 'That's not when the violence starts, but that's when the people in charge like to say the violence starts.'
McAliskey accused the British government of 'using the Catholic community as shields for their security forces' by adopting a 'deliberate' policy of locating police and military installations alongside churches, hospital and schools to discourage terrorist attacks.
McAliskey also said the 'best chance' for prisoners released from detention was to emigrate illegally into the U.S., like Smyth did in 1984.
The defense also called Father Joseph McVeigh, a Catholic priest known in Northern Ireland for defending the rights of ex-prisoners, who testified about police harassment of nationalists.
He said members of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, were targets for violence at the hands of security forces.
'I've seen with my own eyes Sinn Fein members stopped and beaten on the side of the road,' McVeigh said. 'It is my opinion that Sinn Fein members are in grave danger' in Northern Ireland.
Smyth, who has denied any affiliation with the terrorist wing of the IRA, admits to being a member of Sinn Fein.
U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Caulfield ruled Tuesday the government would have to prove by a preponderence of the evidence that Smyth would not face persecution if he were returned.
The ruling, clarified the meaning of a 'presumption' granted Smyth as a penalty for the British government's refusal to turn over documents he requested, is a victory for Smyth because it requires prosecutors to do more than merely present evidence rebutting the presumption.
