Joe Doherty - Extradition and Deportation Battle

Extradition and Deportation Battle

Doherty escaped across the border into the Republic of Ireland, and then travelled to the United States on a false passport. He lived with an American girlfriend in Brooklyn and New Jersey, working on construction sites and as a bartender at Clancy's Bar in Manhattan, where he was arrested by the FBI on 28 June 1983. Doherty was imprisoned in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, and a legal battle ensued with the British government seeking to extradite him back to Northern Ireland. Doherty claimed he was immune from extradition as the killing of Westmacott was a political act, saying "It was an operation that was typical of all operations where we set up an ambush of a British military convoy... It is a war, and this was a military action", and in 1985 federal judge John E. Sprizzo ruled Doherty could not be extradited as the killing was a "political offense". Doherty's legal battle continued as the United States Department of Justice then attempted to deport him for entering the country illegally.

Doherty remained in custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and attempted to claim political asylum, and on 15 June 1988 the Attorney General Edwin Meese overturned an earlier ruling by the Federal Board of Immigration Appeals that Doherty could be deported to the Republic of Ireland, and ordered his deportation to Northern Ireland. In February 1989 new Attorney General Dick Thornburgh chose not to support the decision made by his predecessor, and asked lawyers for Doherty and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to submit arguments for a review of the decision and Doherty's claim for asylum. By this time Doherty's case was a cause célèbre with his sympathisers including over 130 Congressmen and a son of then President of the United States George H. W. Bush, and in 1990 a street corner near the Metropolitan Correctional Center was named after him.

In August 1991, Doherty was transferred to a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and on 16 January 1992 the Supreme Court of the United States overturned a 1990 Federal Appeals Court ruling by a 5-to-3 decision, paving the way for his deportation. On 19 February 1992 Doherty was deported to Northern Ireland, despite pleas to delay the deportation from members of Congress, Mayor of New York City David Dinkins, and the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, John Joseph O'Connor. Doherty was returned to Crumlin Road Jail before being transferred to HM Prison Maze, and was released from prison on 6 November 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. After his release Doherty became a community worker specialising in helping disadvantaged young people. In 2006, he appeared in the BBC television show Facing the Truth opposite the relatives of a soldier killed in the Warrenpoint ambush.