Ex-IRA Member Extradited to England

A former Irish Republican Army member was flown to England on Monday to face charges of murdering a London constable after the British withdrew bombing conspiracy charges that would have delayed his extradition, U.S. authorities said.

William Joseph Quinn, a San Francisco resident and U.S. citizen, is charged with the shooting death of police Constable Stephen Tibble on a London street in February, 1975. British officials said Tibble was shot three times while pursuing a fleeing suspect.

Last week, the Supreme Court denied a hearing on Quinn’s contention that the shooting was a political offense, exempt from extradition by U.S. law and a treaty between the United States and Britain.

The action left the British government with a choice of either extraditing Quinn immediately or letting the case return to a federal court in San Francisco for a decision on whether he could also be extradited on additional charges.

Bombing Conspiracy

Those charges involved an alleged conspiracy among members of the militant Provisional IRA to plant six bombs in England in 1974 and 1975. One bomb blew off parts of two fingers on a judge’s hand, and another mutilated the hand of a security guard at the office of the chairman of the London Daily Express newspaper.

Quinn was charged in England with the bombing conspiracy, but contended in U.S. courts that the legal deadline for the charge had expired. That issue had not yet been resolved.

U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello said Monday that the English government had decided to drop the conspiracy charges to extradite Quinn immediately. He said Quinn left Travis Air Force Base on Monday afternoon aboard a Royal Air Force plane.

Russoniello said Quinn was transferred to British custody without advance notice to the public, or even to Quinn’s lawyers, because of security concerns. “This man is still being held up as a hero” and might be the target of a rescue attempt, Russoniello said.

In Jail Since Arrest

Quinn, who had lived in California both before and after an eight-year visit to Northern Ireland, was arrested in September, 1981, in Daly City, south of San Francisco. He has been in jail since then.

In resisting extradition, Quinn contended that Tibble’s killing was political because the killer was trying to escape capture and questioning about Provisional IRA activities. However, he has denied being the murderer.

U.S. District Judge Robert Aguilar ruled in his favor in October, 1983, but was reversed this February by a 2-1 decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the killing was not a political crime.

One judge in the majority, Stephen Reinhardt, said a political crime can take place only inside the country where an uprising is taking place--in this case, Northern Ireland--and not in another country. A second judge, the late Ben Duniway, said violent acts against innocent civilians unrelated to the subject of the uprising cannot be political crimes.