The World : U.S. May Oust IRA Fugitive

U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III ordered the deportation to Britain of an Irish Republican Army fugitive. Joseph Patrick Thomas Doherty, 35, was sentenced to life in prison in 1981 by a British court in Northern Ireland for killing a soldier during an ambush of a British army convoy. Doherty later escaped from a Belfast jail and, using false documents, fled to the United States, where he was arrested in 1983. Meese overturned a decision by the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals that granted Doherty’s request to be deported to Ireland. The board now must rule on Doherty’s request to withdraw an admission that he is deportable. If the request is granted, he could ask for political asylum.