Death Before British Trial, Priest Vows
An Irish priest at the center of an extradition dispute between Britain, Ireland and Belgium has said he would rather die than face trial in Britain, where he is wanted as a suspected IRA guerrilla.
Father Patrick Ryan, 59, who staged a 22-day hunger strike in a Brussels jail to protest British moves to extradite him from Belgium, was flown to Dublin last Friday.
“I shall not, from Ireland or Brussels, be taken alive before a British tribunal, no matter what the price,” Ryan told a local newspaper from his home county of Tipperary in an interview published Thursday.
Ryan denied that he is a member of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which is seeking to drive the British out of Northern Ireland.
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