Irish soldier who killed colleagues gets transfer to Belfast jail

PRISON chiefs have agreed to transfer an Irish soldier who murdered three colleagues back to a jail in the North.

After authorities north of the Border granted Michael McAleavey permission to repatriate, his lawyer urged Justice Minister Michael McDowell not to hold up the process.

McAleavey has been held for 24 years for the triple killings in the Lebanon.

Claiming his conditions in Dublin’s Mountjoy Jail are inhumane, he has fought to be relocated closer to his family home in Belfast.

He is then expected to apply to the Life Sentence Review board in a bid to win his release.

The families of his victims and military authorities are understood to be opposed to any relocation. However, Northern Ireland Prisons Minister Paul Goggins offered no objections.

A Northern Ireland Prisons Service spokesman said: “We will take him, and we are about to inform the Department of Justice in the Republic that’s the case. But the final decision as to whether he will be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence in Northern Ireland rests with them.”

McAleavey received three life sentences for murdering Privates Peter Burke and Thomas Murphy, and Corporal Greg Morrow while on UN peacekeeping duties in 1982.

His solicitor Joe Rice expressed hope that the move could happen before Christmas: “We would urge Michael McDowell to deal with it as expeditiously as possible on humanitarian grounds, given the age of Mr McAleavey’s father.”