Israel deports arrested Irishman

A Northern Irish man arrested by the Israelis on suspicion of aiding Palestinian militants was released from jail today and was being deported to Britain.

Daniel Seaman, head of the Israeli government press office, said the government intended to release the man, Sean O Muireagain, and put him on a plane out of the country.

He is expected at London’s Heathrow airport tonight.

Israeli police said on Sunday they had arrested a suspected IRA dissident, reported to be training Palestinian militants in the use of explosives. They did not identify him, but he was named in media reports as John Morgan.

Sources in Northern Ireland identified him as O Muireagain, a 40-year-old Belfast journalist and Irish-language activist known also as John Morgan. His family and employer said he had travelled to the Palestinian territories on a cultural exchange.

He was arrested at an Israeli military checkpoint near the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Newspapers in Britain and Ireland said he had been mixed up with John Morgan, a suspected IRA militant being sought by the security forces.

“He is not what they are talking about, being a master bomber,” said Ciaran O Pronntaigh, editor of the Gaelic-language weekly Lá, to which O Muireagain contributed.

His parents, John and Teresa Morgan, said that their son had no involvement with the IRA.

Friends and associates say O Muireagain is one of Belfast’s most vocal critics of Israel and a strong supporter of Palestinian statehood.

A fellow activist in the group, Kathleen Connell, said O Muireagain went to the West Bank three weeks ago to visit the families of Palestinian teenagers who had gone to west Belfast in August.

He planned, she said, “to make personal contact with school teachers” for a wider exchange programme between Belfast and Palestinian youths.

Israeli authorities have not acknowledged there was a mix-up.