Irishman denies role in funeral murders

A Los Angeles immigration judge cleared the court of the public and press at the request of a US prosecutor seeking the deportation of an Irishman convicted over the 1988 murders of two British soldiers in Northern Ireland.

The move came after an earlier session in which Sean O’Cealleagh, a barman at a Seal Beach bar and restaurant, said that he was not involved in the killings.

O’Cealleagh spells his name in Irish, but is referred to as Sean Kelly in British legal documents.

Judge Rose Peters barred the public and reporters from viewing videos Northern Ireland authorities used to identify O’Cealleagh in a throng that surrounded the soldiers before they were killed.

Assistant US Attorney Richard Vinet urged the judge to sign a protective order that prohibited the videos from being shown in open court and also forbid discussion of the videos by lawyers allowed to see them. The order also closed the courtroom during testimony by a Northern Ireland police officer who travelled to Los Angeles to vouch for the video.

Vinet told the court that US national security and the relationship between law enforcement agencies in the United States and Northern Ireland would be harmed if the video evidence and the officer’s testimony were allowed in open court.

Judge Peters agreed after hearing objections from reporters.

O’Cealleagh, 35, has been held in a US government detention centre since he was arrested on February 25 on a plane at Los Angeles International Airport after returning from a family visit to Northern Ireland.

O’Cealleagh, a Catholic raised in west Belfast, was one of three men given life sentences in 1990 for their roles in the murder of the two British corporals. His lawyers have maintained that the conviction was politically motivated.

The plainclothes soldiers were pulled from their vehicle after being discovered during a March 1988 funeral of an IRA member. The two soldiers were beaten and then shot dead. The IRA later claimed responsibility for the killings.

According to conviction documents, O’Cealleagh was videotaped by a British army helicopter hovering over the scene, a French news team and a British media crew, said Eamann McMenamin, a solicitor from Belfast, who is working on O’Cealleagh’s behalf.

The helicopter tape was of poor quality and British prosecutors created a “compilation” tape using all three videos to gain O’Cealleagh’s conviction, McMenamin said.

O’Cealleagh was convicted of kidnapping, causing grievous bodily harm and of aiding and abetting in the murders. He and two others who became known as the “Casement Three” were sentenced to life under the “common purpose” legal theory that was criticised by human rights groups.

O’Cealleagh said before the protective order was signed that he was on the periphery of the “scrum” surrounding the soldiers.

“I never touched any of the two corporals,” said O’Cealleagh, who also said that he was never a member of the IRA.

O’Cealleagh spent eight and a half years in the Maze prison and was freed in 1998 under the Good Friday peace accord, which offered parole to hundreds of paramilitary convicts. He emigrated to the United States in 1999 and was granted permanent residency in 2001.

He has an American wife, Geraldine, and a three-year-old son.

The deportation hearing, which started on Tuesday, is expected to continue today.