Irish peace activist arrested by Israelis and held for days on trumped up charges

MAN HELD AS 'IRA BOMBER' TELLS OF ORDEAL


Jul 17 2003




By Naveed Raja


An Northern Irishman wrongly arrested by Israel on false charges of training Palestinian militants today told of his humiliating ordeal at the hands of security services.

Sean O Muireagain was stripped naked and blindfolded in the middle of a road before being imprisoned for five days on trumped up charges.

Israeli security authorities questioned him with allegations that he was a Real IRA bombmaker who had travelled to the West Bank to train Palestinian militants.

But Mr O Muireagain told how, after taking a lie detector test, Israeli authorities started to believe that he was a journalist in the Middle East on a humanitarian mission.

And describing his interrogation Mr O Muireagain, 42, said information the Israelis had about his family could only have been supplied by British security services.

Attacking his arrest, Mr O Muireagain said he had no links to the republican movement and went through his ordeal after a case of mistaken identity.

"Everybody seems to have taken their word and all of a sudden I was the bomber and now I'm an IRA man," he said.

"They just kept asking me about bombs and making bombs and training people to make bombs. I was flabbergasted.

"They still wouldn't let me talk to a solicitor and they still wouldn't let me see the British Consulate. I couldn't understand what was going on because I was totally in the dark."

Despite telling them he was in Israel with the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which brings children from the Middle East to Belfast on exchange trips, he was held for three further days after Israeli security officials accepted that he was not a bomb-making mastermind.

They accepted his story after he agreed to undertake a lie detector test to prove his innocence.

He added: "It was about 20 to 30 questions and at the end they went 'Okay, so you're not the bomber, you must be something else'."

Mr O Muireagain put the blame for his ordeal at the door of the Israelis, He said they were trying to intimidate foreign nationals out of the West Bank in order to hide what their military were doing in Palestinian areas.