Government cover-up alleged by American seeking asylum in Ireland

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Friday March 21, 2008 13:07 by D. Rongbech - D. Rongbech & Howe 085-767-7612

Witness in the World Trade Centre bombing of 1993 says government cooperated with CIA to deny her asylum

A New Yorker who was a witness at the scene of the World Trade Centre bombing in 1993 has filed documentation in the Supreme Court that the Ministry for Justice here suppressed evidence in her claim for asylum.

Ms. L, a woman in her fifties, says that, after she came forward with testimony regarding the World Trade Centre disaster in 1993, she suffered death threats and attempts on her life, as well as attempts to imprison her in a system rife with torture and abuse. Mysterious interference in her employment and other organized terror put an end to all career possibilities and reduced her to destitution.

Giving up a lucrative career to flee New York City in 1997, she found that several re-locations in the US did not put an end to her difficulties. Her appeals to government and NGOs there proved futile; and were frequently followed by legalistic and/or physical attacks on her person and property, sometimes directly from government sources.

In 2004, she fled to seek asylum in Ireland, bringing with her documentation that government in the US had refused to investigate her allegations, despite multiple convictions against police in the same crimes she alleges, and similar incidence of corruption throughout the country.

“A lot of people are surprised to hear of an American applying for asylum,” she says, “But I’m not alone. Political persecution has a long, notorious history in the US. Over 800 Americans have sought political asylum abroad in the last decade.

“Not many people with my language skills get a chance to see the refugee system from the inside,” she continued. “Just about everyone acquainted with the Irish system agrees it needs to be overhauled: even the government! Right now, it’s set up to allow the enforcement sector total control of refugees’ lives.

“Enforcement, that is, police, is the branch of government most culpable in the abuses that refugees flee. The Justice Department here cooperates closely with the CIA. (As I learned too late, to my cost.) They’ve been censured by the EU for cooperating with human rights abuses by the CIA. And yet they’re in charge of deciding asylum claims by victims of the CIA? Very convenient!

“The refugee system here is set up to allow this sort of political abuse. Everyone acquainted with the system knows it. Cases are decided according to the political attitude to your country of origin: that is, whether they want to say that your government committed human rights abuses. If we don’t like your government, you’re a refugee. If we’re cronies with your government, then you’re not a refugee, because we won’t say that they’re human rights abusers.”

There is now debate regarding the Supreme Court’s sudden refusal to hear Ms. L’s challenge to sections of the refugee law. In question are sections of the statute which give power to decide questions of life or death to quasi-judicial tribunals.

Also at issue is the Justice Ministry’s total control of not only the investigation and decision of asylum claims, but the appeal to the decision as well. A recent report by the Irish Council For Civil Liberties has uncovered abuses in this system, which allow ustice to manipulate confirmation of their decisions, in almost every case.

“Refugee applications are questions of life and death. It’s a precedent that is very dangerous for everyone in Ireland, not only asylum-seekers,” says Ms. L

Those interested in expressing their support are invited to come to hearing at 11AM on 11th April in the Supreme Court, Four Courts, Inns Quay, Dublin. For more information call 085-767-7612 Monday, Wednesday or Friday, 12 – 5PM.