An interview with John and Sandra Moloney, the parents of "Johner" Moloney, who have joined up with the Wheelock family in their campaign in recent months.

On March 23rd, the family of Terence Wheelock were joined outside the Dáil by the family of John (Johner) Moloney. They linked up with the Wheelock family, as they felt that both of their sons' deaths raised serious questions about their time in Garda Custody. Johner Moloney was found unconscious, bloodied and bruised, behind a church in Rathfarnam in May 2003, shortly after having been arrested for a couple of outstanding warrants for driving with no tax and insurance. He was brought to Tallaght Hospital with massive brain injuries, and never regained consciousness. He died when his life support machine was switched off.

"We got in contact with the Wheelock family for the protest outside the Dáil," says John Moloney, Johner's father. "We met them at a meeting in the Mansion House, that had people speaking who had been victims of Garda harassment up in Donegal. We introduced ourselves to each other, and starting talking and organising after that. Its been working out great with them. Once you have two families organising together, it seems to work better. You do get fed up sometimes with going into town, and its great to have the support."

"I had been following Terence's case in the papers when it happened, and I had called up the Mater Hospital looking for contact details for the Wheelocks, but I was told they couldn't give out that information for confidentiality reasons," says Sandra, Johner's mother. "I kept an eye on the case still because there were very similar circumstances to what happened my son. We make a good team. Terence's mother Esther, she's been through the same pain as me, had the same experiences. When Tallaght Hospital called me to say my son was dying, it was like someone had ripped out my heart. Losing a son is just too hard to describe sometimes. "

Sandra says that the family has recieved letters from some TDs in the Dáil, saying that they would bring it to the attention of the Minister for Justice, to see if an independent inquiry could be established. "That's all we want really, we just want the truth to come out. In my heart as a mother, I feel I know the truth already. But I want answers, recognition of what happened to him. My son was found on a street, at the back of a church, unconscious, approximately 15 minutes after he supposedly left the Garda station.

"The CW5's 2 main statutory defences to the charges were ruled out as 'inadmissible' this morning by Judge Donagh McDonagh, who was then rather suddenly forced to 'pull the plug' and send the jury home after his relationship with a certain Mr. Bush was revealed to the Court by defence counsel."

With the above words the Anon Court Reporter starts this, his 9th and last for this round, court report. Since it seems the judge forgot to order that the reasons for the collapse of the case be kept out of the media (as was done when the first trial collapsed) all the gory details are included in full. Also included below are links to Anon Court Reporter's exemplary day by day blow by blow reporting of the case

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Days 6 & 7
• Day 8 report
• Feedback: Jury would probably have found CW5 not guilty

This text was originally posted on Aotearoa IMC

I was one of the co ordinators of the Irish mobilisation to the Second European Social Forum which was held in Paris two years ago, to the day. We had over a hundred people come from Ireland, and it was my job to head over early and co-ordinate accomodation with the ESF organisers there, as well as get the lie of the land and find out where everything was happening...

Imagine the shock when most people coming to the ESF discovered that a lot of the sessions were happening thirty or forty kilometres out from what most of us consider Paris, that beautiful walled medieval city of the Commune, May 68 and the Revolution. I spent the first day going from Bobigny (end of the line) to St Denis, and the hidden Paris of the ghetto-suburbs blew me away. Looking back on it now, the French ESF organisers probably opened Europe's eyes to the hidden reality of 21st century Paris. At the time we thought it was stupid to spend half the day travelling, but now I think it might have been a stroke of genius...

Mile after mile of desolate estate- high rise ghettoes reaching out to the horizon. The train stations were all covered with New York style hip hop grafitti, and when I got off at the second last stop (St Denis-Porte de Paris) I got a real shock. It was Bastille Day, when France celebrates its revolution, and in the middle of this concrete urban bunker that doubled as the town's main square, a bunch of old (white) army veterans were holding up French Tricolour banners gilded in gold with the names of their legions and the battles they had fought inscribed on it. This did not look to me like a progressive bunch of Communards or Sans Culottes. Maybe some of these guys had seen action in Algeria with Le Pen's torturing paratroopers.

The prime suspect in the disappearance of Castlederg teenager Arlene Arkinson, as well as a number of young women in the Republic, may have been working as a Special Branch agent throughout the time of those disappearances. Robert Howard, the man who gave Arlene Arkinson a lift home from Bundoran on the night she disappeared without trace was recently cleared of her murder at a trial in Belfast. It emerged after he was cleared that he had a previous conviction for the kidnap, rape and murder of another young girl in England during the 1970s. Legal experts have now said that this would have been admissable in the court but still the PSNI never made it part of their case. Nuala O'Loan is now investigating why the PSNI witheld this information. Local MP Pat Doherty , the Arkinson family and many local people in Castlederg are convinced that at the time of the murder Howard was a spy for RUC Special Branch in the Castlederg area.

The news that the USA has sought the extradition of a central figure in the Workers Party (Seán Garland) due to his alleged involvement in currency fraud in connivance with the government of North Korea has focused attention on a by now little-known faction within Irish politics. Debate on Indymedia.ie has focused on what the 'proper response' to this news should be.

It has emerged that the USA has formally requested extradition of Seán Garland and six others of various nationalities from the UK for the alleged crime of the distribution of forged US $100 bills. It is alleged that these bills (of high quality) were forged by elements of the North Korean administration.

Press coverage indicates that Garland is being accused of involvement in laundering less than one million dollars worth of these bills.

Seán Garland was remanded on bail last week in the North. He is also an Irish citizen with his principal residence formerly in Navan, now in Kentstown in Meath. He has at various times in the past been closely associated with the Official IRA and Official Sinn Fein and in recent times became President of the Workers Party.

News of his threatened extradition to the USA elicited a variety of responses from Indymedia.ie contributors. The first story published on the newswire included a post that summarised the genesis and development of the Official IRA (known colloquially as the 'Stickies') and their long-running differences and conflicts with the Provisional IRA and the INLA amongst others. Other posts point out that the 'stickies' had been markedly unsympathetic in the past to republican political activists facing extradition and the kangaroo 'special criminal courts'.

This issue looks set to test Inter-Irish, Irish-English, Irish-American and English-American relationships in unique ways. It may also make a Europe-wide impact as Garland's ideological colleagues have a strong base across the EU as evidenced by one contributor's post from Greece.

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RTE And The 'Sticky' Brigade
Wikipedia Entry on Garland and his time in the OIRA, OSF and WP
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