Death Before British Trial, Priest Vows
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DUBLIN, Ireland — An Irish priest at the center of an extradition dispute between Britain, Ireland and Belgium has said he would rather die than face trial in Britain, where he is wanted as a suspected IRA guerrilla.
Father Patrick Ryan, 59, who staged a 22-day hunger strike in a Brussels jail to protest British moves to extradite him from Belgium, was flown to Dublin last Friday.
“I shall not, from Ireland or Brussels, be taken alive before a British tribunal, no matter what the price,” Ryan told a local newspaper from his home county of Tipperary in an interview published Thursday.
Ryan denied that he is a member of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which is seeking to drive the British out of Northern Ireland.
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