Donald Oliver Browne was due in court Tuesday for a probable cause and detention hearing after being held since Thursday, Nov 13.
He was arrested at Logan by immigration officers after stepping off a British Airways flight from London. Browne was subsequently charged with giving false information on his U.S. immigration landing card. He reportedly answered in the negative to a question on the form dealing with past criminal convictions.
According to a statement issued on behalf of U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, an affidavit filed in support of the complaint against Browne alleged that while en route to Boston on British Airways Flight 215, Browne had provided a false answer on an immigration form to a question which asked if he had previously been convicted of two or more crimes which carried an aggregate prison term of five years or more.
According to the complaint, though Browne answered “no” to the question, he had been convicted in 1986 of murder, hijacking, unlawful possession of arms and membership in the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
According to the DA’s statement, the murder charge carried a life sentence which was subsequently commuted, the hijacking and IRA membership charges each carried 10-year prison sentences, while the unlawful firearms possession charge carried a 14-year sentence.
In a court hearing a day after the arrest, U.S. magistrate judge Joyce London Alexander ordered Browne held in federal custody pending Tuesday’s probable cause and detention hearing.
The Boston Globe reported that Browne’s name had come up on a computer with access to the Boston-bound aircraft’s manifest. The computer had characterized Browne as being “armed and dangerous” even though he was not carrying any weapons.
Browne’s arrest was the result of a combined operation involving agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, both being part of the Bureau of Homeland Security, and FBI agents assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Browne faces a potential maximum of 25 years in prison, followed by five years of probation, and a $250,000 if found guilty of immigration fraud.