News Briefs: Homeland agency defends handling of Ferry incident

Ferry was under escort by federal officers from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the time. But his name was on a no-fly list operated by the TSA.
The Belfast man spent a night in Hudson County Correctional Center before being deported the next day.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said that the system of intercepting people whose names were on the list was based on the principle of being better sure than sorry.
“It’s a system that works,” the DHS spokesman said.
He said that the public wanted to know that there was a process in place that examined plane passengers who were considered potentially undesirable or dangerous. It was better, he said, to cause inconvenience to one person, and in this also case a group of federal officers, rather than a whole planeload of passengers.
“We don’t broadcast or publicize removals and it’s easier to resolve matters locally, the spokesman said in regard to the apparent mix-up that resulted in Ferry being taken from his plane minutes before takeoff.
Asked if the agents escorting Ferry were armed, the spokesman said that the department did not discuss operational specifics such as whether agents carried weapons.

FIGHTING 69th
TAKES CASUALTIES
Seven members of the 69th Infantry Regiment were killed last week when a roadside bomb blew up their Bradley Fighting Vehicle outside Baghdad.
The famed unit, now attached to the New York State National guard, has lost more than a dozen members in Iraq since being posted there in November. Iraq is the first conflict that the regiment, founded by Irish immigrants in 1851, has been engaged in since World War 11.
The regiment’s tour of duty will last at least a year. As a result, it will be missing from its traditional place at the head of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade in March. The 69th veterans corps will march in its place.
The 69th is no longer a full regiment and is now officially called the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry (Mechanized) New York Army National Guard. Its members are drawn from several states
The 69th underwent combat training in Fort Hood, Texas, during the summer of 2004 before leaving for Kuwait last October. It moved into Baghdad Nov. 1 and has been based since in the highly dangerous region north of the Iraqi capital.

SECOND SENTENCE
IN PHILLY SLAY
A second man is going to jail for the 1999 murder of Donegal native Neil Martin McConigley in Philadelphia.
Marlon Pitter pleaded guilty to murder in the third degree, conspiracy and various firearms charges. He will now face a sentence of 20 to 40 years, according to assistant district attorney Jude Conroy, the lead prosecutor in the case.
Pitter was the getaway driver in the robbery that preceded the fatal shooting.
McConigley, 34, from Fanad, was shot three times on Oct. 22, 1999 when he gave chase in his car after a gang of four men robbed his business partner in the western part of the city.
Marlon Mullings, the shooter in the robbery, was recently found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Marlon Pitter’s brother Allan and a fourth man, Cerrone Furman, are still awaiting trial in the case.

KERRY: IRA
WAS BEATEN
Irish Republicans have consistently denied that the IRA ceased its campaign because it had been forced to the brink of defeat. But former Democratic presidential candidate and Vietnam veteran John Kerry has no such doubts.
Kerry was visiting Iraq last week when he told reporters that the insurgency there would not be defeated by military force alone.
“Look at the IRA. It was defeated by a combination of time and negotiation,” Kerry said.

ROSEMARY KENNEDY
IS DEAD AT 86
Rosemary Kennedy, sister of Sen. Edward Kennedy, died last week aged 86.
Rosemary was the first daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy. She was born in 1918, a year after the late President Kennedy.
She spent almost her entire adult life in an institution in Wisconsin after a lobotomy intended to relieve the effects of mild mental retardation went badly wrong.
Rosemary’s tragic life became the spur behind the Kennedy family’s leading role in setting up the Special Olympics.

VISA BOOST
FOR VEGAS DUO
James Murray and Ruth Gould, the Belfast couple who are suing the Northrop Grumman corporation for $101 million, will likely be in the U.S. when a court hears their appeal against a previous decision in the case.
An immigration court has granted each a U Visa, which is provided to victims or witnesses in criminal investigations. The visa will allow Murray and Gould to remain in the U.S. until at least January 2006.
The couple are suing the Northrop Grumman for $101 million. They are currently appealing an initial federal court decision which went in favor of Northrop.
Murray and Gould, both recipients of Walsh Visa, were working in Las Vegas when they were arrested and thrown into prison on suspicion of having terrorist links in February 2002.
Their suit against Northrop — which administered the Walsh program on behalf of the U.S. State Department — was prompted by the ultimately false accusations of terrorist links leveled at them.
They were released without charge after spending a week in jail, but then faced deportation proceedings.
The couple’s suit against Northrop seeks compensatory damages in excess of $1 million, and punitive or exemplary damages in excess of $100 million.

RED EQUALS GREEN
The effort to lure more Scots Irish tourists to Ireland has attracted international press coverage.
However, Tourism Ireland likely winced at the headline over a story about the multi-million-dollar tourism pitch in the Times of London.
The Times reported that Tourism Ireland believed it could revive Ireland’s “flagging holiday industry” by luring thousands of Scots-Irish on sentimental journeys back to the Irish part of the “ould sod.”
The story was, however, reported under a headline that’s not destined for Tourism Ireland’s ads or brochures: “American rednecks are the target of Irish tourist drive,” it stated.

CONGRESS GIVES
NOD TO MITCHELLS
The U.S. Congress has approved $500,000 for the Mitchell scholarship program. The money for the Mitchells was included in the omnibus appropriations bill for the current fiscal year.
The approval gives the green light to the Department of State to provide the funding for the scholarships.
The funding received direct support from close to fifty members of both the House and Senate, said Trina Vargo, who runs the program that annually sends twelve outstanding U.S. college students to study in an Irish university for a year.
The Mitchell scholarships, named after Sen. George Mitchell, the man who steered the North parties to the Good Friday agreement, was created in 1998 with an initial endowment from the Irish government.