U.S. State Department denies knowledge of Nelson presence

A Washington-based lobby group, the Irish National Caucus, had written to Secretary of State Colin Powell seeking clarification of reports that Nelson’s death last April occurred in Florida.
In the letter, INC president Fr. Sean McManus cited a report in a Belfast Sunday newspaper, Sunday Life, that Nelson had been living in Florida up until his death.
The paper based its report on claims by Nelson’s wife’s family.
In his letter, McManus referred to the report’s assertion that the British government “must have arranged a special dispensation with the U.S. State Department so that Nelson would be allowed into the country despite his conviction for terrorist crimes in 1990.”
McManus asked Powell in the letter to “confirm or deny” the report in the Sunday Life.
“If it is true, then how can it be compatible with President Bush’s principle ‘if you harbor a terrorist, you are a terrorist,’ ” McManus wrote.
In its reply to McManus, the State Department referred to the “media report alleging that Mr. Brian Nelson resided in Florida.”
The letter, signed on Secretary Powell’s behalf by Ambassador Cofer Black, added that because of his felony convictions, the State Department had placed Nelson “on the appropriate watch list” to deny him entry to the United States.
“He neither applied for nor received a waiver to enter the United States,” Cofer wrote McManus.
“Mr. Nelson was not legally in the United States from the time of his release from prison until his reported death. If he were here under an assumed name, as the unattributed report alleges, it was without the knowledge of the U.S. government,” the letter concluded.
In a statement, McManus said that the State Department reply appeared to be an unequivocal denial that the U.S. government had in any way facilitated Brian Nelson’s “alleged presence” in the United States up until his reported death.
McManus noted, however, that the State Department letter referred to Nelson’s “reported” death.
McManus said the question now arose as to whether or not Nelson had in fact died.
“To date there has been no mention of a funeral or burial, nothing. Did he die in Florida, or did he die at all,” McManus said.
McManus raised the possibility that Nelson might have been in the U.S. without the knowledge of the U.S. government and possibly with the aid of British intelligence.
“The British government did facilitate Brian Nelson in doing stuff far more grievously wrong than entering the United States illegally,” McManus said.