LOS ANGELES-
A man from Northern Ireland who was convicted of aiding in the 1988 killings of two British soldiers has been deported to Ireland, ending a two-year effort by U.S. officials.
Sean O’Cealleagh, 37, flew to Dublin on Sunday, escorted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the agency announced Monday. A judge signed a final order for his removal on Thursday.
O’Cealleagh had been in U.S. custody since Sept. 1 after the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled he could be deported, throwing out a lower court decision allowing him to stay in America.
“He was convicted of a brutal crime, he’s not welcome in the U.S.,” said Jim Hayes, a customs officer in Los Angeles. “We still consider him a very serious public safety threat, that was the basis for our attempts to have him removed.”
O’Cealleagh was one of three men given life sentences in 1990 for their roles in the deaths of the two soldiers, who were beaten and shot after they were discovered in civilian clothes at a funeral for a slain Irish Republican Army member in Northern Ireland.
Convicted of aiding and abetting in the murders, O’Cealleagh spent 8 1/2 years in prison before being freed in 1998 under the Good Friday peace accord, which offered parole to hundreds of paramilitary convicts.
O’Cealleagh, who repeatedly denied involvement in the killings, emigrated to the United States in 1999 and was granted permanent U.S. residency in California two years later.
He was arrested in February 2004 at Los Angeles International Airport when he returned from a visit to Northern Ireland. The U.S. government argued that O’Cealleagh should never have been allowed in because of his conviction.
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