March 9, 2003 Irishman Arrested for Terrorism in Denver
by Georgina Brenna, Irish Abroad

An Irishman was arrested and detained in Denver, Colorado, last week on charges of terrorist activity.

Belfast native, Ciaran Ferry, 30, a former prisoner in Long Kesh, was arrested January 30 in Denver and detained in a federal penitentiary (FCI Englewood) in Littleton, Colorado, expecting deportation. He was attending a formal interview for a green card when he was separated from his American citizen wife, detained in a room and asked to inform on Real and Continuity IRA activity in New York and Boston.

"We were staying in New Jersey while Ciaran worked on my grandfather's house, when we were called for an interview back in Denver," his wife Heaven, 26, told the Irish Voice from her Denver home. "Of course we flew straight over to prove we were married. We were anxious to get Ciaran a green card."

Heaven Sheehan was working for Irish Northern Aid in August 2000 when she met Ciaran Ferry on a visit to Belfast. She had been raised in an activist Irish American family.

Ferry was released from Long Kesh in July 2000 under the Good Friday Agreement, having spent seven and a half years in Long Kesh for arms possession with intent to kill. On St. Patrick's Day 1993, Ferry and two passengers were stopped on a Belfast motorway. Inside their car, two AK47s were found and he was arrested and imprisoned.

"We had started a pen pal relationship before falling in love," says Heaven. Then, in December 2000, Ferry came to Denver, where Heaven's Irish American family was from. The two were set to make a life together.

"We got married and he came in under the visa waiver program because we were not sure if it would work us living in America. I tried living in Ireland but it was difficult to get a job, so he came here. I was pregnant then and I thought it would have been easier to give birth here," she says.

In June 2001, their baby Fiona was born. Thinking their future was in America, they discussed filing a green card application for Ciaran. In March 2002, they did so. Soon after he was allowed to work.

On Thursday, January 30, at the scheduled INS interview for their marriage based green card application Ferry was arrested by INS agents.

"We went in and I was expecting questions about my marriage. I had brought scrapbooks and photographs and my daughter's birth certificate to prove our life," Heaven says. "We had always been open about Ciaran's past so we never thought it would come up.

"After a series of questions, the INS officer asked to separate us, as they often do in these kinds of applications. In another room away from my husband, I was told he was being detained and that FBI agents would be coming to speak to him. My jaw was on the ground."

Since last Thursday, Heaven has seen her husband once, on Saturday. During that meeting, he told her that the FBI had asked him to inform on the Real IRA and Continuity IRA activities in New York and Boston.

Heaven could not bring herself to tell her husband that she too had been approached by the FBI and asked if she might see her way clear to coaxing her husband into cooperating.

"He thinks he was arrested for overstaying his visa, he does not understand his connection to all of this and neither the INS nor the prison officers will tell me what's going on," she says.

The Irish Consulate in San Francisco is dealing with the case, but could not comment on its particulars. When the Irish Voice called the INS field officer responsible for the case, acting district director Michael Comfort, calls were not returned.

New York immigration attorney, Jim O'Malley, who has knowledge of these kinds of cases, said the core issue on which a case like this would turn is whether the criminal past is political or terrorist.

"In this climate the mention of terrorism touches a raw nerve," O'Malley says. "However, since the INS has issued a zero tolerance policy, it is difficult to speculate how this case would go."

Several prisoners who did time in Northern Irish jails are still fighting cases since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. U.S. authorities have agreed not to pursue their cases at long as the peace process holds.