Europe to investigate jail treatment of McAliskey

The European Parliament is to send a delegation to Holloway Prison to investigate complaints about the detention of Roisin McAliskey amid mounting international concern about her treatment.

The 25-year-old daughter of the former nationalist MP Bernadette Devlin is being held on remand pending extradition to Germany for questioning in connection with the IRA mortar attack on a British army barracks at Osnabruck last year. She is seven months pregnant but as a Category A high security prisoner, she is held in solitary confinement and is strip- searched daily.

The Irish government raised a formal protest about the conditions of her detention last week. Dick Spring, the Republic's foreign minister, called in the British ambassador in Dublin to demand that Ms Mc Aliskey be given bail and to insist that she is at least entitled to "basic decency" while in jail. The European Parliament's all party Civil Liberties committee yesterday agreed to send a three member delegation despite objections from a number of British MEPs.