Deportation looms for popular S.B. bartender

Article Published: Monday, March 22, 2004 Long Beach Press Telegram

By Greg Mellen
Staff writer

When Sean Kelly was pulling jars of Guinness and spinning Irish yarns or crooning ballads for the crowd at O'Malley's in Seal Beach, no one would have guessed that he had a terrible secret that would come back to haunt him.

Talk to patrons or co-workers and they tell you the same thing.

"He was a great guy, jovial, outgoing, with plenty of stories,' said bartender Dave McGrath. "He was, is, no question a centerpiece of this bar.'

But the past is a tricky thing, especially for a Catholic from the war-torn streets of Belfast, where Kelly was convicted of aiding and abetting in the 1988 deaths of two undercover British Army soldiers in a highly politicized and controversial case.

Today, the 35-year-old father of one, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1999, got married and was granted permanent residence in 2001, will attend a scheduling hearing in San Pedro that will eventually decide whether Kelly remains in the U.S. or is deported back to Northern Ireland.

Kelly was removed from a plane at Los Angeles International Airport Feb. 25 after returning from seeing family in Northern Ireland. He has since been detained without bail and today's hearing is his first appearance before a judge.

"We are holding Mr. Kelly,' said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "He is charged with being inadmissible to the U.S. because of his conviction for a crime of moral turpitude.'

Kelly's lawyers claim their client was not only wrongly convicted, but was a political prisoner and freed after 8 years of incarceration in Northern Ireland under guidelines for political prisoners.

Under immigration guidelines, resident aliens cannot be deported for political crimes in their homelands.

However, Kice notes that although Kelly was released from jail, he was never pardoned and "because of the nature of the crime, he would be sent back to Ireland.'

Kelly's lawyers further contend that their client revealed his criminal past when he applied for permanent resident status.

Kice said the government was reviewing Kelly's papers to see if he was forthcoming in his application.

Kelly was one of the "Casement Three,' along with Patrick Kane and Michael Timmons, who were convicted for complicity in the deaths of corporals Derek Wood and David Howes.

In March 1988, Kevin Brady, a reputed member of the provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army, was being buried after a bloody string of killings in clashes between the British Army and loyalists and the IRA and local citizens. At Brady's funeral, a Volkswagen Passat with two undercover Army men became entangled in the procession. A crowd gathered around the car and Wood apparently fired a shot as he was being pulled out. The two soldiers were beaten and carried away from the car. Police claim Kelly was one of a small group to carry Wood into nearby Casement Park, though this is disputed. Moments later, a black taxi removed the men and drove them to an area known as Penny Lane, where the soldiers were shot. The IRA later claimed responsibility for the act.

After the killings, more than 200 men were rounded up and eventually more than a dozen were convicted and sentenced to prison.

Kelly, Kane and Timmons each received life sentences for each of the deaths, even though none were involved or present during the killings. None of the three were identified as members of the IRA or any paramilitary group and Kelly said he wasn't even part of the funeral procession.

The three were jailed at Long Kesh, the dreaded "Maze,' an infamous holding facility for political prisoners in Ireland.

The three were tried separately in nonjury Diplock courts, which were used in certain political cases. The system requires lowers standards of admissibility for confessions and police officer statements and can take a suspect's silence as an inference of implication.

Kelly did not testify in his trial and the Republican News reported "Judge Carswell admitted having doubts about the identification against Kelly but, by drawing adverse inference from the defendant's decision not to testify in court, the judge secured the conviction.'

The three were also found guilty under a theory of "common purpose' that suggests if they engaged in an activity that could reasonably have been foreseen to lead to death, they are guilty of the killing even if they are not physically involved.

The Human Rights Watch wrote the three were found guilty, "despite strong evidence that their convictions were the result of inadequate or faulty legal procedures including trials in juryless Diplock Courts, violation of the right to remain silent, reliance upon poor-quality video footage for identification purposes and confused application of the doctrine of common purpose.'

"We're hoping the case gets thrown out and dismissed,' said John Farrell, one of Kelly's lawyers and a family friend. "At the very least we're hoping he can post bond.'