Northern Ireland Marathon of Death

By William R. Doerner

Some 10,000 people took advantage of sunny weather last week to attend the town of Lisburn's annual "fun run." The final race, a 13-mile half marathon, had just ended, and the assembled throng was beginning to disperse. Suddenly the peaceful scene was shattered by an explosion that turned a blue van slowing for a traffic light into a fireball. All six passengers, British soldiers who had participated in the races, were killed. The only wonder was that there were no fatalities among onlookers, though eight of them were injured.

Responsibility was quickly claimed by the outlawed Irish Republican Army. It was the British army's worst loss of life in Northern Ireland in nearly six years, and the I.R.A.'s bloodiest attack since last November, when a bombing at a war memorial ceremony in Enniskillen claimed the lives of eleven civilians. In Lisburn, I.R.A. operatives evidently managed to attach a bomb to the van's chassis while it was parked, unattended, during the races. In London, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called the attack a "terrible atrocity" but rejected calls in Parliament for the internment without trial of suspected terrorists in Ulster. In the war against I.R.A. terrorism, said Tom King, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, "there is no shortcut."

Detours, on the other hand, seem to exist. Last week an extradition ruling by an Irish court in the town of Portlaoise confounded the British and Irish governments, which only a month ago had agreed on procedures aimed at making it easier for Britain to bring accused I.R.A. terrorists to trial in British courts. In the Portlaoise case, the judge, claiming that Britain had failed to identify the suspect formally, refused to extradite Patrick McVeigh, who is accused of complicity in four London bombings between 1981 and 1983. Officials in Dublin promised to appeal the Portlaoise ruling. McVeigh, who was released after serving five years in an Irish prison for firearms violations, went into hiding.

Another custody matter, this one involving the U.S., moved a step closer to resolution in Britain's favor. Attorney General Edwin Meese ordered that Joseph Doherty, a Northern Ireland fugitive convicted of killing a British army captain in 1980, should be deported to Britain rather than Ireland. Doherty, who entered the U.S. illegally in 1982 after escaping from a Belfast jail, faces life behind bars if he is sent to Britain. Meese's action was the Reagan Administration's latest effort to sidestep federal court decisions holding that Doherty is exempt from extradition to Britain on the grounds that his actions were politically motivated. Doherty's lawyers petitioned for a review of Meese's decision. Meanwhile, the defendant will remain in a New York City jail, where he has been held without bail for most of the past five years.

With reporting by Edmund Curran/Belfast and Michael Duffy/Washington