It is just over a year since Mr Finbarr Ross was arrested by the FBI at the headquarters of the Light of Christ community church in a mountainous corner of Oklahoma and lodged in the Muskogee County Jail.

The FBI agents were implementing an extradition warrant from the RUC, which accuses Mr Ross of 41 fraud-related charges following the collapse of his company, International Investments Ltd (IIL), in 1984.

Mr Ross appealed against the extradition order by the federal district court, but two weeks ago came the news that the 10th circuit appeals court in Denver, Colorado, has rejected his appeal.

When I spoke to him by telephone this week at the jail, he seemed resigned to the prospect of facing trial in Northern Ireland.

But, before that happens, his lawyers are filing "a motion of rehearing" to the Denver appeals court, asking the judges to give the legal reasons for their rejection. According to Mr Ross, the appeal judges simply accepted the ruling of the federal district court that he should be extradited because he was "a fugitive from justice" when he came to the US 16 years ago.

Mr Ross, who is now a US citizen, had argued that the five-year statute of limitations should apply to the alleged offences, which dated back to before 1984. The presiding federal district court judge ruled that the statute did not apply because Mr Ross had been a fugitive from justice all this time. Mr Ross has strongly denied this finding, pointing out that he never tried to hide after his arrival in the US and was listed in various telephone books.

Mr Ross does not know how long he must wait to know his fate. The Denver judges could take months to hear his case again or they could quickly refuse to hear it at all.

If the latter happens, it is unlikely that Mr Ross would bring his case to the US Supreme Court. Supporters would probably be unable or unwilling to improve on the $50,000 (€45,595) in legal costs they have already raised. So how does Mr Ross feel about facing trial in Northern Ireland?

"I look at it this way," he told me. "God has taken care of me this far. If I go to Northern Ireland, he'll take care of me there too."

Did he believe he would get a fair trial there?

"It would be very hard to get a fair trial," he said. "Because how am I to get witnesses? And how am I to get all the documentation I had relating to this whole thing?"

Mr Ross added that he would be unable to subpoena witnesses from the Republic or the US to testify for him in a trial.

Did he still maintain his innocence in the collapse of IIL, even though about £7 million (€8.9 million) of investors' savings disappeared?

"I haven't got any money. They [the RUC] have all my bank records since before I came to the US and after I came. They know I do not have the money," he said.

Did he feel sorry for the 1,200 depositors who lost their savings?

"I am extremely sorry that they lost money. Any time anyone loses anything, it's always a tragedy," he said.

Was there any way they could get their savings back?

"I don't believe so," he said. "I don't know what the results of the liquidation were when they liquidated IIL. I don't know anything of how it came out in the liquidation."

What about reports last year that extradition proceedings would be dropped if he gave the names of individuals who had profited from the collapse of IIL?

This, he claimed, was "a figment of the imagination of Billy Flynn", who has written a book about the company's collapse. And also of Mr Roy Beggs MP, the Northern Ireland unionist politician, who has been pressing for Mr Ross's extradition because a number of his constituents lost money in IIL.

"Last May, they were saying if I did this, that and the other thing, they would do their best that I would not be extradited. But they are not the authorities," Mr Ross pointed out.

How had he coped with his year in jail? Had he felt depressed?

"I got through it with prayer and the help of God and Mother Mary," said Mr Ross, who is an ordained minister of the New Agestyle Light of Christ Church, which practises "esoteric Christianity".

"One always has low moments, but at all my low moments, I would say the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary and that takes me to another point."

The cell block where Mr Ross is held is "like a community all of itself". It has about 20 prisoners and "we have this great big day room that we live in", although he has had an individual cell since before Christmas.

"We do a rosary and communion service every evening," he told me. Mr Ross also gives classes "on how to heal your life and other classes on relationships and co-dependency and things like that, so I keep myself pretty busy in here".

"I do a lot of counselling in here and a lot of hands-on healing work," he said. He has found that the saying of the "Aquarian rosary", which has some additions to the traditional Catholic rosary, has "done more to change guys' lives than anything else".

He laughed when asked if the food was good. "It's mainly cold," he said. "It's supposed to be hot or warm. We possibly get two hot meals a month."

"In winter, it gets pretty cold in here," Mr Ross said.

The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, will have the final say if Mr Ross's extradition is to go through, although she would be unlikely to go against the US courts in a non-political case. She will be meeting the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in Washington next week to discuss Northern Ireland, but Mr Ross said he had not asked for any assistance from the Government.