GERMANY'S highest criminal court has rejected an appeal by Donna Maguire against her conviction for the IRA bombing of a British army barracks in Germany. It is unclear whether Maguire, who is at liberty, will have to return to jail to serve her sentence.
The 29 year old woman, from Newry, Co Down, is "somewhere on the island of Ireland", said a source. Her family did not want to comment on her whereabouts.
The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe upheld the ruling of a court in Celle, which last year sentenced Maguire to nine years for the attempted murder of British soldiers, blowing up a barracks in Osnabrueck and spying on military installations with intent to sabotage, in 1989.
Maguire was released by the court because she had already served 5 1/2 years in custody, in Ireland, Belgium, Holland and Germany. She returned to Newry upon her release.
Federal prosecutors in Germany said they were not sure about Maguire's whereabouts.
At the end of her trial last year the Celle court ruled that Maguire did not have to return to jail until the verdict became legally binding after the appeal, because she had already spent nearly six years in remand prisons.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office said it would now have to decide how to assess the time Maguire had already spent in custody. "Whether she will have to come back to Germany is not an issue yet because this is an extremely complicated and drawn out legal process," said spokesman Mr Rolf Hannich.
Once prosecutors decide how much remand time to credit her with, the court in Celle will make the final decision on how much of the nine year sentence she must serve.
The court will take this into consideration before deciding whether her sentence should be commuted after two thirds of the term has expired, as is often the case in Germany.
