Series IV: Legal Cases, 1975-2003, 1975-2003, inclusive

In the 1970s, the newspaper, The Irish People, was sued by the Attorney General of the United States in an attempt to force the paper to register as a foreign agent. The U.S. Attorney General argued the paper had received monies and donation of space from the Irish Northern Aid Committee, an organization which was suspected of sending monies to fund the activities of the IRA in Northern Ireland. The paper was considered complicit in this enterprise.

In 1978, Desmond Mackin was charged with the attempted murder of a British Soldier in Ireland. He fled to the States and was subsequently arrested in 1980 and charged for this crime. In a landmark ruling, the Judge found that Mr. Mackin could not be extradited because his offences were political, i.e., he was a member of an uprising group (the IRA) and his alleged offense was attributed to furthering the aims of this political group and their uprising. After avoiding extradition, the INS initiated deportation proceedings and Mackin elected to be deported to the South of Ireland to avoid risking deportation to British authorities.

George Harrison, along with Tom Falvey, Michael Flannery, Patrick Mullin and Danny Gormley, was arrested and tried for illegal shipment of arms to Northern Ireland. The case hinged on the fact that Harrison and his co-conspirators believed that their contact, George DeMeo, was himself an agent of the CIA and therefore the United States government was cognizant of their arms dealing and complicit in allowing this activity to continue.

The files contain the trail transcripts along with many legal documents and newspaper clippings. Of note is the Jury Verdict slip, showing all defendents not guilty on all counts (Box 15, Folder 21).

This series includes files and information on cases of interest and importance to Durkan taking place in Northern Ireland. Bobby Sands' hunger strike, the shooting of Lord Mountbatton and the use of Diplock Courts to put Irish in prison, as well as several files on John Stalker as well as the manuscript of his book "Stalked" which document the unofficial shoot to kill policy utilized by the northern police forces on Catholic Irish in Northern Ireland.

Materials in this subseries relate to the former ruling family of Iran and subsequent legal actions taken by the State of Iran against the family, suing them for their assets. These files relate to the Plaintiff who in this particular lawsuit was Ashraf Pahlavi, twin sister of the late shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

As background, in January 16, 1979, the Shah and his wife, the empress, left Iran to live in exile after the overthrow of government and installation of Ayatollah, Ruhollah Khomeini. The Ayatollah, attempted to seek extradition from any country the Shah would visit or go to and also sought to seize all of the Shah's assets. The Ayatollah also called for the assassination of the Shan and numerous family members. The Shah came to New York City on Oct 22, 1979 for medical care and this visit led to the Iranian Hostage Crisis. After seeking refuge in other countries, the Shah finally settled in Egypt where he died July 27, 1980. The hostages were not released until January 20, 1981 after an agreement was negotiated, the Algerian Accords.

The suit in these files refers to that brought against the royal family by the country of Iran. The case was brought to the attention of O'Dwyer and Bernstien when the Shah came to New York City for medical attention. In the opinion of the lawyers, the Ayatollah was attempting to continue its revolution in the courts of the United States by attempting to take from the Royal Family via judicial process what it could not take by force. Iran was asking the Unites States court to intervene in a political dispute between two ruling regimes in a foreign country: The Khomeini regime and the Pahlavi regime. Brian O'Dwyer argued that New York has no responsibility to provide the type of forum that the Plaintiff - the government of Iran – should be providing and therefore the suit was considered illegitimate.

The Princess, Ashraf Pahlavi was known as an advocate of women's rights and the material documents her frequent travel to other countries promoting women's rights. She was exiled from Iran in 1951 because of her "political meddling and general objectionable behavior". She was allowed to return permanently in 1954 (See folder FOI Request Documents, 1946-1959).

In 1990, Kevin Joseph McKinley, Seamus McColgan, Sean John McCann, and Seamus Moley were arrested in Florida and charged with buying an anti-aircraft missile and other weapons from undercover agents with the intention of providing the weapons to members of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. They were found guilty and in 1991, McKinley, McColgan, and Moley were sentenced to 51 months in prison. Frank Durkan represented the defendants, along with attorney Michael Dowd.