run and unobtainable. The court's decision was a dramatic break with precedent, and a controversial one, as the Republic objected to the use of Diplock courts in the north; it had rejected 48 similar applications from the north since 1970; this was the first such extradition since the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. McGlinchey, in absentia, fought the decision. Although he rejected accusations of involvement in the murder, he claimed—in the words of the Extradition Act of 1965—that the Toomebridge operation had been "a political offence or an offence connected with a political offence". Through his solicitors, McGlinchey presented evidence of his IRA active service at the time in the form of wanted posters, charge sheets and articles naming him in the Ballymena Guardian. This was not accepted, and McGinchley re-approached his challenge, this time basing it on the clause of the Act which prevented extradition if there were grounds for believing that, following transfer the individual would then in any case still be prosecuted for political offences. In a two-hour hearing, Chief Justice Tom O'Higgins rejected this claim also. He recorded the court's opinion that "modern terrorist violence...is often the antithesis of what could reasonably be regarded as political, either in itself or in its connections". Higgins also declared that whether the victim of the alleged political offence—in McGlinchey's case, Hester —was killed or not was irrelevant to the question; the important point, he stressed, was that she was a civilian. "An elderly grandmother riddled with bullets", he continued, was in no way what "reasonable civilised people would regard as political activity". Public interest in McGlinchey's extradition subsided following the judgement, as, notes the jurist Alpha Connelly, he "did not oblige the Irish authorities by presenting himself to them for the purpose of extradition pursuant to the Supreme Court judgment". Internal security McGlinchey only ever crossed the border into Northern Ireland when an operation required it, which made it harder for the security services to maintain effective surveillance. In spite of secret surveillance south of the border, the Special Reconnaissance Unit had difficulty monitoring McGlinchey, argues the journalist Peter Taylor. As a result, they "did the next best thing and latched on to an INLA associate", Seamus Grew. Grew was a close friend of Mary McGlinchey. By tailing Grew north of the border, the SRU hoped to be led to McGlinchey. The RUC's intelligence arm, E4A,