the republic should be demanding that sheriff joe change his jail from a third world gulag into a humane prison that opperating according to the law. sheriff joe did that we would have this problem of foreign countries refusing to extridite people to maricopa county because we have a third world gulag instead of a humane prison. Original Article Faith in justice Ireland should not shelter priest charged with child abuse in Arizona May. 26, 2005 12:00 AM In the case of the accused pedophile priest Patrick Colleary, one issue should be paramount: Justice should be served. All other issues pale in comparison. The Rev. - and we use the term advisedly - Colleary deserves his day in court. He should face a day of reckoning. Instead, Colleary remains free in Ireland, and not necessarily because he's innocent. Apparently, he's in no hurry for that issue to be determined in an Arizona court. The former Phoenix diocesan priest was indicted in May 2003 on two counts of sexual misconduct. It was not the first time he had faced such accusations. An earlier sexual-abuse charge involving a minor had been dismissed just months earlier after the statute of limitations had expired after 24 years. Colleary didn't stay in the Valley once that charge was dropped. He fled the country before the new charges were filed. Today, Colleary is in his native Ireland, protected by paperwork and international law. And now, the extradition case against him has been slowed because of concerns raised by Irish authorities about conditions within Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County jail system. Wonderful. The Irish chief state solicitor raised questions after viewing published photos of Maricopa County inmates dressed in pink underwear and flip-flops. The pictures were taken during the much-publicized April 15 transfer of 700 prisoners from the Towers Jail to the new Lower Buckeye Jail. Irish authorities have asked local prosecutors for a detailed explanation for what they term a "clear contradiction" between the photos and earlier statements that conditions in the Maricopa County jail system are humane. They want assurances that Colleary will be treated humanely and not housed in Maricopa County jails. We can understand how the Irish authorities get the impression that the inmates were being ridiculed. At the time, Arpaio said: "I put them on the streets so everybody could see them." And while they were not paraded on the public streets, TV cameras were invited. However, as Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas argues, it would be an intolerable miscarriage of justice if Colleary were again saved on a technicality. Authorities abroad should keep the larger judicial issue in mind. Colleary skipped the country rather than face serious charges. The accusations against Colleary portray a man who has abused his priestly vows in the most predatory, despicable ways. He is accused of taking sexual advantage of young boys and young women. He has acknowledged fathering a child with a woman who claims she was raped. Another woman went to Colleary as a vulnerable teenager for counseling. Four years later, they had an affair. Colleary needs to face his accusers. Arizona, so damaged by the sins of some predatory priests, needs to bring this one to justice.