An Irish couple who were detained after their US employer accused them of being threats to national security will not be allowed to sue a work training programme that reported them to federal investigators, a US appeals court has ruled.
James Murray and Ruth Gould were working at a Las Vegas hang-gliding school in 2002 when they complained to their programme administrator, Northrop Grumman Information Technology, that their employer had not paid them and had demanded they clean his home.
The hang-gliding school owner later contacted Northrop Grumman and said the couple had never worked for him and that Mr Murray was getting a pilot's licence so he could open a business in Yemen, the appeals court said.
The owner also claimed the two opposed US policy and believed terrorism would worsen as long as the US supported Israel.
Northrop Grumman notified the State Department and US immigration authorities, and the government took the couple into custody and began deportation proceedings.
Mr Murray and Ms Gould, both from Belfast, Northern Ireland, had been participating in the Irish Peace Process Cultural and Training Programme, established by Congress in 1998 to train disadvantaged Irish youths.
In their lawsuit, they said they suffered psychological injuries from Northrop Grumman's negligence in failing to check the accuracy of the claims against them.
Their lawyer, Eamonn Dornan, said he was "very disappointed" with the yesterday's ruling by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr Dornan said the couple were held in custody for a week but had since been permitted to remain in the US, at least temporarily, as witnesses in an unrelated assault case against the man who made the terrorism claims against them.
A lawyer for Northrop Grumman Information Technology did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
AP