Republican’s legal bid over role in Adams’ jail escape
A VETERAN republican cleared of any involvement in the IRA killing of mother-of-10 Jean Mcconville is seeking to overturn his conviction for assisting in Gerry Adams’ attempt to escape from prison.
Lawyers for Ivor Bell are basing their appeal on a ruling that Mr Adams’ detention was unlawful.
In May last year the UK’S highest court quashed the former Sinn Fein president’s convictions for trying to escape from the Maze Prison during the 1970s.
He had been interned without trial at the jail — then known as the Long Kesh Internment Camp — under an interim custody order (ICO).
But Supreme Court justices quashed Mr Adams’ convictions because the ICO was not personally authorised by the Northern Ireland Secretary at the time, Willie Whitelaw.
Now Mr Bell (84) is mounting a legal attempt to overturn a verdict that he was guilty of aiding in the escape bid.
He received a five-year sentence in 1975 after being convicted of two charges: escaping from lawful custody and assisting in Mr Adams’ attempt to get out of the Maze the previous year.
His case was mentioned at the Court of Appeal on Friday, where judges directed further investigations be carried out before a hearing is listed.
The pensioner’s solicitor, Peter Corrigan of Phoenix Law, said later: “It is now clear from the Supreme Court ruling that Ivor Bell could not be guilty of assisting Mr Adams to evade from lawful custody, when he was not in lawful custody.
“We look forward to the urgent hearing of this case.”
In October 2019 Mr Bell, from Ramoan Gardens in west Belfast,
was acquitted of any role in the notorious abduction, murder and disappearance of Mrs Mcconville.
The widow had been seized from her home in the city by the IRA in 1972 after being wrongly accused of being an informer.
Following the abduction she was shot dead and then secretly buried. Her body was only discovered on a Co Louth beach in 2003.
Post-mortem examinations revealed she was killed by a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.
At a trial which Mr Bell was excused from attending due to his dementia, jurors were directed to return a verdict of not guilty on charges of soliciting Mrs Mcconville’s murder.