Sinn Fein boss Adams bid to quash escape convictions

SINN Fein leader Gerry Adams has launched a legal bid to overturn two historical convictions for attempting to escape from prison.

Appeal proceedings began before three senior judges at Belfast’s Royal Courts of Justice yesterday.

Mr Adams ( above), now a Louth politician, is seeking to quash convictions received in 1975 while he was interned without trial at the Maze Prison during the early 1970s.

Barrister Sean Dorian QC, representing Adams, said: “Each conviction is for attempting to escape from lawful custody.”

The case centres on a technicality that Mr Adams’ internment was not lawful because the order to detain him had not been considered by the then Secretary of State.

The court heard how an interim custody order had been signed by a junior minister at the Northern Ireland Office and not the Secretary of State.

Earlier the court was told how Mr Adams was twice convicted of trying to escape from the Maze; on Christmas Eve, 1973, and in July 1974.

Mr Adams was among hundreds of republicans to be held without trial during the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

Internment was introduced in 1971 by the former Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner for those suspected of involvement in violence.

The policy, which lasted until December 1975, led to protests and an increase in violence.