Adams’ convictions over prison escapes are quashed on appeal
GERRY Adams has won his appeal to have two convictions for attempting to escape from the Maze prison in the 1970s overturned.
The Supreme Court said the former Sinn Fein president’s detention was unlawful.
Now Mr Adams, 71, is asking the Government, “to identify and inform other internees whose internment may have been unlawful”.
He was in jail through the use of internment without trial – introduced as Northern Ireland descended into sustained intercommunal violence in the early 1970s.
Nearly 2,000 people suspected of being in paramilitary organisations were detained, but many were arrested as a result of flawed intelligence.
Mr Adams attempted to flee the Maze high-security jail near Belfast – also known as Long Kesh internment camp – in 1973 and 1974. He was later sentenced to a total of four and a half years.
At a Supreme Court hearing in November, Mr Adams’ lawyers argued his detention was unlawful because the order used to detain him in July 1973 was not authorised by Willie Whitelaw, Northern Ireland secretary at the time.
Announcing the Supreme Court’s judgment yesterday, Lord Kerr said the court had unanimously allowed Mr Adams’ appeal and quashed his convictions.
The judge said Mr Adams’ detention was unlawful. Mr Adams has consistently denied being a member of the IRA.
A series of other legal cases could be affected by the decision, lawyers said.
Mr Adams said: “There is an onus on the British Government to identify and inform other internees whose internment may also have been unlawful.”
Ulster Unionist leader Steve Aiken said that IRA victims will be “angered and bewildered” by the convictions being quashed.