Sir, With reference to the report headed "Adams says agreement covers McCabe killers" (The Irish Times, February 9th), I would refer interested readers (and the Irish Government!) to two important documents concerning the early release of both republican and loyalist paramilitary prisoners.
First, the Belfast Agreement is concise in its description of offences included under the scheme: ". . . the release of prisoners, including transferred prisoners, convicted of scheduled offences in Northern Ireland or, in the case of those sentenced outside Northern Ireland, similar offences (referred to hereafter as qualifying prisoners)."
Second, the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1996 of the British Parliament states: "In this Act `scheduled offence' means an offence specified in Part I or III of Schedule 1 to this Act but subject to any relevant note in Part I of that Schedule."
Such offences include murder and manslaughter, subject to Note 1 of the Act, which specifies: "Any offence specified in this part of this schedule which is stated to be subject to this note is not a scheduled offence in any particular case in which the Attorney General for Northern Ireland certifies that it is not to be treated as a scheduled offence."
Based on these documents, some observations in relation to the recent Garda McCabe trial:
1. The classification of a scheduled offence is at the discretion of the Attorney General in Northern Ireland for any particular case. Since the wording notes "similar" offences outside Northern Ireland, there is no basis for automatically assuming, as Mr Adams does, that the killing of Garda McCabe be considered a scheduled, or "similar", offence - thus possibly precluding this case from the Agreement.
2. The text of the Belfast Agreement (section above) covers convicted prisoners, at the time of signing - i.e. the Agreement can be interpreted as acting retrospectively. 3. At the time this incident occurred, the IRA categorically denied involvement in the incident. If this is still the position of the organisation, then the case does not qualify for the "early release" scheme.
4. The cold-blooded killing of a law enforcement officer, during an act not directly related to the activities of a "political" group, can in no way protect the assailants as "political" prisoners under international law.
Finally, it appears that Mr Adams favours the "revolving door" approach - playing the republican card when it bolsters his support, as in the case of prisoner release, but failing to reciprocate in terms of arms decommissioning. For Mr Adams, the path to peace must be marked by a clear and decisive exit from the role of paramilitary facilitator. - Yours, etc.,
Gerard McHugh, Research Fellow, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.