AN IRISHMAN serving a 25 year sentence for involvement in an IRA bombing plot in Britain has failed to get his sentence reduced. Feilim O hAdhmaill (37) had an appeal against his conviction rejected earlier this month. Yesterday the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor, sitting in the Court of Appeal in London, said the sentence was not manifestly excessive.
O hAdhmaill, a university lecturer, was said to be a strategic planner for the IRA. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey on November 8th, 1994, after claiming to be a political prisoner and refusing to give evidence or call witnesses.
He had been arrested near his home in Lancashire earlier that year unloading Semtex, detonators, timing devices, guns and ammunition from a car.
The defence had claimed the evidence was not sufficient to justify the charge of conspiracy.