A US federal appeals court has overturned an extradition order for three men who escaped from the Maze in 1983. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, and ordered fresh extradition proceedings for Kevin Artt, Pol Brennan and Terence Kirby, and ruled the district court had not probed deeply enough into the possibility that the men would be punished because of "race, religion or political opinion" if returned to Northern Ireland, grounds to deny extradition under US-British agreements.
The three men were among 38 prisoners who escaped from the Maze prison in the largest jailbreak in British history in 1983 and were arrested in California between 1992 and 1994. Artt was convicted in 1983 of the 1978 murder of Albert Miles, the prison's deputy governor. He maintained he was innocent.