AN INLA prisoner serving a 23 year sentence for planning a bombing campaign in England three years ago is wanted by the RUC after failing to return from four days of compassionate leave from jail.
Liam Heffernan (34), whose targets included MPs and military figures, was one of two people caught at a Somerset quarry as they prepared to steal explosives for their campaign.
Heffernan, who was born and brought up in Manchester, was jailed at the Old Bailey after they were lured into a trap by an informer.
He was transferred to Maghaberry prison in Co Antrim in July of last year after staging a "dirty protest" at Whitemoor prison, Cambridgeshire.
A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Prison Service said yesterday that Heffernan was granted a period of "compassionate temporary release" to attend the funeral of his mother. He was released at 5 p.m. last Monday and was expected back at the prison at 1 p.m. on Thursday, but he didn't return.
It emerged yesterday that Heffernan had been given leave on four other occasions to visit his mother, who is understood to have been suffering from cancer, but he returned each time.
A prison service source said it was the first "significant failure" of a scheme that had been running for a number of years.
Compassionate leave can be give at any stage of a sentence. In the past one of the keys to a prisoner's return has been not only the discipline of the establishment but that of the paramilitary group to which the prisoner belongs. All the paramilitary groups are keen to see it continue to work. However, the latest round of bloodletting within the INLA has weakened it.
The British Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, has approved the transfer to Irish prisons later this week of three IRA prisoners from English jails.
The three are Derek Doherty, who is serving 25 years for planting 12 bombs; Padraig Mac Fhloinn, who is serving 35 years for his part in the Warrington gasworks explosion; and Michael O'Brien, who was sentenced to 18 years, also on explosives charges.
None of the three has served more than four years so far in British prisons. Transfer to the Republic does not mean any reduction in their sentences but family visits will be easier.
The transfers are being seen by some Irish politicians as a further step towards the possible declaration of a second ceasefire. They need the approval of both governments and the individual prisoners.
The three are being transferred under a European Convention which came into effect last November. Only two other prisoners, Patrick Kelly and Brendan Dowd, have been transferred to Irish jails so far as part of this measure.
Doherty and Mac Fhloinn are among the 14 IRA inmates whose convictions are being considered by forensic specialist Prof Brian Caddy, who is investigating the six year contamination of the centrifuge at the Forensic Explosives Laboratory.