A Maze prison escaper appeared before a Dublin court yesterday on a warrant seeking his extradition to Northern Ireland. Anthony Kelly (36), a native of Garvan Place, Derry, with an address at Glenard Park, Letterkenny, Co Donegal, appeared amid tight security at the Dublin District Court.
About a dozen anti-extradition protesters shouted slogans outside the court during the brief hearing. Kelly, who escaped from the Maze during a mass break-out by 38 IRA prisoners in September 1983, was remanded in custody until next Wednesday.
He is wanted for extradition to Northern Ireland on a warrant seeking his return to serve the remainder of a life sentence imposed in 1980 for the murder of reserve RUC officer Stanley Wray in Derry in 1979.
Det Insp John McGinley, of Letterkenny, gave evidence of arresting Kelly at his home at Glenard Park at 7.05 a.m. yesterday on foot of an extradition warrant issued in Northern Ireland and endorsed by an assistant Garda commissioner.
Mr Brian Barlow, an assistant governor at the Maze, identified Kelly as the man who was held at the prison from 1980 until his escape in September 1983.
Kelly was jailed by the Special Criminal Court in 1988 for seven years for firearms and explosives offences in Co Donegal.
Since his release from Portlaoise Prison in 1993 he has been living in Letterkenny.