Six republican prisoners, including the IRA leader in Portlaoise Prison and two other prisoners repatriated from British jails, were released last night. The group, which includes a man sentenced to 12 years less than six months ago, is the first to be released under new legislation.
The prison "Officer Commanding" (O/C), Mr Michael O'Brien (38), was not due for release until August 2005 after being sentenced to 18 years for attempted murder in Britain. Originally from Dublin, he became IRA jail leader after being repatriated from Britain to Portlaoise in November 1996. He was given temporary release to attend the Sinn Fein ardfheis in May.
The second of the three repatriated prisoners released is Mr Adrian Vincent Donnelly (58). He was given five life sentences in the Old Bailey in 1977 for bombing a London underground train, killing the driver, and the attempted murder of another man and two policemen.
The third repatriated prisoner released last night is Mr Vincent Wood (34), from Foxford, Co Mayo. Mr Wood, repatriated along with Mr Donnelly last December, was sentenced to 17 years in 1993 for storing 35lb of Semtex for the IRA.
Mr Michael Cully (47), the nephew of an elderly Laois farmer, Thomas Conroy, was also released last night. He received a 12-year sentence in February after gardai uncovered an IRA bomb-making factory on his uncle's farm at Clonaslee, Co Laois.
He was charged with having 16 improvised mortar bombs containing Semtex. Gardai raided the farm two weeks after the murder of Det Garda Jerry McCabe in Limerick. Thomas Conroy received a five-year suspended sentence for his role.
Mr Michael Cully was one of 16 prisoners released and rearrested outside Portlaoise Prison in November 1996 after it became clear Judge Dominic Lynch had been ineligible to sit at the Special Criminal Court after an administrative lapse in the system. Mrs Nora Owen, then minister for justice, ordered the release and rearrest of the prisoners.
Mr Cully challenged his rearrest, saying he had not been free when arrested by a garda outside the main gate of the prison. The Special Criminal Court ruled he had been properly rearrested.
Mr Frank Burke (44), from Rialto, Dublin, was serving the shortest sentence of the six released last night. He was convicted last September for stealing a car, criminal damage, firearms offences and IRA membership, and was due for release in May 2001.
The sixth man, Mr Simon Maxwell (32), from Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath, was given six years by the Special Criminal Court in October last year. Special Branch detectives arrested him and a second man in a car-park outside a Kildare restaurant and found 258 feet of detonating cord packed in two plastic pipes in a van they were driving. The court heard the cord was used as a booster charge in bombs. He was due for release in August 2001.
The latest releases are the first to be sanctioned under the newly enacted Criminal Justice (Release of Prisoners) Act. The cases of the six prisoners were considered by the Release of Prisoners Commission, and the release of all six was recommended on Thursday last week.
The commission is made up of Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform assistant secretary, Mr Michael Mellet, who is the senior official in charge of prison policy; the principal officer in charge of the Probation and Welfare Service, Mr Martin Tansey; and Mr Eamonn Leahy, senior counsel.
Twenty-seven republican prisoners eligible for release under the Belfast Agreement remain in Portlaoise, including the Balcombe Street gang, whose members were repatriated earlier this year.
