Some of Northern Ireland's most notorious paramilitaries will walk through the turnstiles of the high-security Maze prison near Lisburn, Co Antrim, today, when they are released under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. By Friday, 86 paramilitary prisoners will be freed under the early-release scheme, with only 16 inmates who belong to organisations not on ceasefire or who have not yet served the minimum term of two years remaining in the Maze.
They are expected to be transferred to Maghaberry jail when the Maze closes down by the end of the year.
One of the men released today is Michael Stone (45), the loyalist gunman who gained notoriety when he killed three mourners at an IRA funeral in Milltown Cemetery, west Belfast, in 1988. At his trial in 1989, Stone was found guilty of a total of 35 charges, including six murders and five attempted murders, and sentenced to almost 700 years, to run concurrently. Stone was also convicted of the murders of Mr Paddy Brady (35), a milkman and Sinn Fein member, in 1984; Mr Kevin McPolin (26), a Catholic joiner, in 1985; and Mr Dermot Hackett (37), a delivery driver, in Co Tyrone in 1987. In January 1989, Stone was one of four UDA prisoners who met the then Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, when she visited the Maze to persuade prisoners not to withdraw their support for the peace process. Some months later, while on temporary release, Stone received a hero's welcome at a pro-Belfast Agreement rally in Belfast's Ulster Hall where some members of the crowd unfurled banners reading "Michael Stone says `Yes' ". Last week Stone lost a legal action to be released last Friday rather than having to spend another weekend in the Maze. His official release date was Saturday, but releases do not take place at weekends.
Another prisoner to be released today is Sean Kelly, who was convicted of planting the Shankill Road bomb in 1993, in which nine people died. Unionists campaigned vigorously against his early release. Torrens Knight, who was involved in the Rising Sun bar massacre in Greysteel, Co Derry, in which loyalist gunmen shot dead seven people after shouting "trick or treat" on Halloween night 1993 will also be released today. In total, Knight was convicted of 11 murders. He is now a born-again Christian.
Other paramilitaries to be freed later this week include Bernard McGinn, from Co Armagh, who, in a sniper attack, killed the last British soldier in the course of the Troubles, Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, as well as another IRA sniper, Michael Caraher, and Norman Coopey, an LVF gunman convicted of the murder of a 16-year-old Catholic, Mr James Morgan, in 1997.
There had been speculation that James McArdle, convicted of planting the London Docklands bomb that killed two people in 1996, was to be given early release, but a Northern Ireland Office spokesman said yesterday such speculation was "highly premature".
McArdle was "very unlikely" to be released from the Maze by Friday, he added. A British Conservative MP and member of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, Mr Andrew Hunter, yesterday criticised the early-release scheme for not being linked to decommissioning.
Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, the Ulster Unionist MLA, the DUP Minister, Mr Nigel Dodds, and Mr Ian Paisley, a DUP MLA, also attacked the operation of the early-release scheme while paramilitary groups remained armed.
However, Mr David Ervine, of the Progressive Unionist Party, himself a former inmate at the Maze, said while he understood people's difficulties with the scheme, the releases were for "the greater good" and would help to create a democratic society in Northern Ireland.