Loyalist killer Michael Stone will have to spend an extra two days in jail after losing a legal action yesterday to be freed from the Maze Prison tomorrow.
Stone (45) was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989 for murdering six Catholics, including three shot dead at an IRA funeral in Milltown cemetery.
Had it not been for the early release scheme under the Belfast Agreement, he would have remained in prison until 2007.
In the High Court in Belfast, Mr Justice Coghlin dismissed Stone's application for judicial review of the decision to keep him in prison until Monday.
He held that Stone was not entitled to a legitimate expectation that he should be released tomorrow.
Stone, who was not brought from prison for the hearing, was a beneficiary of the early release scheme as part of the Belfast Agreement.
He was given a release date of July 22nd, this Saturday. However, as releases do not take place at weekends he believed he would be freed tomorrow, as has been the custom in recent years.
Senior prisons official Mr Douglas Bain confirmed that "ordinary" prisoners were freed a day early if their release date fell on a Saturday or Sunday.
However, he said the Act giving effect to the early release scheme clearly stated that weekend releases must take place on the following Monday.
Mr Bain conceded that other early-release prisoners had benefited as a result of the mistake, which was only spotted in the first week of this month.
He rejected any suggestion that Stone had been victimised and pointed out that two republican prisoners had suffered a similar two-day extension to their sentences.
Maze governor Mr Terence Crompton said when he broke the news to Stone he was "rather distraught". He said Stone "did not listen to very much else" when he tried to explain why he could not be released until Monday.
Mr Justice Coghlin described the mistake by the prison authorities as "most regrettable".
He said while he was mindful of the importance of the freedom of the individual he did not consider that Stone had established the legitimate expectation to which he claimed he was entitled.