26/08/2008

Republican Ex-Prisoners To Seek Compensation

Following on from a high profile former IRA prisoner Danny Morrison successfully challenging his conviction of falsely imprisoning an IRA informer in 1990, hundreds of former republican prisoners are now set to attempt to have previous convictions overturned and claim compensation.

Mr Morrison set a precedent earlier this year when he claimed compensation and now the ex-republican inmates' are to argue that confessions were extracted from them under duress amid alleged mistreatment in Northern Ireland security force holding centres.

The convictions held by over 300 republicans who plan to take the action, mean they are barred from countries such as the USA.

Sinn Fein's Caral Ni Chuilin claimed this week that a lot of prisoners spent time 'inside' only after signing a confession under "extreme circumstances" in police detention centres.

The North Belfast MLA added that loyalists were also affected in a similar way.

"The issue about this is that this affected republicans and loyalists and people from unionist and nationalist working-class areas were in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up spending their lives in jail," she said.

However, the announcement has sparked strong sentiments.

Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister said no one could deny "occasional miscarriages of justice occurred" but the suggestion that hundreds of IRA terrorists, duly convicted, were actually all innocent was "preposterous".

(BMcC)

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