Two IRA leaders were released from prison in Northern Ireland yesterday to attend a meeting with the Sentences Review Commission to discuss early releases for paramilitary prisoners. Sinn Fein described the meeting as "very useful".
A spokeswoman for the Northern Ireland Prison Service said: "To facilitate the commissioners, ministers have decided to give special leave so that the meeting can take place outside prison."
But the decision to grant temporary release to Padraic Wilson and Geraldine Ferrity was deplored by unionists last night. The deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Mr Peter Robinson, said the decision was "outrageous" following the early release of the IRA prisoner, Mr Thomas McMahon, convicted of killing Lord Mountbatten and three others.
"It seems that government will stop at nothing to appease the terrorists, whilst at the same time our province is being bombed and people are being murdered and beaten on the streets," he said.
Wilson and Ferrity, leaders of IRA prisoners in the Maze and Maghaberry prisons, were granted temporary release yesterday to attend a meeting between senior Sinn Fein figures, including Mr Gerry Kelly, and members of the Sentence Review Commission in Belfast. Under the terms of the 10-hour special leave, the IRA leaders were not allowed to speak to the media after the meeting, but Mr Kelly described it as "very useful". He said the meeting, requested by Sinn Fein, allowed republican prisoners to put their views on early releases to the commission "first-hand". Mr Kelly said prisoner releases should begin quickly.
He said his party is aware of concerns expressed by some victims' families. "We are sensitive to victims, we are a community who have many victims, and there are many victims in jail as well. We have always approached the issue from the point of view that there needs to be a view of the victims throughout," he said.
The meeting was the third held between the Sentences Review Commission and political parties in Northern Ireland. Earlier the commission met members of the Alliance Party and the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition.
The meeting has further angered unionists who deplored the decision to grant early release to Mr McMahon from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin on Thursday night. Mr McMahon, who says he has severed links with the IRA, was freed just days after the Government released six IRA men from Portlaoise Prison.
Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, of the Ulster Unionist Party, expressed concern about the "premature" speed at which the Irish and British governments were approaching the issue of terrorist releases, and said their actions were being viewed as another concession to the IRA.
He said: "Even Sinn Fein admit the IRA war is not over, yet both governments are approaching the release of terrorist prisoners. Many will view this as another concession to the IRA."
However, in contrast to unionist reaction, the father of one of Mr McMahon's victims, Mr John Maxwell, said peace took precedence. In a statement from France, where he is on holiday, Mr Maxwell said: "Peace is the imperative now and we must look forward so that perhaps Paul's death and those of thousands of others from both sides of the political divide here will not have been entirely in vain."
But Mr Maxwell stressed that he hoped Mr McMahon had pondered on what he had done to Paul, "a boy of 15 years who was entirely innocent of any involvement in the Northern Ireland situation". Mr McMahon's act of killing Mr Maxwell's son had to be seen in its social and historical context, but that in no way could excuse it, the statement said.
"Human beings have a great ability to rationalise their actions, but I feel that the enormity of some of the acts carried out by both sides in the conflict here are such that at some point in their lives the perpetrators are bound to see, or perhaps only glimpse, the full horrific nature of their actions," Mr Maxwell said.
He added: "If this is so then to have to live with such knowledge, even at a relatively subconscious level, is arguably worse than being incarcerated."
The Ulster Unionist security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, said that while the "release of murderers for political reasons is unpalatable for many", the need was to try to find some kind of way forward.
However, Mrs Sandra Peacock, whose husband, Jim, was murdered by the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1993, revealed yesterday that she would be leaving Northern Ireland in disgust at the decision to release paramilitary prisoners.
"Myra Hindley's still in jail after 30 years in Great Britain. If she tried to get out of jail there would be a public outcry that you would never hear the end of. I would not live in a country with terrorists in government. I don't think the British people would like terrorists in their government, so why should I be asked to put up with it?" Mrs Peacock said.