The former leader of the republican prisoners during the H-block hunger strikes, Mr Brendan McFarlane, was arrested in Dundalk, Co Louth, yesterday for questioning about firearms offences in 1983 connected with the kidnapping of the businessman, Mr Don Tidey.
Mr McFarlane (47) was detained by gardai on the main Dundalk-Newry road, as he was travelling back to Belfast.
A member of the Garda Special Branch made the arrest under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, under which Mr McFarlane can be held for up to 48 hours.
The Garda Press Office said a man was being questioned about firearms offences in 1983. Garda sources said the offences related to the Tidey kidnapping.
Mr Tidey was kidnapped outside his home in south Dublin in November 1983. Twenty-three days later he was freed in a joint Army-Garda operation in woodland at Ballinamore, Co Leitrim.
During the rescue Trainee Garda Gary Sheehan (23), from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, and Private Patrick Kelly (35), from Moate, Co Westmeath, were shot dead.
Mr McFarlane, originally from the Ardoyne area of Belfast, was released on parole from the Maze Prison within the last year. He had been jailed for life in 1976 for his part in a gun and bomb attack on the Bayardo Bar in Belfast's Shankill Road, in which five people died. Along with two other Ardoyne men he was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years and a twoyear concurrent sentence for IRA membership.
Mr McFarlane came to prominence during the 1981 hunger strikes, when he succeeded Bobby Sands as leader of the H-Block prisoners appointed by IRA leaders outside the Maze. In September 1983 he was one of 38 prisoners who escaped from the Maze in a mass breakout.
In 1986 Mr McFarlane was arrested along with fellow Maze escapers, Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly and Anthony Kelly, in an Amsterdam suburb. Dutch police uncovered a number of false passports and arms manuals in the apartment. A large quantity of weapons and explosives were found nearby.
Mr McFarlane was extradited from the Netherlands at the end of 1986.
A spokeswoman for Sinn Fein said last night she was "very surprised" by the arrest. "I find it very difficult to understand it."
