The Ulster Defence Association leader, Mr Sam McCrory, was released from the Maze Prison yesterday as part of the early-release scheme agreed in the Belfast Agreement. Under normal arrangements he would not have been due for release until August 2000.
Mr McCrory, from Belfast, who had been serving 16 years for conspiracy to murder, was one of 28 prisoners, 15 of them republicans, to be released yesterday, bringing the total number of prisoners freed early to 133. Up to 200 prisoners are expected to be out by Christmas.
Mr McCrory formed part of a delegation that held crisis talks inside the prison last January when loyalists threatened to withhold their support for the peace process.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, Mr Finlay Spratt, has said that prison officers might reject the British government's redundancy package, which could lead to widespread enforced redundancies.
The government is offering prison officers a month's salary for each year of service, up to a total of two years' pay, but Mr Spratt said he would recommend that officers under the age of 55 reject the deal.
The prisons service wants 1,100 officers to leave their jobs voluntarily - almost half the staff - because of the reduction in the North's prison population due to the early-release scheme. The Maze Prison is due to close in the year 2000 and the prisons service wants to cut 100 jobs over the next five months, with the remaining 1,000 being phased out within two years.
Mr Spratt said prison officers had been informed that if they did not accept the package the compulsory age of retirement would be lowered, followed by enforced redundancies. The package was inadequate, he said, adding that the government would have to review its compensation to prison officers for job losses. Officers over the age of 55 would benefit from the package, as they would get larger lump sums to add to their pensions.
Prison officers are to discuss the package at a meeting on Monday before responding to the prisons service on November 1st.
A service spokesman admitted that "compulsory redundancies cannot be ruled out in the longer term" if the package were not accepted.