Northern Ireland: Republican bomb team's fixer freed on extradition technicality

THE LAST republican prisoner held in a British jail was freed yesterday after a court decided that his conviction nine years ago of conspiracy to cause explosions was unlawful.

Nicholas Mullen, 50, was convicted in 1990 of being a key member of an IRA bomb-making factory in south London. He was widely described as one of the terrorists' "top fixers".

But yesterday the Court of Appeal decided that while there was no impropriety in his trial, the way in which he was extradited from Zimbabwe rendered his subsequent conviction unlawful.

Last night the shadowy role played by British MI6 agents in his extradition was under scrutiny, with one MP branding their role "unlawful" in what was effectively the forceful kidnapping of Mr Mullen from his bolt-hole in Zimbabwe,

Lord Justice Rose said the court was allowing the appeal because of the "highly unusual circumstances" of the case. He insisted that there was no criticism of the trial judge or jury, and no challenge to the propriety of the trial's outcome.

At that trial, Mr Mullen was described as a key member of a terrorist cell that was planning a mainland bombing campaign. He was said to have rented a series of properties, including a flat in Clapham, which were to be used to make the bombs.

The trial heard that he was involved in a plot to fire mortar bombs at the Houses of Parliament. Police said that lists of potential mortar targets, in his handwriting, were found.

The court heard that he used tactics similar to those used in the Frederick Forsyth novel The Day of the Jackal, utilising the Public Records Office to find birth certificates of people who had died which he could then use to apply for passports and driving licences.

Mr Mullen was traced in 1988 as a result of documents found by police at the Clapham flat. The day before they raided the flat - where police found detonators, timing devices and 106lb of Semtex - he fled to Zimbabwe with his daughter and girlfriend.

The Secret Intelligence Services were then instrumental in stage-managing his deportation back to Britain.

As one SIS officer put it, Britain wished to avoid "becoming involved in complicated extradition proceedings". They even managed to deny Mr Mullen access to any lawyers following his pick-up in Zimbabwe, thus minimising the risk that he may be deported to somewhere other than the British mainland.

The Court of Appeal yesterday decided that that method had been unlawful. The direction to deport him did not come, as it should, from Zimbabwe's chief immigration officer, but rather from the British or Zimbabwean secret service, said Lord Justice Rose. As a result the subsequent conviction had to be quashed.

He said: "For a conviction to be safe it must be lawful - and if it results from a trial which should never have taken place, it can hardly be regarded as safe. The British authorities initiated and subsequently assisted in and procured the deportation of Mullen by unlawful means in circumstances in which there were specific extradition facilities between this country and Zimbabwe."

Mr Nigel Sweeney, for the Crown, had argued that any abuse of process had to be judged against the reality of the situation.

Apart from Mr Mullen's previous convictions, the basis on which he presented himself to Zimbabwe - as a journalist - was false. Mr Mullen had also behaved illegally in various ways - by using false documentation to hire cars, operating on the black market in order to circumvent financial regulations, and smuggling gem stones back to the UK.

Mr Mullen was born in Cambridge, the son of an RAF electrician from Ireland and an English mother. He was raised in England. In 1990 the court was told that he was recruited by the IRA at the age of 15.

Yesterday he said: "I am glad to be going out of the front door rather than the back door today - I am just sorry it has taken so long."

A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office said yesterday that Mr Mullen was not eligible for release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, as he had been held in a British prison.

The judgment was described last night as "long overdue" by Andrew Hunter, Conservative MP for Basingstoke.

"I have argued for a long time that the British and Zimbabwean authorities acted improperly and unlawfully when they seized Mullen in Harare in February 1989 and forcefully escorted him to England."