Marian Price is sent back to prison

A 57-year-old Belfast woman convicted of bombing the Old Bailey in London nearly 40 years ago has been sent back to prison in Northern Ireland.

The secretary of state for the North revoked the release from prison of Marian Price on Monday.

Owen Paterson said he made the decision because the threat posed by Price had "significantly increased."

Price, from Stockman's Avenue in Belfast, appeared at Derry Magistrates Court after being arrested at the weekend.

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She was charged with encouraging support for an illegal organization, following a dissident republican rally in Derry on Easter Sunday.

The defendant, whose name was given in court on Monday as Marion McGlinchey, was accused of addressing a meeting encouraging support for a proscribed organization, the IRA.

Ms. Price had been at an Easter Commemoration in Derry's city cemetery, where she held a piece of paper for a masked man who read a speech from it.

Her lawyer said that she had been asked to hold it because it was a windy day and that she had no idea what the speech contained. The judge granted her bail on that charge.

However, price remains in custody after the secretary of state decided to revoke her early release license.

"My priority is the safety of the people of Northern Ireland," the secretary of state said in a statement.

"The government will not hesitate to use all the powers at its disposal under the law to counter the residual terrorist threat."

Price was one of several people jailed for the IRA bombing of the Old Bailey in London in 1973. She and her sister Dolours along with Gerry Kelly, now a Sinn Féin MLA, and Hugh Feeney, immediately went on hunger strike in acampaign to be repatriated to a prison in Northern Ireland.

The hunger strike lasted over 200 days, because the hunger strikers were force-fed by prison authorities. Pricewas released in 1980. she is due to reappear in court again by videolink on the June 9.

 

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