Angelo Fusco

Angelo Fusco (born September 2, 1956 ) is a former volunteer in the IRA's Belfast Brigade . After escaping from a Belfast prison in 1981, he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of an SAS officer. After serving a prison sentence in Ireland, he escaped extradition and was finally pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II in December 2000 .

biography

Angelo Fusco is of Italian descent and grew up in West Belfast, where his family ran a takeaway. He joined the IRA's Belfast Brigade and became a member of an Active Service Unit (ASU) called "M60 Gang" due to their use of a US-owned M60 machine gun . The gang allegedly carried out several fire attacks in 1979/80, killing up to eight security guards, including Constable William Magill in an attack on Stewartstown Road in Belfast on April 9, 1980.

Through intelligence work, the M60 gang's weapons hiding place in a building on Antrim Road, Belfast, was discovered that a group of SAS soldiers was supposed to storm it on May 2, 1980. It came to a gun battle in which Captain Herbert Westmacott of the SAS was killed. Angelo Fusco and his accomplices did not surrender until after a siege of about half an hour. Captain Westmacott was a cousin of diplomat Peter Westmacott and was the first and most senior SAS soldier to be killed in the Northern Ireland conflict. He was awarded the Military Cross posthumously.

In June 1981, Fusco and seven other IRA men escaped by gun violence from Belfast's Crumlin Road prison two days before he would have been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Westmacott. His conviction was pronounced in his absence.

Fusco managed to escape to Ireland , where he was arrested by the Irish police in January 1982. For the outbreak in Northern Ireland, he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment under the Cross-Border Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act under Irish law, which he served until January 1992 in Portlaoise Prison near Dublin . After his release, the Dublin District Court ordered his transfer to Northern Ireland, which Fusco was able to prevent temporarily before the Supreme Court after three years of litigation. He now lived in Tralee with his wife and three children . When the Supreme Court ruled his extradition in February 1998, Fusco had already gone into hiding.

In January 2000, he was accidentally arrested at a traffic stop near Tralee. He is said to have stayed undisturbed with his brother in Dublin since he went into hiding and to have visited his family in Tralee several times. His impending extradition was prevented by an appeal supported by the Sinn Féin party. Among the Republicans his impending extradition was considered one of torpedoing the peace process. In November 2000, extradition with reference to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was refrained from and a statement was read out by Northern Ireland Minister Peter Mandelson . In December 2000, Fusco was granted impunity by the royal pardon if he returned to Northern Ireland.

literature

• SAS Combat Handbook by Barry Davies

Web links

• Great escapes of an IRA gunman