Paul Magee (IRA member)

Paul "Dingus" Patrick Magee (born January 30, 1948 in Belfast ) is a Northern Irish former volunteer member of the Provisional IRA .

Career

Paul Magee was first arrested and imprisoned for gun crimes in 1971. He then became a member of the Belfast M60 gang , which got its name from the use of an American M60 machine gun and is said to have killed up to eight security guards in fire attacks in Belfast. On May 2, 1980, Magee and other gang members could be found after a firefight in the Belfast Antrim Road, in which the SAS officer Herbert Westmacott was killed.

In June 1981, Magee 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 imprisonment for the murder of Westmacott. The conviction was pronounced in his absence. He managed to escape to Ireland, where he was arrested 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 1989. He was then to be extradited to Northern Ireland to serve his sentence for the murder of Herbert Westmacott, but was able to escape to England before a hearing in 1991 . This was made possible after Magee was released on bail with the approval of the Supreme Court .

In England he is said to have rejoined an Active Service Unit (ASU) of the IRA. On June 7, 1992, he shot and killed Special Constable Glenn Goodman during a traffic stop at Tadcaster and seriously injured another officer before shooting another patrol. After one of the largest manhunters in North Yorkshire history , Magee was arrested on June 11th in Pontefract . In March 1993 he was sentenced to life imprisonment outside the Old Bailey for, among other things, murder and triple attempted murder. On September 9, 1994, he and five other inmates managed to briefly escape from HM Prison Whitemoor.

In May 1998 he was transferred to Ireland, where he was released in December 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement . In March 2000, Magee was arrested again and was supposed to be extradited to Northern Ireland. He appealed and was again released on bail. In November 2000, the Irish government announced that Magee and other IRA men would not be extradited due to the Good Friday Agreement. Even the British Northern Ireland Minister Peter Mandelson had previously described a possible extradition as abnormal. In December 2000 he was pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II and can thus return to Northern Ireland with no punishment.

Web links

• Sinn Fein fury as Irish police arrest IRA man who killed SAS officer, theguardian.com
• Dublin court bails IRA man wanted for murdering SAS officer 20 years ago, theguardian.com
• Mandelson ends moves to extradite IRA killers, telegraph.co.uk