Pol Brennan Deported Back To To Ireland

Maze prison escaper Pol Brennan has been deported from the United States and has arrived back in Ireland, US immigration officials have confirmed.

The Belfast man was arrested at a border checkpoint in Texas in 2008 because his US work permit had expired.

He escaped from the Maze in 1983, along with 37 other republican prisoners. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said he had been taken from a Texas detention center and transported to Shannon Airport in Limerick.

Mr Brennan said he had been shackled during the six-hour flight and was met by members of his family at Shannon.

He said he would stay in the Republic for quite a while before deciding if he would travel to the North.

Unionist politicians have said Mr Brennan should be returned to jail.

He had appealed to the head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, to overturn the decision, but his lawyer said this had failed.

Last November, a federal immigration judge ruled he should be deported from the US.

The biggest jail break in the British history took place from the high security Maze prison on 25 September 1983 when 38 republican prisoners escaped.

Ten of the prisoners were recaptured in the first few hours, but the remainder went on the run with some emerging in north America.

Pol Brennan, Kevin Artt, James Smyth and Terrence Kirby were arrested in the United States between 1992 and 1994 and fought lengthy legal battles against extradition.

Smyth was extradited back to the North in 1996 and returned to prison, before being released in 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement.

In 2000, the British government announced that the extradition requests for Brennan, Artt and Kirby were being withdrawn as part of the Good Friday Agreement. The men officially remain fugitives, but in 2003 the Prison Service said they were not being "actively pursued".