Morrison in bid to overturn conviction

Former IRA prisoner and Sinn Féin publicity director Danny Morrison will go to the Court of Appeal in a bid to clear his name in relation to a false imprisonment conviction in 1991.

Mr Morrison and Gerard Hodgkins submitted applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which has now referred both convictions to the Court of Appeal. The commission's reasons for referral were not disclosed to either party or their representatives.

In 1991 Mr Morrison and Mr Hodgkins were charged with false imprisonment and conspiracy to murder Sandy Lynch, an IRA man turned informer.

Mr Morrison is best known as former Sinn Féin publicity director who coined the phrase "the armalite and the ballot box".

A court found the two men were involved in the false imprisonment of Mr Lynch in a house in Belfast for two days in January 1990. Mr Morrison was sentenced to eight years but was released from prison during the IRA ceasefire in 1995.

Mr Morrison, born in Belfast in 1953, was involved in IRA activity from a young age. He was interned at Long Kesh in 1972 and after his release became editor of the Sinn Féin newspaper Republican News at the age of 22.

In 1979 he became Sinn Féin publicity director and during the 1981 hunger strikes he was the spokesman for Bobby Sands.

Following his release from prison in 1995 he gave up political activity and became a full-time writer and reviewer.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times