This week PM Tony Blair made a formal apology to the Guilford Four and Macquire Seven.
Quote:
Blair apologises for false IRA convictions
By Kirsten Aiken in London and agencies
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has issued a public apology to 11 people who were victims of one of Britain's most notorious miscarriages of justice.
They are known as the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven - 11 people who were wrongly jailed for up to 15 years for IRA attacks on English pubs in 1974 which left seven people dead.
Appeal courts overturned the convictions of the four in 1989, and the seven in 1991, amid allegations of falsified evidence and confessions obtained under coercion.
The Guildford Four achieved international fame when their wrongful jailing was dramatised in the 1993 film In The Name Of The Father.
In a videotaped statement, Mr Blair delivered the long-awaited apology.
"I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice," he said.
"That's why I'm making this apology today. They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated.
"I recognise the trauma that the conviction caused the Conlan and Maguire families and the stigma which wrongly attaches to them to this day."
One of the victims, Gerry Conlon, was delighted by the apology, even though it came too late for his father Giuseppe, another victim of the injustice, who died in prison 25 years ago.
"We just feel as if we have still been suffering as if we were in prison," he said.
"I am hoping for some sort of closure on this. This has dominated two-thirds of my life.
"This happened when I was 20. I am now coming up to 51. I have had no peace from it.
"This hasn't ended for us. But today is the start of the end."
Mr Blair, who has made a peace agreement in Northern Ireland one of the priorities of his premiership since 1997, campaigned as a young parliamentarian for the release of the Guildford Four.
A deal to seal a final political settlement has stalled after claims the IRA was behind a $A63 million bank robbery in the province in December and its withdrawal of a conditional offer to put its weapons beyond use.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...2/s1299566.htm
It's great that Blair has issued this apology. I also think that this case should serve as a glaring example of how the erosion of human rights and legal safeguards can destroy people's lives. Everybody deserves the right to a fair trial, guilty or not. This Guantanamo Bay situation seems like it could spawn the same problems, except of course in England the terrorists were being held for 5 days without proof requirement, it could be years before we find out more info about the people locked up in there. What do you think?