DUBLIN District Court ordered the extradition of a Maze prison escaper to Northern Ireland yesterday.
The court ordered that Dermot McNally should be handed over to the RUC on foot of 14 warrants seeking his return to serve a 20-year sentence for explosives and other offences.
McNally (39), a father of two, is originally from Lurgan, Co Armagh. He was arrested by gardai at his home at Willow Park, Magheraboy, Co Sligo, on April 24th.
He was one of 38 IRA prisoners who escaped from the Maze prison in September, 1983 in the biggest mass break-out in UK prison history.
The 14 extradition warrants relate to the making of bombs, possession of bombs and bomb-making equipment, causing explosions, possession of firearms, and wounding with intent to commit grievous bodily harm.
McNally was sentenced to life imprisonment and 20 years imprisonment in Northern Ireland in February, 1977.
Yesterday Judge Thelma King, sitting at Green Street, said she was satisfied that McNally was the person named in the extradition warrants, that the warrants were valid and that the offences specified in the warrants corresponded to offences in the State.
She remanded McNally in custody to Mountjoy jail and told him he had 15 days to lodge an appeal against the extradition order.
McNally's counsel, Mr Stephen McCann, said his client would be "raising substantial defences" in the High Court against the order.
Earlier the court heard evidence from former RUC Det Const Terence Walkingshaw and RUC Det Sgt George Lawther, identifying McNally as the man they had dealt with in Northern Ireland in relation to various offences.
Mr Alan McMullen, a governor at the Maze prison in 1983, also identified McNally as one of the 38 escaped prisoners.
McNally was living openly in Sligo in recent years following the 1990 Supreme Court ruling which prevented the extradition of two Maze escapers - Dermot Finucane and James Pius Clarke - on the grounds that their offences were political.
Nineteen of the 38 prisoners who escaped from the Maze were recaptured within hours of the escape. Three others were killed in SAS ambushes, while more were eventually detained in the Republic, Britain, Europe and the United States.
Three are still at large.