THE British Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, is expected to announce today that there are no grounds to refer 14 IRA cases to the Court of Appeal following an inquiry into possible contamination of forensic evidence.
In a statement to the Commons, Mr Howard will say that the five-month independent inquiry by Prof Brian Caddy casts no doubts upon the convictions of IRA terrorists jailed on the basis of forensic results by a laboratory at Fort Halstead Kent.
Mr Howard ordered the inquiry in May after it emerged that a centrifuge machine used to test evidence against bomb suspects at the government laboratory had been contaminated with Semtex since 1989. This called into question the convictions of 38 people jailed on the basis of forensic evidence during the past seven years.
Sinn Fein immediately advised all republican prisoners in England and Northern Ireland to consider appeals. Although the Home Office refused to identify which cases Prof Caddy re-examined, most were IRA prisoners.
It is believed these cases included that of Sean McNulty (26), jailed for 25 years in 1994 for bombing gas and oil installations in Tyneside; Nicholas Mullen (42), jailed for 30 years in 1990 after being arrested at a "bomb factory"; and Feilim O Hadhmaill (35), arrested as he unloaded 37 lb of Semtex and bomb-making equipment from his car. He was jailed for 25 years in 1994.
The British Home Office has maintained a miscarriage of justice in these cases was unlikely due to corroborating evidence.
"These people were not convicted solely on the basis of these tests. There were other elements, for example, many were found to be in possession of" Semtex," a spokeswoman said.
During his investigation, Prof Caddy, of Strathclyde University, also examined the possibility that the contamination in the centrifuge may have spread to other samples in the laboratory.
Prof Caddy is a highly-respected forensic scientist and was the first to publicly question the alleged Semtex evidence against the Birmingham Six. He testified on their behalf at the Court of Appeal.
He was also the forensic adviser to the Maguire family during Sir John May's inquiry into the convictions of the Guildford Four.