Irish Republican political activist Marian Price was released from jail on May 30 after more than two years of internment without trial, rish Republican News said.
The decision to release Price was taken by the parole commissioners. Price was jailed in the otherwise all-male Maghaberry Prison in the six counties of Ireland's north still claimed by Britain. She was moved to the hospital wing of Hydebank prison in February last year.
Price was ordered to be jailed in 2011 by then British secretary of state for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson.
Price was originally jailed over bombings in London in 1973, but released after a royal pardon in 1980. Paterson ordered her returned to jail, with no trial, on the basis of secret charges. Price was subjected to solitary confinement for 10 months.
IRN said Price was moved to a Belfast hospital on medical advice in June last June. Price was suffering from physical and psychological ill-health caused by solitary confinement.
Earlier this year, she was refused permission to attend the funeral of her sister, Dolours Price.
IRN said: “A major human rights campaign had worked intensively to secure her release and had won the support of several prominent national and international organisations.”
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said: “This is a much belated but welcome development. Marian was held without due process and has been very ill for most of this time. She posed no threat and her continued detention undermined the justice system and the political process.”
Adams pointed to the case of Martin Corey, who has spent three years in jail without trial or charge on the basis of a similar ruling by the British Northern Ireland Office. “The logic of today’s release is that Martin Corey should also be freed.”
IRN reported Price's family released a statement thanking “all those groups and individuals who worked tirelessly to campaign for Marian’s release”.