BRITAIN: Patrick Magee, the IRA man convicted of the Brighton bombing 20 years ago, was no better than the murderers of Mr Kenneth Bigley, according to Lord [ Norman] Tebbit, the former British government minister whose wife was crippled by the atrocity.
The peer, who was trade and industry secretary when the IRA blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton 20 years ago, injuring him and crippling his wife, Margaret, questioned whether Prime Minister Tony Blair was right to negotiate with republicans.
As Magee returned yesterday to the resort to meet Jo Berry, daughter of Sir Anthony Berry, who died in the bombing, Lord Tebbit said: "As far as Magee is concerned I would put him in the same category as the people who recently murdered Mr Bigley and those who just two years ago today murdered large numbers of people in Bali - psychopathic killers who would kill again if they had the chance.
"Mr Magee says he would do it again, I believe. He doesn't have any regrets about what he did; he never served an adequate sentence for what he did. "
His wife, he said, had received a life sentence in a wheelchair, a sentence from which she had never received a reprieve.
Ms Berry, whose father was killed in the bombing along with four others, was in Brighton to have a public dialogue with Magee.
Ms Berry and Magee, who was released in 1999 under the Good Friday agreement after serving 13 years for the crime, were to meet at St James's Church in Piccadilly, central London, to discuss publicly the impact of the bomb on their respective lives.
Magee and Ms Berry joined forces to establish Causeway, an organisation which aims to help people address unresolved pain and grief caused by the Northern Ireland conflict.
Those at the invitation-only event described both Magee and Ms Berry as "brave".