The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the trial of Maze prison escaper Brendan "Bik" Mc Farlane on charges connected with the 1983 kidnap of supermarket boss Don Tidey .
The court upheld an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecution against an earlier High Court order preventing McFarlane's trial from going ahead before the non-jury Special Criminal Court.
The Supreme Court was told that the case against Mc Farlane consists of fingerprint evidence and certain alleged admissions made by him to gardaí after his arrest.
Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said that there was no doubt that the items on which the fingerprints were discovered had been lost "due to some want of care by someone in An Garda Síochána."
"The court wishes to emphasise that this want of care is a very grave matter and requires the urgent attention of the Garda authorities," he said.
However, the judge said, the fingerprints had been photographed and the photos of the impressions were still available.
He said there was also a forensic examination of the missing items prior to their disappearance and the results of the forensic analysis had been preserved.
Mr McFarlane (52), of Jamaica St in Belfast was charged in January 1998 with falsely imprisoning Mr Don Tidey in 1983 and with possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life at Derrada Wood, Ballinamore, Co Leitrim in November and December 1983.
McFarlane had been in prison at the Maze since 1975 for his part in the IRA bombing of a bar on the Shankill Road in which five people were killed.
He was the leader of the Provisional IRA prisoners at the Maze prison and escaped in the mass break out by 38 prisoners from the jail in September, 1983.
He was later arrested in Amsterdam in January, 1986, extradited to Northern Ireland and released on parole from the Maze in 1997. He was arrested by gardai outside Dundalk in January, 1998.
Supermarket executive Don Tidey was kidnapped by an IRA gang in 1983 and rescued after 23 days in captivity. A trainee garda, Gary Sheehan, and a member of the Defence Forces, Private Patrick Kelly, were killed in a shoot out with the kidnap gang when Mr Tidey was rescued.
Mc Farlane has been remanded on bail since his arrest in 1998 pending the outcome of various legal challenges to his trial.