THE British Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, refused last night to state whether IRA prisoners convicted on the basis of Semtex traces would be released, even if an independent inquiry concluded that the forensic evidence presented in their cases was contaminated.
As a number IRA prisoners in British prisons instructed their solicitors to begin an immediate, appeal against their convictions following the admission that crucial equipment at Britain's main forensic laboratory had been contaminated since 1989, Tory backbenchers repeatedly pointed out that, in the relevant IRA cases, other "compelling" evidence had secured their convictions, and thus the prisoners should not be released.
However, after answering an emergency question in the House of Commons, Mr Howard refused to state whether this other "compelling" evidence would affect his decision to refer any of the cases back to the Court of Appeal.
"It would be quite wrong to leap to assumptions about any case until we have clear scientific evidence on which to base proper decisions ... I don't propose to confirm as to whether there was other evidence in the cases which we have so far identified as candidates for further investigation, because I do not wish to engage in any speculation on any of these questions," he said.
Sinn Fein denounced Mr Howard's comments, claiming that he was attempting to predetermine the outcome of any appeal, and demanded the immediate release of all IRA prisoners convicted one the basis of forensic evidence.
"In the light of Mr Howard's comments, and indeed the historic propensity of the British legal and judicial system to engage in whole scale cover up operations, it is imperative that any appeal to emerge as a result of this discovery is closely scrutinised," said Mr Joe Austin, the party's spokes on prison issues.
Mr Michael Fisher, the solicitor for one of the IRA prisoners whose case is expected to be reviewed, said he was confident his client, Nicholas Mullen - jailed for 30 years in June 1990 for conspiring to cause explosives - would be cleared by the inquiry.
Although the Home Office has yet to inform Mr Fisher that his client's case is among those to be reviewed, he believes that the scientific evidence against Mullen was "crucial" to his conviction. "It was a majority verdict - 10-2 - and the jury deliberated for a long time. The scientific evidence was crucial. The jury had been told there were traces of Semtex in Mr Mullen's car."
When several Labour MPs also requested that the case of John Kinsella, who has always protested his innocence, should be reviewed by the independent inquiry, Mr Howard admitted that further new material relating to his conviction for conspiring to cause explosions was currently being studied.
"Mr Kinsella was never owned by the IRA, his involvement has been denied by one of the self confessed bombers and his conviction was based only on his handling of a hold all in which the bombers had concealed the Semtex," said Mr Alan Simpson, the Labour MP for Nottingham.
Mr Howard told the House that the centrifuge equipment at the laboratory had "regrettably" been contaminated by no more that 30 millionths of a gramme of RDX, a substance found in Semtex.
Although forensic scientists had discovered the contamination while cleaning the centrifuge last March, Mr Howard said that he had not been informed of the situation until April 22nd.
"There is a small theoretical possibility that casework samples showing RDX traces may have, been affected, but further investigations are required to determine precisely how the incident occurred and what the implications are for the criminal cases involving RDX," he added.
It has emerged that the centrifuge machine was purchased second hand by the laboratory in 1989 and that scientists had failed to note exactly how often the equipment was cleaned and tested for contamination.
The Shadow Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, accused Mr Howard of a "disastrous combination of arrogance and ineptitude" by failing to act on the 1994 recommendations of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor, for an independent forensic science advisory council to monitor all laboratories and ensure proper contamination checks were regularly performed.
"What we all now know about fundamental flaws in the forensic testing of explosives is bound to weaken public confidence in the criminal justice system. We may end up with the worst of all worlds, innocent people in prison and the guilty walking free," he said.
After demanding that the scope of the independent inquiry should be widened to review the working practices of all forensic science laboratories, Mr Straw predicted that it would now be very difficult to restore public confidence in the British judicial system.