Three IRA prisoners were freed last night after a High Court judge rejected a legal challenge by the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, to keep them in jail.
Paul Kavanagh, Thomas Quigley and Gerard McDonnell left the prison shortly after 9.30 p.m., released under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
The Home Secretary mounted a legal challenge to block their release yesterday, but a judge at the Northern Ireland High Court in Belfast ruled in favour of the Sentencing Review Commission, which rules on release dates.
The Home Office said in a statement last night: "We made it clear last night that we were seeking urgent clarification of the law [The Northern Ireland Sentences Act 1998] as it applies to prisoners transferred from England and Wales to Northern Ireland.
"That clarification has now been obtained and we accept the court's decision."
Quigley, Kavanagh and McDonnell were freed from the Maze last night and the ruling means that Brighton bomber Patrick Magee can be released in June.
Sinn Fein representatives, who earlier condemned the Home Secretary for being vindictive and petty, were jubilant.
Outside the court, the party's chief whip, Mr Alex Maskey, said: "The person who should hang his head in shame is Jack Straw."
The ruling was welcomed by the SDLP's security spokesman, Mr Alex Attwood, who claimed it should be "the end of the issue".
"The court has upheld the work and practice of the Sentencing Review Commission and it should now be facilitated to continue with its work," the West Belfast Assemblyman said.
"We must now proceed not just on this issue but all issues to fully implement the Good Friday agreement. As for the intentions of the Home Secretary, he must now accept this judgment and move on." Mr Justice Girvan said the wisdom or fairness of the 1998 Northern Ireland Sentencing Act, which set up the early release scheme, was not a matter for the court.
He found that the Sentence Review Commission's decision was "totally reasoned and carefully formulated".
"Whether one agrees with the final decision or not is irrelevant in this case," he said. "It has not been demonstrated that they misunderstood their function."
The Conservative Party's Northern Ireland spokesman, Mr Andrew Mackay, said the Home Secretary's actions showed the government was in "disarray".
He said: "The Government should have made clear some time ago that terrorist prisoners should not be released while the paramilitaries continued to refuse to give up any of their guns and bombs.
"Jack Straw has had six months' notice of these prisoner release dates. He should have ensured the government sorted out its position on the release of terrorist prisoners some time ago.
"Instead he blundered in at the 11th hour with this clumsy legal action at a delicate stage of negotiations on decommissioning and appointments to the executive ahead of next week's deadline.
"This is a government in disarray, with departments not co-operating with each other - to the cost of people in Northern Ireland."
In court it was argued that the Commissioners had failed to take account of the differing "tariffs" for terrorist offences committed in England, where the four prisoners were convicted, and sentences in Northern Ireland.
The papers also argued that the Commission had erroneously permitted the Belfast Agreement to influence their view of the Act under which early releases are granted.