A relative of one of Michael Stone's victims has described him as an "evil coward" and said she is struggling to come to terms with his release.
Mrs Alice Murray's son, John, was shot dead in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast, during an IRA funeral in 1988.
She said her family felt devastated by Stone's release. "This is more difficult than I ever anticipated. I don't know how any of us are going to get through it."
Mrs Murray stressed that although her family had fully supported the Belfast Agreement, its prisoner-release programme was "a very bitter pill to swallow" for the families of victims.
"It is the ordinary decent people who are paying the price. But I wholeheartedly endorse the agreement. There have been so many lives that haven't been lost since it was signed."
She described Stone as evil. "He is a coward. He went into a graveyard filled with mourners and killed three people and injured 63. How can anybody make a hero of him? He should disappear somewhere and stay out of the media spotlight."
Another relative of one of Stone's victims expressed misgivings about his release but said he hoped it would consolidate the peace process. Mr Roddy Hackett's brother, Dermot, was shot dead in 1987 in Co Tyrone. "I don't want to be bitter about this thing," he said. "The one thing that would annoy me is if peace didn't come and these people were allowed to walk about."
Stone's release was condemned by the anti-Agreement UUP member, Mr Peter Weir.
"The claim by a loyalist spokesman that the broad mass of unionists would welcome the release of prisoners such as Michael Stone is both wrong and deeply insulting to the unionist people.
"Release of mass murderers such as Michael Stone and Sean Kelly, the Shankill bomber, will be greeted with revulsion by the vast bulk of unionists. This is the ultimate dark corruption of justice rather than a bright new dawn."
The DUP justice spokesman, Mr Ian Paisley jnr, condemned the British government for allowing prisoners "back out into a society that is awash with guns and paramilitarism".
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein Assembly member, Mr Gerry Kelly, himself a former prisoner in the Maze, yesterday made his final visit to Provisional IRA inmates before their release on Friday.
He said he would not mourn the closure of a prison where he had seen friends die and serve long sentences. Accepting that loyalist paramilitaries must also be released, he added: "This is a significant week in the peace process. It is also a good week. The release of political prisoners will be welcomed by all of those who want the peace process to work."