Loyalist murderer Michael Stone who killed three in gun and grenade attack at funeral then stormed Stormont in bid to assassinate Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness 14 years ago is FREED on parole
Loyalist killer Michael Stone who tried to murder Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in Stormont has been released on parole.
The convicted killer was being held in Maghaberry Prison until his release earlier today.
Stone was one of the most notorious terrorists of the Northern Ireland Troubles after he murdered three people in a gun and grenade attack during a funeral at Milltown cemetery in Belfast in 1988.
Michael Stone, pictured, was jailed for this attempt to murder Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in Stormont in November 2006. He had earlier been released under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement having been convicted of murdering six people
Stone, pictured, was released from the Maze prison outside Belfast in July 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. He was handed 16 years in jail in December 2008 for the Stormont attack
He had also been convicted of the murders of milkman Patrick Brady in south Belfast in 1984, carpenter Kevin McPolin in Lisburn in 1985 and bread delivery driver Dermott Hackett who was hit 16 times with a submachine gun in 1987.
Stone was released under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, but was returned to prison in 2006 when he tried to get into the Parliament Buildings in Stormont armed with explosives and an axe.
He was convicted of planning to murder Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, though later claimed it was 'an act of performance art'.
According to the BBC, the Parole Commissioners made a decision to release the killer on Monday.
Stone, a former member of the Ulster Defence Association , killed three people in a gun and grenade attack at Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast following an IRA funeral.
A legal challenge had been launched by his victims' families in a bid to prevent him applying for early release from prison but was dismissed by the Court of Appeal last year.
Following Stone's release, Relatives for Justice issued a statement from the family of Dermot Hackett.
The family said they 'they still live with the heartache caused by the murder of their husband and father, son and brother and not a day goes past without them thinking of him'.
According to the statement: 'Whilst Michael Stone served a prison sentence for the murder many questions remain unanswered, particularly around his relationship with the state.
Stone had tried to reinvent himself as an artist following his release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement
Stone, pictured, murdered three people during an IRA funeral in Milltown Cemetery in March 1988
'Michael Stone most definitely did not act alone, the role of the state and in particular RUC special branch and British Military Intelligence remain to be clarified.'
In November last year, Northern Ireland's highest court ruled that Stone could apply for early release from prison.
It said keeping the notorious paramilitary behind bars until at least 2024 would 'constitute an interference with the physical liberty of the prisoner and could only arise under clear authority of the law', and in its view this could not be implied.
The issue under consideration was whether he would stay in jail until at least 2024, or whether his minimum tariff expired in 2018, including the six years he was freed under licence.
The court concluded that the period that the prisoner spent lawfully on licence ought to be included in the relevant part of his sentence.
Stone had been serving a 30-year jail term.
One of his victims was 20-year-old Thomas McErlean.
His sister, Deborah McGuinness, had taken legal action in a bid to attempt her brother's killer from applying for early release.