A man who helped mastermind a Real IRA bombing campaign in Britain has been freed from jail years early because of a life-threatening leg injury.
Aidan Hulme (35) has been released from Portlaoise prison after doctors feared gangrene had set in when his toes turned black.
He had been using morphine patches and taking 21 tablets a day to help ease the pain. Other prisoners said Hulme's complexion had turned yellow and he may have suffered liver damage due to his high medication dose.
He had injured his leg in a motorbike accident before he was arrested. Hulme, from Co Louth, was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2003 for his part in three bombings in London and Birmingham.
His younger brother Robert was jailed for 22 years for involvement in the same Real IRA attacks. He is still in Portlaoise prison.
The brothers were convicted in the Old Bailey for plotting car bombings in busy British town centres on Saturday nights. The explosions injured several people and caused millions of pounds worth of damage.
The first bomb rocked the BBC Television centre in Shepherd's Bush in March 2001. Twenty pounds of high explosives had been placed in a red taxi that had been bought the day before in north London.
Police were attempting to carry out a controlled explosion when the device went off. A Tube worker was injured by flying glass. Three months later, the same Real IRA team left another car bomb near Ealing Broadway Tube station. Seven people were injured in the blast and extensive damage was caused to a nearby shopping centre.
Three months later, the dissident unit struck again, leaving a car bomb in Birmingham town centre but the device didn't detonate properly. At the Hulme brothers' trial for the bombings, prosecuting QC, Orlando Pownall, told the jury: "It was nothing short of a miracle that no pedestrians or others in clubs and pubs nearby did not suffer fatal injuries."
Neither brother had previous paramilitary convictions. But the court heard how Aidan Hulme was sent several text messages from Ireland on the day after the Ealing bomb. One said: 'Up the Provos!' and was accompanied by an image of fizzling sticks of dynamite.
The brothers were initially held in high-security English jails. They had to go to court to win the right for Hulme to receive surgery on his leg which, at one stage, doctors thought might have to be amputated.
The family were asked to pay £4,000 to the prison authorities to cover the security costs of transporting Hulme to and from hospital. The money was raised with the help of Irish-American supporters.
After a lengthy political campaign, supported by Sinn Féin and the SDLP, the brothers were repatriated to Ireland in 2006.
But supporters claimed that Hulme continued to be denied adequate medical treatment in Portlaoise prison. He was bedridden 24 hours a day and was looked after by his brother Robert who was in the cell next to him.
