Cardinals step up fight to clear Belfast man in bomb case

from David Browne in Belfast
CARDINAL TOMAS 0 Fiaich, the Archbishop of Armagh, had drafted his letter to the Home Secretary concerning the Conlon case before Giuseppe Conlon died.
This is clear from a letter the Cardinal sent to Mrs Sarah Conlon, the man's widow. In this letter Cardinal 0 Flinch suggests strongly that he believes there may have been a miscarriage of justice and that he has put this to Mr William Whitelaw, the home Secretary.
Giuseppe Conlon died in Hammersmith Hospital in January after serving nearly half a I 2-year prison sentence on charges of possessing explosives. He and his family have consistently maintained he was innocent.
In the letter to Mrs Conlon, Cardinal 0 Fiaich says, "In fact I drafted a long letter to Mr Whitelaw concerning your husband's case during a fleeting visit to Armagh on Tuesday January 22, but the letter was not sent out because of your husband's death on the following day. "Since my return to Armagh I have written to Mr Whitelaw requesting that the case be reopened so that your husband's innocence may be established posthumously. I have also requested that the cases of your son and brother and the other prisoners who were sentenced at the same time should now be reexamined to see if a grave miscarriage of justice has not taken place." Last year Cardinal Hume intervened to try to get the Home Secretary to release Mr Conlon on humanitarian grounds because of chronic illness. Mr Conlon suffered from TB for many years and eventually died of bronchial complications. And Belfast lawyer, Mr Ted Jones was told in letter from the Home Office at about the same time, that it was decided "in accordance with the policy which has been pursued by successive Home Secretaries that remission would not he justified in Mr ConIon's case."
The letter goes on, "I can assure you that his case is being kept under continuous review and should his condition deteriorate in any significant way, the Home Secretary would give immediate consideration to the question of his early release." Last week a spokesman for the Home Office told me that Mr Whitelaw had indeed agreed to his release on the grounds of ill health. the very day before Mr Conlon died. He therefore died a free man, in hospital and not in prison, the spokesman said.
However. Mrs Conlon, speaking at her home in the Lower Falls area of Belfast, said she had, not been notified of this "release".
A number of attempts to get the ease referred to the Court oi Appeal were turned down on the grounds that no fresh and significant evidence, had been put forward to the Home Secretary.
But the family's lawyers, and a number of lawyers concerned with the cases of IRA bombing in Guildford and Woolwich, are now gravely concerned about doubts that the original evidence was reliable in the first place.
Giuseppe Conlon and others were convicted mainly on the forensic evidence of a test for the presence of nitroglycerine on their hands. The Conlon family point out that the test was run only once and no check was done because the quantity of alleged explosive was too small.
They point out also that the scientist who devised the test has since found other chemi als, including a substance found in certain brands of cigarettes, can also give a positive result.