Gerry Conlon, victim of the Guildford Four miscarriage of justice, has died in Belfast.
The 60-year-old spent 15 years in jail for a crime he did not commit.
His story inspired the movie In The Name of the Father starring Daniel Day Lewis as Conlon.
Conlon was jailed in 1975 for the bombing of two pubs in Guildford on October 5th, 1974 in which seven people were killed and scores injured.
In a report on his death, the Irish Times says that he had moved to London in 1974 and was arrested six weeks after the bombing.
Conlon was jailed along with his father Giuseppe Conlon, seven members of the Maguire Seven along with three of his friends Paul Hill, Paddy Armstrong and Carole Richardson.
The courts in Britain later ruled that their incarceration was one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history.
Conlon and his fellow Guildford Four inmates were released in 1989 and received an apology from the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005.
The Irish Times report on his death quotes from an interview Conlon gave to state broadcaster RTE in March of this year.
He said: “Every day of my torture and imprisonment is indelibly stamped on my brain. At the least drop of a hat, memories come flooding back.”
Conlon also accused the British government of ‘doing nothing’ to help him or the victims of miscarriages of justice – including the Birmingham Six - after they left jail.
He spoke of his guilt and remorse that his father ended up in jail as a result of his wrongful conviction.
Five years ago, he wrote in the Guardian newspaper about his prison ordeal.
Conlon wrote: “Not only did we have to beat the criminal justice system but we also had to survive in prison. Our reality was that nightmare.
“They would urinate in our food, defecate in it, put glass in it. Our cell doors would be left open for us to be beaten and they would come in with batteries in socks to beat us over the head. I saw two people murdered. I saw suicides. I saw somebody set fire to himself in Long Lartin prison.”
Then British PM Blair said in 2005: “I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice.
“That is why I am making this apology today - they deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated.”
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