Two London bombers due for release from jail in Ireland

The London Daily News, June 1987

Two Provisional IRA bombers who are wanted for attacks in London are soon to be released from prison in Dublin, presenting the Irish Government with a tough test of its resolve to fight terrorism. The two men are Patrick ‘Flash’ McVeigh, 35; and Desmond Ellis, 34.

Both are wanted for plotting the 1981 London explosions which killed a bomb disposal man in Oxford Street and left two passers-by dead outside Chelsea barracks. McVeigh is also wanted for a series of mainland explosions in 1978.

Both belong to the Great Britain Brigade, the IRA team which has planned and executed all the mainland IRA bombings since 1980. This week, The London Daily News publicly exposes all the brigade’s members for the first time and shows how most have evaded justice.

McVeigh and Ellis are listed with John Connolly – who we named yesterday as the prime suspect for the Harrods bombing – on Scotland Yard’s roll-call of most-wanted terrorists. The Anti-Terrorist Branch has prepared papers for the two men’s extradition.

But previous attempts to extradite terrorist suspects have foundered in the Irish courts. Whitehall sources complain that Dublin searches for legal loopholes.

McVeigh is now approaching the end of a seven-year sentence after he was caught in 1982 in possession of arms and explosives. Ellis, too, is due to be released from an eight-year sentence after he was arrested in 1981 with explosives.