POW's escape bid

NEWS of a republican prisoner's bid for freedom from Belfast's City Hospital on 15 November emerged this week following another `security' leak to Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party.

Accusing the Northern Ireland Office of a ``cover-up'' the DUP's Nigel Dodds said that he has written to British Security Minister John Wheeler criticising him for not publishing details of the escape attempt. Significantly the DUP ``acquired'' details of Bennett's attempted escape before his own family knew.

Twenty-nine-year-old Bennett, from Lenadoon in West Belfast is serving a 24 year sentence after being shot in the leg and captured during an RUC covert operation.

Reports claimed that Bennett was captured after climbing out a window of the City Hospital. After his recapture Bennett was taken to Musgrave Street RUC Barracks and questioned before taken into Crumlin Road Jail for several days. Worried that Bennett was being deliberately isolated, republican prisoners in Long Kesh demanded his transfer back to the H-Blocks which after a slight delay was carried out.

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