Convict in ’93 Bombing Returned to Prison

Britain sent an Irish Republican Army veteran convicted in the deaths of nine Protestants back to prison after ruling that he had resumed IRA activities.

Sean Kelly was sentenced to life for his role in blowing up a fish shop in a Protestant neighborhood in 1993. He was paroled in 2000 but, like others released in Northern Ireland’s peace process, was warned he could be sent back to serve out his sentence if he resumed IRA activity.

Peter Hain, the British secretary for Northern Ireland, said Kelly “has become reinvolved in terrorism” but declined to give details of the evidence. Protestant political leaders accused Kelly of stoking Catholic rioting.