Profiles: Paramilitary killers released

Many infamous paramilitiaries are to walk free

Many of Northern Ireland's most infamous paramilitary killers are being freed from the top security Maze prison on Friday. BBC News Online profiles some of the most notorious to secure early release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement

Michael Stone. The first of the latest wave to be freed under the terms of the 1998 accord, he was released on Monday. He had been sentenced for a total of almost 700 years for six murders.

Michael Stone: Freed on licence

He killed three mourners during a funeral for one of the IRA squad shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in March 1988.

Images of his lone gun and grenade attack on the cortege in Milltown cemetery in west Belfast were beamed all over the world.

The judge recommended he serve a 30-year minimum tariff - Stone eventually served 12 years and four months.

Sean Kelly. He was one of a two-man IRA unit that planted a bomb in a Shankill Road fish shop in 1993.

Ten people were killed in the explosion, including Kelly's IRA colleague, Thomas Begley.

Shankill bomber Sean Kelly with his mother

During his trial, the north Belfast man refused to recognise the court and declined to give evidence in his defence. He received a total of nine life sentences.

The daughter of two of his victims, Michelle Williamson, mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge to his release.

Torrens Knight. He was imprisoned for his role in a loyalist gun-attack on a pub in Greysteel, just outside Londonderry, within days of the Shankill Road bomb.

Seven people died when two gunmen raked the Rising Sun bar with gun-fire.

Ten people were killed in the 1993 Shankill bomb

Customers at first thought it was a Halloween joke as the attackers shouted "trick or treat" before the shooting began.

Originally from Coleraine, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Greysteel murders in 1995.

He was also convicted of the murder of four Catholic workmen in Castlerock seven months earlier.

Michael Carraher. He was a member of the four-man IRA team convicted for the killing of the last British soldier to be murdered in Northern Ireland.

Lance bombardier Stephen Restorick was killed by a single bullet from a high-powered sniper's rifle as he manned an army checkpoint in Bessbrook, County Armagh, in March 1997.

Carraher was jailed for a total of 105 years but has served less than three years.

The Crossmaglen man was shot and wounded when British soldiers opened fire on a car in which he was travelling in 1990. His brother Fergal was killed in the incident.

Bernard McGinn. The 42-year-old from Castleblaney, County Monaghan, was actually convicted of the murder of lance bombardier Restorick.

He was also found guilty of murdering British soldier lance bombardier Paul Garrett in 1993 and former Ulster Defence Regiment soldier Gilbert Johnston in 1978.

McGinn was convicted of making a number of large bombs which caused devastation in Britain in the 1990s.

These included the Baltic Exchange explosion which killed three in 1992 and the Canary Wharf bomb in 1996.

James McArdle. Convicted of conspiracy to murder for planting the Canary Wharf bomb which took the lives of two men.

James McArdle: Left bomb at Canary Wharf

The 1996 explosion brought to an end a 16-month-long ceasefire. Two newsagents were killed in the bombing, which caused damage costing millions of pounds.

McArdle was sentenced to 25 years and would only have eligible for release next March.

He was granted a Royal Prerogative of Mercy ensuring his release on 28 July. He served three years in prison.

Norman Coopey. Was involved in the killing of James Morgan, a 16-year-old Catholic whose body was found near Clough, County Down, in 1997.

The schoolboy was abducted as he tried to hitch a lift near his home at Annesborough, County Down.

His assailants tortured him before beating him to death with a hammer, dousing his body with petrol and setting it alight.

The body was dumped in a pit filled with animal carcases.

The killing was never claimed by any organisation but after Coopey was jailed for life, he moved onto the Loyalist Volunteer Force wings in the Maze prison.

At that time, the group was on ceasefire and the then Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam, ruled that its members would qualify for early release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.