Last November Northern Ireland’s highest court ruled that Stone could apply for early release from prison. It said keeping the notorious paramilitary behind bars until at least 2024 would “constitute an interference with the physical liberty of the prisoner and could only arise under clear authority of the law”, and in its view this could not be implied. In 1988, Stone killed three people in a gun and grenade attack at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast. Stone was freed early from prison in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. He was sent back six years later after attempting to attack Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at Stormont.