Blair: Sorry Over IRA Fugitive Letter Blunder

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Tony Blair has said the Northern Ireland peace process would have collapsed if he had not agreed to send "letters of comfort" to IRA terror suspects.

The former prime minister has told the Northern Ireland Select Committee the controversial distribution of the letters to so-called "on the runs", stating they were no longer wanted for past crimes, were not an "amnesty" and were "not secret".

He "defended completely" agreeing to the controversial letters and said an agreement on how to treat those wanted for terrorist crimes during the troubles "was critical to the peace process" and "became fundamental".

Mr Blair told MPs that had he not agreed to send the letters then Sinn Fein would have walked away from the Good Friday Agreement.

He said: "Without having done that we would not have a Northern Ireland peace process."

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Gallery: Hyde Park Bombing: July 1982

A police forensic officer examines the remains of the IRA car which contained the Hyde Park bomb

Images of dead horses and wrecked cars added to the shock for people reeling from the human cost of the atrocity

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Wrecked cars are removed from the scene

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The flag-draped coffin carrying Lt Anthony Daly, the Blues and Royals officer killed in the bombing along with three other soldiers

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A memorial stone marks the location of the 1982 bombing

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The letters from the Police Service of Northern Ireland sparked uproar last year when it resulted in the collapse of the Hyde Park bomb trial at the Old Bailey.

John Downey, who denied murdering four soldiers in the 1982 bombing, had received a letter in error informing him he was no longer being pursued in Northern Ireland or elsewhere.

During his trial, it emerged that 187 people had received similar assurances - the majority of them republicans who had never been charged or who had been convicted but then escaped.

Mr Blair said the Downey letter had been a mistake and should not have been sent "if the scheme had been properly applied".

He accepted responsibility for not putting in place a proper procedure, which led to some fugitives being sent letters in error, and apologised to the people who had been affected.

However, he said he would not apologise for the letters sent to those wanted terrorist suspects who it was concluded by the authorities at the time should have received them.

Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, those convicted of terrorist offences were released from prison early but those who had gone "on the run" were not considered eligible.

In 2006, after an attempt to establish a formal scheme for "on the runs" failed, Mr Blair wrote to Gerry Adams outlining plans to resolve the issue, "expediting the existing administrative procedures".

The scheme had been reported publicly but victims' families said they felt "devastatingly let down" by the collapse of the Downey case - and Northern Ireland's First Minister threatened to resign.

MPs questioned Mr Blair's claim that had he not made the agreement "over on the runs" the peace process would have collapsed saying that Lord Mandelson, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, had told the committee the Good Friday Agreement was not at stake.

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Gallery: IRA Suspect Amnesties: Key Players

Following the Good Friday Agreement and the release of 400 loyalist and republican paramilitary prisoners, the question about what to do with on-the-run IRA suspects, wanted for crimes before April 10, 1998, continued to needle the Tony Blair Government

In 2006, Mr Blair wrote to Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams telling him the Government was working on a solution for dealing with the suspects in question

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Mr Blair said that he agreed with the inquiry carried out by Lady Justice Hallet, which concluded that the letters were not an amnesty and that the scheme was lawful but called Mr Downey's letter a "catastrophic mistake".

And he urged the Government to tread with care in Northern Ireland because the situation was still difficult.

He told the committee: "I am saying to the people in Government now: 'You have inherited a peace process that worked so be careful with it because it's fragile still.'"

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