
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994                   TAG: 9404220179
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND                                 LENGTH: Short

KENNEDY IN-LAW'S IRA CONVICTION OVERTURNED

Paul Hill, the Kennedy in-law who spent 15 years behind bars in one of Britain's worst miscarriages of justice, had the last conviction on his record overturned Thursday.

Northern Ireland's senior judge, Sir Brian Hutton, and two others ruled that Hill had been wrongfully convicted in 1975 of helping kill Brian Shaw, a former British soldier, in Belfast. Hill, 39, confessed to the murder while facing interrogation for IRA pub bombings in England in 1974 in which seven people died. He maintained that physical and psychological abuse led him to sign false confessions.

He and three co-defendants in the bombing cases spent 15 years in prison in Britain before being freed by London's Court of Appeal in 1989. That case was the basis for the movie ``In the Name of the Father.''

The bombing case was one of a series of appeals victories for people convicted of Irish Republican Army attacks in the 1970s and led to the appointment of a government commission to review Britain's justice system.

by CNB