MAZE prison escapee Brendan “Bik” McFarlane is to take the Government to the European Court of Human Rights in a bid to halt his trial for the 1983 kidnapping of supermarket boss Don Tidey.

SINN FÉIN'S current electoral strength was in no small measure helped by 10 republican hunger strikers who died in the Maze Prison 25 years ago, party leader Gerry Adams acknowledged yesterday.

The British government was told to hang its head in shame tonight after Irish republicans held a commemoration at the former Maze Prison to 10 IRA and INLA prisoners who died on hunger strike.

The Supreme Court has reserved judgment in an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions against a High Court decision preventing the prosecution of Maze prison escaper Brendan “Bik” McFarlane on charges connected with the 1983 kidnap of supermarket executive Don Tidey.

A FORMER IRA jail chief attacked for claiming the organisation blocked a life-saving deal to end the 1981 hunger strike last night declared: “The truth’s on my side.”

Plans for a dinner and dance to celebrate an IRA mass escape from the Maze Prison 20 years ago were attacked today as “glorifying in acts of terrorism”.