McKevitt sentence threatens jail feud

Real IRA chief Michael McKevitt started a 20-year jail sentence tonight, with prison authorities desperate to keep him apart from feuding ex-comrades.

After a bloody and ruthless 30-year terrorism career – which climaxed with the Omagh bomb atrocity – was brought to a shuddering halt, McKevitt was sent to Portlaoise jail.

He will join around 40 other Real IRA inmates, but a fallout between him and another top terrorist held there, Liam Campbell, has left the organisation bitterly divided.

Prison authorities had demanded the two dissidents, both from Dundalk, Co Louth, who parted over the future direction of the group’s sickening campaign, be kept apart at all costs.

A spokesman said: “We have to maintain the security of the prison and we will separate these men as appropriate.

“It means we are losing some of the prison’s capacity but that’s how it must be.”

McKevitt, 53, who became the first man ever convicted in the Irish Republic of directing terrorism, was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for running the Real IRA.

He was given another six years for membership of the outfit that murdered 20 people in the Omagh massacre five years ago, although this is to run concurrently.