FORMER Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid supported a selective and reversible government amnesty scheme for alleged paramilitaries but excluding members of the security forces, a newly-published document revealed.
His May 2001 letter to Tony Blair said distinguishing between deserving and undeserving terrorism suspects would be difficult since all were innocent in the eyes of the law.
He also envisaged special legislation to override resistance to an amnesty law in the House of Lords.
The Labour government had already accepted publicly that discontinuing prosecutions for offences committed before the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement by supporters of organisations on ceasefire would be a "natural development", the note said.
Mr Reid, who is now Lord Reid of Cardowan, wrote: "In principle I am attracted to a selective and reversible scheme which does not involve the creation of some kind of Immunities Commission.
"Sinn Fein will never accept a procedure which involved applicants having to admit their guilt to a commission.
"An applications process without admissions of responsibility would be widely criticised by victims' groups as a charade."
The agreement meant anyone convicted of paramilitary crimes was eligible for early release.
But itReid did not cover those suspected of such crimes, nor did it include people who had been charged or convicted but who had escaped from prison.
In February, it emerged during the trial of John Downey, who was accused of murdering four soldiers in the Hyde Park bombing in 1982, that around 200 Irish republicans who were On the Run (OTR) had received letters stating that they were not wanted by police for paramilitary crimes committed before the Good Friday Agreement.
The Government has insisted that the scheme did not constitute an amnesty because it did not rule out future prosecution should new information emerge.
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