BELFAST, Northern Ireland, July 18 (UPI) -- A convicted Irish terrorist has been detained again after being released as part of the peace process.
Sean Kelly was returned to prison after being allegedly identified as the commanding officer of the Irish Republican Army in the New Lodge district of north Belfast, the Belfast Telegraph newspaper reported this week.
Kelly was arrested again last month and is being held in Northern Ireland's Maghaberry prison, the newspaper said.
British and Northern Irish undercover security forces assisted by MI5, the British domestic security service, spent months monitoring Kelly's movements and they concluded that the 33-year-old Irish republican activist was deeply involved in criminality and extortion rackets, the paper said.
Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, has mounted a number of high-profile protests over Kelly's detention, claiming he played a key role in helping to prevent violence at interface flash points.
However, the Belfast Telegraph said British intelligence had concluded he was again effectively the top figure in IRA activities in the New Lodge area.
Kelly was given nine life sentences for one of Ulster's worst terrorist atrocities, the bombing of a fish shop in the Protestant loyalist Shankill Road area of West Belfast in 1993. He was released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement after serving just six-and-a-half years.
Kelly now faces a sentence review from Northern Ireland's Independent Sentence Review Commission, the paper said. If the judgement is against him, he would revert to the status of a life-sentence prisoner.
Protestant loyalist paramilitary sources told the Belfast Telegraph that Kelly still has a $20,000 price on his head from their forces.
