Top UK court quashes Gerry Adams’ prison break convictions

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Supreme Court has quashed Irish nationalist politician Gerry Adams’ convictions for trying to break out of prison in the 1970s. It is a long-awaited legal victory to the former Sinn Fein leader. The U.K.’s top court said Adams’ two 1975 convictions for trying to escape from the Maze prison in Northern Ireland were invalid because his detention at the time was unlawful. One of the most influential figures of Northern Ireland’s decades of conflict, Adams led the Irish Republican Army-linked party Sinn Fein between 1983 and 2018. He has always denied being a member of the IRA, though former colleagues have identified him as one of its leaders.