British soldier jailed for manufacture and supply of weapons to North Ireland dissidents

LONDON: A British soldier was on Monday sentenced to 18 years in jail for stockpiling and manufacturing large amounts of weapons which he made available to dissident republicans in Northern Ireland.

Ciaran Maxwell, a 31-year-old Royal Marine, had pleaded guilty to preparing terrorist acts, as well as charges of fraud and possessing cannabis with intent to sell it.

He stockpiled munitions in 43 purpose-built hides at eight locations across the province and England, including 14 pipe bombs, two anti-personnel mines, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and other bomb-making equipment.

Four of the pipe bombs were deployed in Northern Ireland, two of them detonating, although without causing injuries.

He was also found with lists of key government, police and military defence locations and personnel, which prosecutors say could have been possible targets.

Maxwell was brought up as a Catholic in the town of Larne, a largely pro-British town in Northern Ireland, where he was the victim of a sectarian attack when he was 16.

He denied joining the Royal Marines in 2010 with the intention of infiltrating them, saying his criminal activities only began later, through friendship with an old acquaintance in the Continuity IRA paramilitary group.

Police believe he operated largely independently of the group, which opposes Britain's control of Northern Ireland, but prosecutors say he knew the devices would end up in their hands.

Passing sentence at the Old Bailey court in London, judge Nigel Sweeney described Maxwell's activities between January 2011 and August 2016 as "sophisticated offending on a substantial scale".

"There was clearly the potential for the deployment of many bombs of varying types and sizes against multiple targets, with the ultimate intent of those planting the devices being to kill," he said.

"There was considerable planning, including attack planning, research, and the acquiring of large amounts of materials including police items for use in disguise.

You were strongly committed to the cause. To state the obvious, a skilled bomb maker is of considerable importance to a terrorist organisation like the Continuity IRA," he said.

Maxwell was caught when members of the public stumbled across some of his weapons caches by chance. They were matched to him by DNA held on the national database from an unrelated assault case.

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