[caption id="attachment_66483" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Roisin Lynch feels vindicated. "]
Brendan Lillis, a seriously ill republican prisoner in the North of Ireland, has been released from prison.
Lillis, from the Falls Road in Belfast, had spent the past 600 days in bed at Maghaberry Prison's hospital wing suffering from the debilitating condition ankylosing spondylitis, a chronic, inflammatory arthritis that mainly affects joints in the spine and can cause eventual fusion of the spine.
Last week, Lillis was moved to Belfast's City Hospital after a doctor in the County Antrim prison recommended he be assessed in an outside medical center. He has since been released from prison custody.
The 59-year-old was jailed for possessing explosives in the 1970s. He served 17 years and was released in the mid-1990s on license which was revoked in late 2009 when he faced new charges.
Earlier this year, it was decided that Lillis was too ill to stand trial. His family and friends had been fighting for his release and even took part in a three-day hunger strike to show their opposition to the North's justice minister David Ford's refusal to release the ill man who now weighs just 70 pounds.
Mr. Lillis' partner, Roisin Lynch, said the latest development proves she was right in her campaign.
"I have told the truth all along about Brendan's medical condition and the paperwork backs up what I have said. You have to show compassion on some level," Lynch said.
"I would be just as compassionate if it was someone from the other side of the fence that was in the same situation.
Being able to see my partner without having guards sit there, being able to visit without people watching me, to kiss him without being watched on camera, I feel vindicated, absolutely vindicated," she said.
The justice minister stressed that should Mr. Lillis' condition improve he could be returned to custody, and may even face trial.
