The World - News from Jan. 17, 1989

Britain’s Court of Appeal was ordered to review the convictions of four alleged Irish Republican Army guerrillas jailed 14 years ago for bombings of pubs. Home Secretary Douglas Hurd said he is reopening the case after a campaign supported by church leaders, former Cabinet ministers and two senior judges who said new evidence showed the four may be innocent. The four, Carole Richardson, Paddy Armstrong, Paul Hill and Gerard Conlon, are serving life sentences for the murder of five people killed when two pubs were bombed in Guildford near London in 1974. They were found guilty on the strength of confessions to police that they claimed were extracted under duress and that were retracted at their trial.