Old-style rural guerrilla

Press, 14 May 1981, Page 6

Old-style rural guerrilla

NZPA-Reuter Belfast Francis Hughes became the most wanted man in Northern Ireland, according to the police, during a spectacular guerrilla campaign against British rule. For four years in the mid--1970s Hughes led an Irish Republican Army unit working from' the mountains in the south-west of the province which attacked police and army patrols. Hughes, aged 25. the second youngest of 10 children from a farming family in County Londonderry, was a rural guerrilla of the I.R.A.’s older style. Unlike many modern

t I.R.A. men who hide and fight in urban areas, he stuck : to the country, often sleeping i under hedges and in ditches ; for weeks at a time. In March. 1978, Hughes was captured after a fierce gun battle with British Special Air Service troopers, during which he killed one soldier, wounded another and was seriously hurt. His father. Patrick, aged 73, told a newspaper recently that his son joined the I.R.A. because he had been detained and beaten bj r British soldiers in the early 19705. “He said I’ll get those boys back in my own way.’ And by God he did,” Mr Hughes said.

Francis Hughes was captured in a manner that assured his place as a hero of the republican movement. He stumbled on an S.A.S. patrol on a misty hillside and opened fire. The soldiers hesitated before shooting back because Hughes and two I.R.A. companions wore camouflage uniforms and resembled military reservists. Badly wounded in the thigh. Hughes escaped but was found hiding in a thicket some hours later. According to the I.R.A. he refused to give any information to security forces during seven days of interrogation 10 months after his capture

his leg wound. Last year Hughes was jailed for life for killing a soldier. He received an additional 69 years on charges that included attempted murder and bombings. After the death of his fellow hunger striker, Bobby Sands, Hughes became the focus of attention among supporters of their fast for political prisoner status. His face has looked down from posters plastered throughout republican areas. Hughes’s mother, Margaret, aged 68, said recently: “I do not begrudge him. I give him for the purpose which he serves.”