World Notes

They had spent a quarter to a third of their lives behind bars, convicted on faulty evidence, but finally last week the Birmingham Six were free. Sentenced 15 years ago to life in prison for 21 deaths caused by two 1974 Birmingham pub bombings carried out in the name of the Irish Republican Army, the six Irishmen won their liberty after Britain's Court of Appeal at last concurred with their contention that the case against them was a sham.

Last month prosecutors were forced to discard most of their evidence against the six, now 42 to 60. Tests that purported to show nitroglycerin traces on the hands of two of the men were proved to be unreliable. And confessions by four defendants, which they said had been coerced, were put into question when it was learned that police had doctored their notes of interviews with the accused.

The Birmingham affair is the third major terrorism case in 1 1/2 years in which evidence compiled by authorities has been found wanting. Now the system that locked the six men up is itself on trial. "It must never happen again," Home Secretary Kenneth Baker declared as he announced the formation of a Royal Commission to examine the country's criminal-justice system, in particular the appeals process, which had earlier failed the Birmingham Six.