Two INLA members have been jailed for nine years after they were caught making pipe-bombs in an apartment in Dublin.
Cormac Fitzpatrick, 23, from Cathedral Walk in Co Monaghan, and Terry McConnell, 28, from Tullymore Gardens, Andersonstown in Belfast, were convicted in December of unlawfully possessing explosive materials.
They were caught in the bathroom of the apartment wearing latex gloves surrounded by timers, wiring, gun powder and pipe bomb casings on The Crescent, Park West Pointe, Clondalkin, in September 2008.
Special Detective Unit also found the men with nails to be taped to the bombs, designed to seriously injure those caught in the explosions.
Fitzpatrick's school principal told the Special Criminal Court today that he came first in Ireland with his Junior Certificate engineering project and second in the country at Leaving Cert level.
Both men tried to claim that they innocently ended up in the bathroom wearing latex gloves and surrounded by bomb-making equipment but the judges rejected their explanations.
