John Hanna

Christopher John Hanna (c. 1947 – 27 December 1992), was a prison officer who held a senior position inside the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland. In June 1990 he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Maghaberry for helping the Provisional IRA kill colleague Brian Armour two years previously. He was also accused by former Ulster Defence Association (UDA) leader Andy Tyrie of complicity in UDA South Belfast brigadier John McMichael's death in 1987. McMichael was blown up by a bomb placed underneath his car. According to Tyrie, Hanna gathered information about McMichael when the latter visited loyalist inmates. Hanna in his turn passed on the information to local Belfast actress Rosena Brown, with whom Hanna was infatuated. Brown, dubbed the "IRA Mata Hari", served as an intelligence officer of the IRA. Hanna also passed on information about Armour to Brown, who was named at Hanna's trial. Hanna was part of an IRA plan to stage a massive prison escape using weapons and explosives smuggled in by prison officers. The plan did not come to fruition. Alleged former IRA member Sean O'Callaghan, who became an informer for the Garda Síochána, was a fellow inmate of Hanna whilst both were serving their respective sentences at Maghaberry. He described him as an "extremely dangerous and irrational man". Hanna died of cancer at the age of 45.