Another IRA guerrilla in Belfast hunger strike

An eighth Irish Republican Army guerrilla in Maze prison went on a hunger strike Monday to demand political status, the Northern Ireland Office said. The prisoner, Laurence McKeown, is serving five life sentences for attempted murder of a policeman and causing four explosions.

Four guerrillas have already starved themselves to death in the campaign, and Roman Catholic nationalist sources said another, Joe McDonnell, is confined to bed in the prison hospital after over 50 days of fasting.