Durkan said Kelly’s family only learned of Anderson’s “pending release” when the release actually occurred.
“I have now written to the Justice Secretary asking for a meeting with Kelly’s family so they can ask her these questions and get answers, but I want to make it clear that they are not blaming the Minister,” he said.
“Frankly, they found it completely inconvenient that some others used it as a stick to beat up Naomi Long.”
The Foyle MLA said the family “would not be jealous that their son’s killers were released from prison to attend their own father’s funeral”.
But he said the family had questions about how Anderson’s release was approved.
“The family is very interested in knowing what evidence was provided or what evidence was not provided by the prison service for the court to consider irrelevant,” he said.
The SDLP MLA added: “Clearly someone in some prison appears to have made a mistake here, while the courts are blaming the prison, the prison is blaming the courts and the Kelly family are kind of stuck in the middle of this back and forth and it’s not enough. They deserve so much more.”
He said there were questions about the release itself.
“How it was organized, who the civilian escorts were, how they were approved by the court, and also in terms of how they, as victims in this case, were informed.
William McKee, the former governor of Maze Prison, told BBC Radio Ulster’s The Nolan Show: “We have to remember that governors are not legally trained, so they are dependent on the legal advice they are given whenever they make court applications.
“It should be emphasized that the Governor was correct in his initial decision to deny the prisoner temporary release.”
