Prison sources said Seamus Mullan, (52), from Garvagh, County Derry, ate lunch yesterday after having refused food for two days.

Mullan, who was previously freed under the Belfast agreement, had his early release licence revoked by Northern Secretary Peter Hain.

Earlier this month, he had appeared in court facing charges of allegedly possessing 240,000 illegal cigarettes and defrauding the Social Security Agency and the Housing Executive of stg£19,600.

He was described in court as a "disaffected republican", a term generally used to describe mainstream republicans who have become disillusioned with their leadership.

The northern secretary said he had received police information that Mullan was a member of a "specified organisation".

Former Sinn Fein Assembly member John Kelly said Mullan was a "well respected republican" who had "embarked on the hunger-strike in protest at what he sees as a grave injustice to return him to jail".

Mullan was serving a sentence of life imprisonment for the murder of a policeman when he was released from prison in 1998. In 1980, he went on hunger strike for 55 days in protest at another conviction.