Escaped IRA Terrorists Seized in San Diego, S.F. : Crime: They escaped from Belfast prison in 1983. The fugitive apprehended in San Diego was convicted of murder.

Two Irish Republican Army members who broke out of Belfast’s storied Maze Prison in a 1983 mass escape have been captured, one in San Diego and the other in San Francisco, authorities said Thursday.

Kevin Barry John Artt, 33, who had been fired a few days ago from his job as a salesman at a Pacific Beach Ford dealership, was arrested Wednesday as he climbed off his houseboat at a Mission Bay marina, authorities said. He had been serving a life term for killing a prison warden.

James Joseph Smyth, 38, who was serving a 20-year prison term for attempted murder, was arrested Wednesday in San Francisco. Both men were charged with passport fraud, and U.S. authorities said they intend to prosecute them on that charge before turning to the possibility of extradition proceedings.

If convicted, both terrorists could draw up to five years in a U.S. prison.

Artt, who authorities said had been living until about six weeks ago in a Carlsbad condominium complex and used the name Kevin Thomas Keohane, was held in the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center pending a court hearing Monday in San Diego federal court. Smyth was held in San Francisco pending a hearing there in federal court on Tuesday.

As Keohane, Artt sold cars at Mossy Ford in Pacific Beach until May 24, when he was fired for constantly being late to work, authorities said. Tim Paulus, general manager of the dealership, declined comment.

After leaving the Carlsbad condo complex, Artt moved into a 36-foot wooden houseboat at Seaforth Marina, at Quivira Basin. The manager of the marina, Fred Daugherty, 58, said Thursday that he watched the arrest about 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Artt “came up the dock, looking like he just got out of bed, which I’m sure is what he did,” Daugherty said. “He had on one of those camouflage shirts and khaki pants. I watched him come up the dock. The ruse was that his car had been broken into. That was the ruse (FBI agents) used to get him out. It worked.”

Artt was a quiet tenant, Daugherty said. “He had a definite Irish accent, but he was like anybody else,” he said.

A source who knew Keohane from his work as a car salesman said he was divorced. The marriage produced one child.

“The guy was pretty doggone good at selling cars. He was personable, and he met people pretty well,” the source said. “ . . . This is a pretty big surprise.”

Artt and Smyth were among 38 convicted IRA members who broke out Sept. 25, 1983, of the notorious H-block at the prison 12 miles southwest of Belfast. Authorities suspected the fugitives initially had headed for the Irish border, about an hour away by car.

The chief inspector of prisons once described the break as “the most serious escape in the recent history of the United Kingdom prison services.” Fifteen of the 38 remain at large, authorities said.

Artt had been jailed for life for killing Maze Deputy Warden Albert Miles at his Belfast home in 1977. Smyth was serving a 20-year term for the attempted murder of a prison officer.

The underground IRA is trying to oust British troops from Northern Ireland, which remains a part of Great Britain. Maze is the main prison for hundreds of convicted IRA terrorists.

A few IRA members--including Bobby Sands, who was jailed for a bombing offense--died in the prison during a hunger strike in 1981, at the height of a prisoner strike against British authorities.

Artt and Smyth were traced to California by matching their fingerprint records with driver’s license records, a law enforcement source said.

Artt, according to court records in San Diego, applied in person for a U.S. passport in 1986 in Daly City, a San Francisco suburb. It remained unclear Thursday whether he was living then in the Bay Area, San Diego or elsewhere, authorities said.