HOME Secretary Michael Howard yesterday said he was acting on a plea from the trial judge when he freed two jailed drug dealers after they had served barely 12 months of their 18-year sentences.

He said it would have been ``inconceivable'' to ignore the call of Judge David Lynch, who jailed John Haase and Paul Bennett in 1995 for their part in a #15m heroin smuggling ring.

The two men were leaders in a major underworld operation nicknamed the ``Turkish connection'' which kept Merseyside awash in heroin for four years.

However, the two turned against the gang, predominately Turks, and gave evidence in the war against drugs. The judge wrote to the Home Secretary requesting reduced jail terms for the men.

The pair spent two years on remand before receiving the sentences but were then released after one year.

Locals were outraged when Haase, 46, and Bennett, 32, were seen in Liverpool last week. Both have left Merseyside for a holiday.

Their release, nearly 15 years early, has angered local drugs education groups and threatened a return to the ``supergrass'' trials of the 1970s.

Mr Howard said he defended his decision to intervene despite his aim to fight drug crime and calls for tougher sentencing.

He said: ``This is not a practice of mine. This was a wholly exceptional case in which I acted at the specific request of the trial judge.

``He said that were it not for the special circumstances that existed in this case, in terms of the lives of the men and safeguarding future operations, he would have passed a sentence of five years instead of the sentence of 18 years which he has passed.

``He wrote to me and told me that and asked me to take the necessary action to, in effect, make the sentence a five-year sentence.

``I was asked to put right what he had not been able to do. Is it seriously suggested that I should have ignored that request?'' he said on BBC Radio's The World This Weekend.

He dismissed critics saying: ``I think we have to look at this in the context of the real world.

``If I had taken any other decision in this case I would have been open to the most serious criticism,'' he added.

Current Home Office guidelines stipulate a maximum sentence of life for such a trafficking offence.

Mr George Howarth, Labour home affairs spokesman and Merseyside MP, said he was astonished at the early releases as drug-related gangland shootings plagued Liverpool.

He said: ``I will be writing tomorrow to Mr Howard seeking an explanation and an assurance that he has taken steps to safeguard the public from these potentially dangerous criminals.''

Eight defendants, including five Turks, were jailed for their part in the ring which was eventually broken after a year-long customs undercover operation.

The court heard how two Turks, Yilmaz Kaya and Suleyman Ergun, travelled from London to meet the Liverpool pair to arrange the transactions.

The men were given plastic bags containing vast amounts of cash. The money was taken back to Turkey to get drugs which eventually arrived in Liverpool and the North-west.

Customs officers seized 87kg of heroin.

Once under arrest, fears of gangland reprisals prompted armed police in bullet-proof jackets to be stationed outside Liverpool Magistrates Court during the committal proceedings.

Judge Lynch said on sentencing: ``It is rare that the courts deal with somebody so high up the ladder as you are and it must be marked by a heavy sentence.''

Ms Gill Titchmarsh, of Parents Against Drug Abuse an organisation set up by a parent whose child died from a heroin overdose - said the news horrified her.

She said: ``Parents who have this problem in their families will be mortified to think that these dealers are back on the streets again.''

Mr Alan Parry, a spokesman for Liverpool drugs education group the Atlantic Project, said the move gave dealers the wrong message.

``The problem is there are so many people involved in this business it just gives an easy way out for people who have made a mistake in the drugs business.''