irish independent
Republican identity 'usurped by criminal Provos'

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell last night fired another salvo at Sinn Fein and the IRA and accused the Provisionals of being anti-republican.

He said it was sad that the republican label had been affixed to acts of violence which had nothing to do with civil and political liberty and a lot to do with cruelty, intolerance and prejudice.

It was the latest skirmish in a four-month campaign waged by the minister, the Taoiseach and other ministers on the failure of Sinn Fein to break its links with paramilitarism and criminality.

The Government stepped up its attacks in the wake of the attempted IRA abduction of Bobby Tohill in Belfast and expanded on earlier assertions of continued Provisional involvement in serious crime.

Last night Mr McDowell said his recent remarks concerning the activities of the Provisional movement had been criticised by them as "anti-republican". He added: "I cannot allow that further usurpation of the language of republicanism to go unchallenged.

"Let me say clearly that republicanism does not speak in muffled voice through a balaclava. Republicans don't break drug addicts' legs with baseball bats; finance their political campaigns by organising major crimes; shoot car thieves in the knees and ankles or plant bombs to kill civilians at Enniskillen, Omagh, the La Mon hotel, or Manchester, Birmingham and Canary Wharf."

He added: "No true republican could have looked through binoculars at the children on a boat at Mullaghmore before deliberately blowing them to pieces and no true republican could publicly lie and lie again about his involvement with those matters."

He said no true republican movement would make common cause with the narco-terrorists of the Communist Farc movement in Colombia, or with the repressive Castro regime of Cuba or with the murderous zealots of Eta in Spain.

"All of their actions, methods and values mark out the Provisionals as having stolen and abused the language of republicanism to justify a savage, anti-democratic, crime-ridden and shameful campaign.

"The truth is that the Provisionals are the embodiment of all that is anti-republican. Their ideology, methods and values would have disgusted the founders of our State," Mr McDowell told a Progressive Democrats meeting in Dublin.

The extent of the Provisionals' involvement with crime gangs, particularly in Dublin, was outlined by Mr McDowell in an interview with the Irish Independent earlier this year when he revealed that the IRA was paying criminals to hijack goods in transit and rob valuables from Dublin port which the Provisionals would then dispose of.

A Garda investigation into this had curbed their activities. The Provisionals are also prime suspects for a €1.4m cigaretts hijack on the main Dublin-Belfast road in December.

Tom Brady
Security Editor

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1145237&issue_id=10584

News Letter

www.icnorthernireland.co.uk

Don't Vote For 'Nazi' Sinn Fein - McDowell

Mar 8 2004

IRISH Justice Minister Michael McDowell has likened Sinn Fein to the Nazis.

Mr McDowell warned the people of Ireland not to do as those in Germany had when they voted for the Nazis in the 1930s.

The Minister said people should not vote for those who dealt in politics and violence in June's European and council elections.

"When it comes to the next election, we shouldn't do what the people of Germany did in the 1930s when they elected to office people that liked having it both ways - the brown shirts and the Nazis which were a threat to democracy," he said.

Mr McDowell said the IRA was heavily involved in organised crime in Dublin and its Army Council and Sinn Fein were aware of this.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern sparked controversy last week when he said he had always assumed Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was a member of the IRA.

Mr McDowell stepped into the row by questioning Mr Adams' consistent denials of having played any role in the organisation.

"I don't believe the man and I don't know why he makes these statements," Mr McDowell told a newspaper.

"My family is as committed to the national movement as Gerry Adams' family ever was and have achieved far more for Ireland and the Irish Republic and given more than the Adams family ever has."

Sinn Fein described Mr McDowell's comments as a "desperate and irrational attempt by an ignorant and arrogant individual to keep himself in the headlines.

"Sinn Fein, however, will not be deflected from our political agenda," a party spokesman said.

"We will continue to represent those who want real change in Irish society, not the self-serving and greedy elite represented by Michael McDowell and the Progressive Democrats."

Ulster News Letter
www.icnorthernireland.co.uk
Sinn Fein Makes Me Sick

Feb 23 2004
By Karen Quinn

SINN Fein was described yesterday as the "vomit-making" political ally of the IRA.

The blistering attack from Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell comes as DUP leader Ian Paisley said that he would challenge the Secretary of State to give a ruling on the IRA's "so-called" ceasefire as politicians gather at Stormont for all-party talks.

As Chief Constable Hugh Orde confirmed that the Provisional IRA was behind the abduction of prominent dissident republican Bobby Tohill, Paul Murphy faces demands for Sinn Fein's immediate expulsion from the peace process talks.

Mr Paisley said that Friday night's kidnap operation was a timely reminder of the fact that Sinn Fein/IRA were not fit to serve in the government of Northern Ireland.

Speaking on Irish radio, Mr Mc-Dowell - a long-standing critic of the IRA - said: "This is not a question of using the language of Ian Paisley - this is the language of Michael McDowell. This is the language of every democrat in this society."

He said: "I am strongly of the view that the Provisional movement - and that's Sinn Fein, by the way, we are not just talking about the (IRA's) army council - is trying to have it both ways.

"It is trying to have a private army, a private police force and to pretend it is on a sort of military ceasefire, and having the equivalent of a police state within the state itself.

"That is what is going on, and it is very, very serious. It is not just confined to that incident in Belfast. "You don't have to be Einstein to work out that a very serious crime was in contemplation.

"The seriousness of that incident cannot be over-estimated. And it is not isolated.

"Sinn Fein and the IRA have been effectively running large areas of Northern Ireland on the basis of punishment beatings, as they are called, which are in fact mutilation and torture of young men.

"Breaking people's legs, while at the same time going into Dail Eireann and making speeches about human rights is vomit-making.

"This time a year ago, it was my understanding that they were preparing to stop all paramilitarism.

"The IRA and the Provisional movement - and that includes Sinn Fein, they are two sides of the same coin - are insatiable in making demands about everybody else.

"They are brass-necked, talking constantly in public about human rights but, at the same time, they engage in this stomach-turning hypocrisy that people who they are closely associated with can go and break people's legs when it suits them.

"They are also engaging in major criminal activity here in this state (the Republic).

"Very senior people in the Provisionals are orchestrating serious crime. And those are facts, not fantasies on my part.

"The army council of the IRA has point-blank refused to give up its criminality, its thuggery, its torture and has on occasions authorised operations that bear all the signs of a murder in the making.

"Paramilitarism must end, full stop."

Mr Paisley said: "It is clear the IRA remains a fully armed and active terror machine that has no intention of leaving its violent, murderous and criminal activities behind.

"No words can disguise the fact that Sinn Fein/IRA want to continue with the twin tactics of the ballot box by day and terror tactics by night.

UUP leader David Trimble said the Chief Constable had confirmed something that was fairly obvious. "This abduction underlined the ongoing problem of paramilitarism in society," he said.

"The republican political leadership needs to make it clear as to where it stands and where the republican movement as a whole stands on such activity."

West Belfast SDLP MLA Alex Attwood repeated Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's statement that there could be "no halfway house between violence and democracy".

"The republican movement has travelled far in recent years, but they have clearly not travelled all the way," he said.

"Whether it is exiling, punishment attacks, recruitment, organised criminal activity and all the rest, the republican movement must now travel all the way without any delay. There is no basis for a private army and we all need to see this," he said.

However, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams rounded on critics, saying: "There have been such claims about the IRA before. They have proven to be without foundation.

"But Hugh Orde's speedy allegation follows a pattern going back to the old RUC which was also quick to point the finger at republicans while turning a blind eye to others. "What value the rights of those arrested? What chance that they will receive a fair hearing?

"Our position is clear. Last October I reiterated our commitment to democratic and peaceful politics. That remains my position and the endeavour and the focus of Sinn Fein."

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness said no organisation - including the IRA - should be involved in anything that undermined the Northern Ireland peace process.

And he stressed that the IRA were innocent of last week's kidnapping of Mr Tohill "until such time as it can be proved that they were involved".

k.quinn@newsletter.co.uk

Sunday Times
March 14, 2004

IRA commander seized in Dublin port crime sting
Maeve Sheehan

AN IRA commander, suspected of controlling crime and racketeering in Dublin port, has been arrested in a garda sting operation. The capture of the Belfast-based terrorist was the trigger for Michael McDowell’s recent scathing attacks on Sinn Fein’s links to crime.

The convicted IRA killer was arrested last month after a year-long garda operation, codenamed Raccoon, set up to smash robberies at Dublin port orchestrated by criminals on behalf of the IRA.

He was under surveillance as he arrived at a meeting in a cafe in Swords, north Dublin, four weeks ago. He met with the IRA’s Dublin leader and a criminal believed to have set up the theft of goods delivered to the port.

All three men were arrested and questioned. They were released without charge but a file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

The arrest of the key republican will prove an embarrassment for Sinn Fein, which has rejected the justice minister’s attacks. Last weekend, McDowell claimed Sinn Fein members from Northern Ireland were involved in organising “criminal heists” in Dublin port.

The IRA terrorist is also understood to be a member of Sinn Fein. He was jailed for life for murdering a garda but was released under the Good Friday Agreement. The southern brigade leader he was with is also prominent in republican circles: he is believed to be the IRA Officer Commanding in Dublin since January, when his predecessor was stood down for “freelancing” on robberies.

Garda sources said Operation Raccoon was one of five current investigations into racketeering and fraud involving prominent figures in the republican movement:

The garda national bureau of fraud investigations has launched a huge inquiry into a €3m revenue tax scam, involving a number of senior republicans. One former Sinn Fein candidate was among those arrested in connection with the inquiry.

British and Irish police are co-operating on an investigation into a property company in Britain that is believed be a front for a member of the IRA’s army council. The investigation is being led by police in Manchester and Scotland Yard.

Gardai are still investigating Martin Ferris, the Sinn Fein TD for Kerry North. He was arrested in connection with the abduction of a local drug dealer. The DPP has yet to decide whether he should be prosecuted.

The Criminal Assets Bureau is pursuing Anthony Sloan, a former IRA prison escapee, for €170,000 on unpaid taxes and interest. It claims Sloan owes the money for work as a taxi driver.
The latest arrests have confirmed the suspicions of security forces that the IRA and criminals are co-operating on the lucrative container robberies at Dublin port. They will also fuel the escalating war of words between the government and Sinn Fein.

McDowell’s salvo was the latest in a litany of attacks on Gerry Adams’ party, in advance of the local and European elections. Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, launched the assault last month when he said that he always assumed Gerry Adams was in the IRA, and backed up McDowell’s claims that Sinn Fein was involved in crime.

The IRA’s involvement in punishment beatings, racketeering and crime is likely to dominate the campaign for the local elections on June 11. Fianna Fail sources said Sinn Fein, expected to repeat its success in the general election two years ago, is a threat to the party in certain Dublin constituencies.

Martin Mansergh, Fianna Fail senator and former taoiseach’s adviser, said Ahern’s outspoken stance on Sinn Fein was more to do with restoring government in Northern Ireland. “The situation is different from what it was. Two years ago, we were at an impasse and a great deal of frustration at the impasse.

“There is a feeling that more than enough time was given to making progress. Continuing prime facie evidence of different activities does make it difficult to get government going again.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-1037831,00.html

Irish Independent
9th March
No ceasefire in Minister's war of words

GOVERNMENT ministers have been mowing each other down in recent days in their rush to heap opprobrium on Sinn Fein. But when it comes to a winner in the war of words Justice Minister Michael McDowell wins the rosette.

But as ever with Mr McDowell there is a sense that he does not know when to bow out of an argument.

The anti-Sinn Fein utterances coming from the Government in recent times have been a little confusing in that they are being led by Mr McDowell a PD Minister, and roundly backed up by his Fianna Fail colleagues including Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

We do not know if Mr McDowell asked the permission of Mr Ahern ahead of his latest round of attacks on Sinn Fein but the Taoiseach made it clear yesterday afternoon that he backed him up fully.

"It's clearly not fiction," he told journalists, following Mr McDowell's latest allegations of criminality at Dublin Port or that household names from Sinn Fein were on the Army Council.

On Saturday at the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis Environment Minister Martin Cullen, Communications Minister Dermot Ahern and Defence Minister Michael Smith all had a go at Sinn Fein on subjects ranging from the hijacking of the Irish flag to continuing links with vigilantism.

Despite the apparent orchestration a senior Fianna Fail figure insisted last night that the remarks from Ministers were not orchestrated.

"It was a lot of side swipes rather than deliberate attacks. We attacked all the other parties aswell."

On Sunday the Justice Minister clearly felt he wanted to go further than his recent comments and he compared Sinn Fein and the IRA to Nazis in a newspaper interview.

Not content with that he went on Morning Ireland yesterday morning with further revelations.

There are few politicians in Leinster House outside of the Sinn Fein party that will be upset at the escalation in the bitter verbal conflict.

Sinn Fein have found an able opponent in Mr McDowell but there are concerns in some quarters that Mr McDowell, with his apparent inability to know when to pull back, would go overboard.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny called on him to clarify his latest comments saying it was not enough for the Minister to say that he would stand by his comments until this type of paramilitary activity is ended.

Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness said the Minister should "put up of shut up."

Mr McDowell, who sees himself as a committed Republican, has a long history of attacking Sinn Fein and the IRA. As a PD he is less open to the charge that his comments are electioneering, since both parties rarely, if ever, seek support from the same voters.

The junior coalition partners may have concerns down the line - as Sinn Fein become increasingly mainstream there could be a day when Fianna Fail are presented with a choice between the PDs and Sinn Fein as Government partners.

Fianna Failers have also been pretty consistent in their dislike but just not publicly.

They showed great restraint because of the peace process but now that the gloves have come off they are jumping in with some glee.

The Northern elections at the end of last year showed the kind of success that Sinn Fein is capable of, particularly in capturing the middle class vote.

They are not simply fearful of Fianna Fail seats being taken, but the overall effect of Sinn Fein gaining increasing power through winning seats from a weak opposition.

"They are definitely doing better on the ground down here for Sinn Fein while the main opposition parties have not gone ahead as you would expect when a Government is mid-term," said a senior Fianna Failer.

Privately Sinn Fein say that what Michael McDowell has succeeded in doing is giving them great publicity. But in reality they are hurting.

They are used to dealing with attacks from unionists but this time it is different.

Given the relatively easy time of it they had during the Northern election campaign there is no way of knowing how such tactics will play with those all important new Sinn Fein supporters.

None of this can be viewed in isolation from the current situation with the stalled peace process.

The attacks on Sinn Fein certainly play well with the DUP. Mr Ahern meets with British Premier Tony Blair in Farmleigh on Thursday night.

Mr Blair could certainly do with a "win" on the North given his increasing troubles at home. He has no doubt found some way to communicate this to his good friend Bertie.

The next move should be an interesting one.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=36&si=1141361&issue_id=10554

McDowell attacks IRA and 'vomit-making' Sinn Fein allies

By Fionnán Sheahan and Chris Parkin

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell yesterday launched a blistering attack on the IRA and their "vomit-making" Sinn Féin political allies over the abduction of a Republican dissident in Belfast.

As Sinn Féin rejected police claims the IRA was responsible for the incident, the Minister for Justice made the latest in a series of stinging attacks on the Republican movement.

"I am strongly of the view that the Provisional movement and that's Sinn Féin, by the way, we are not just talking about the [IRA's] Army Council is trying to have it both ways.

"It is trying to have a private army, a private police force and to pretend it is on a sort of military ceasefire, and having the equivalent of police state within the state itself," he said.

Speaking on Today FM about Friday night's kidnapping of prominent dissident Republican Bobby Tohill foiled by the Police Service of Northern Ireland Minister McDowell said the seriousness of the incident cannot be over-estimated and is not isolated.

"Sinn Féin and the IRA have been effectively running large areas of Northern Ireland on the basis of punishment beatings as they are called, which are in fact mutilation and torture of young men," he said.

Describing Sinn Féin and the IRA as two sides of the one coin, Mr McDowell said they are brass-necked and engage in stomach-turning hypocrisy, but paramilitarism had to end full stop.

"Breaking people's legs, while at the same time going into Dáil Éireann and making speeches about human rights is vomit-making," he said.

Yet while six people are now being questioned by police in connection with the abduction, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams attempted to play down the PSNI claims and Martin McGuinness said he doesn't believe the IRA was involved in the abduction.

Hitting out at PSNI chief constable Hugh Orde, Mr Adams said there have been similar claims about the IRA before which were proven without to be foundation.

"But Hugh Orde's speedy allegation follows a pattern going back to the old RUC which was also quick to point the finger at Republicans while turning a blind eye to others," he said.

http://www.u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=41411&pt=n WEDNESDAY 14/01/2004 15:22:55
Minister challnged on Sinn Fein funding

A senior unionist today urged ministers to ''take on'' Sinn Fein which he accused of being funded by profits of illegal terrorist and criminal activity.
By:Press Association

Ulster Unionist David Burnside told the Commons it was ``masquerading`` as a democratic party while actually being financed by the IRA.

Also at question time, Labour backbenchers insisted the link between criminal activity and fundraising for political parties was ``wrong`` and called for ``clarity and transparency`` in the funding process.

The calls come after claims by politicians in the Irish Republic that Sinn Fein was being funded by the criminal activities of the Provisional IRA.

Mr Burnside (Antrim S) said: ``The president of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, and the chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, sit on the army council.

``The army council is funding a British political party operating in the United Kingdom.``

He asked ministers: ``What are you going to do to see that political parties masquerading as democratic parties are brought to account and they are not allowed to be funded by illegal activities - whether terrorist or criminal.

``You know all the activities, you should do something and take on Sinn Fein who are not a democratic party.``

But Northern Ireland Minister Jane Kennedy insisted the Government was not ``complacent`` but that it was a matter for the chief constable of Northern Ireland to investigate any financial association between paramilitaries and Sinn Fein in the first instance.

She told MPs: ``There is no doubt there is a complete range of individuals with paramilitary links that are involved in organised crime, both loyalist and republican and the Government will respond with vigour to any criminal activity perpetrated by armed groups.

``No form of criminal activity will be deemed acceptable or condoned in any way.

``It is still the view of this Government that the links between Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA are very strong - they are two sides of the same coin, inextricably linked.``

Democratic Unionist Jeffrey Donaldson (Lagan Valley), who defected from Ulster Unionists last month, said: ``The vast majority of unionists in Northern Ireland will not want a political party being in the government of Northern Ireland that is continuing to engage in these kinds of criminal and paramilitary activities.``

Labour`s Jackie Lawrence (Preseli Pembrokeshire) said the link between criminal activity and fundraising for political parties was ``in principle wrong``.

``All parties should be working together towards an end for paramilitary and criminal activity, whether republican or whether loyalist,`` she said.

Ms Kennedy replied: ``We are aware that this whole area of work needs to be kept constantly under review - such activity is quite beyond the remit of the Belfast Agreement - there is no place in a democratic society for criminal activity of this order.``

Labour`s Kevin Brennan (Cardiff W) asked: ``Is it the Minister`s policy that the standards of funding of political parties in Northern Ireland should have the same clarity and transparency as in the rest of the UK and if so what can you do to improve the clarity and transparency of funding for all parties in Northern Ireland?``

Ms Kennedy said the Government was reviewing the order of the Political Parties and Referendums Act and Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy would make an announcement ``shortly`` to MPs.

Later at question time, the Prime Minister pledged to do ``whatever we can to break the deadlock``.

He had been asked by Labour`s Iain Luke (Dundee E) whether the prolonged suspension of the Assembly could have a ``serious impact`` on the province`s economy.

Mr Blair told him: ``Whatever the difficulties of the past few years, the fact is that the Northern Ireland economy has seen the most astonishing levels of inward investment, in growth and employment and reduction in unemployment and, of course, reduction in terrorist violence.

``It is still important however that we try to make progress. We will work with all the political parties to do so.

``I Just hope people in Northern Ireland understand that if we compare Northern Ireland today, from the outside, with Northern Ireland 10 years ago it is the scene of the most dramatic improvement.

``There is still a long way to go but we will do whatever we can to break that deadlock and get the peace process back on track again.``

Earlier, at Northern Ireland questions, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble told MPs: ``It was because of the continuing criminal activity of Sinn Fein and its republican allies that the Assembly at Stormont was suspended in October 2002 and that that crisis has not yet been resolved.

``And indeed the resolution of that crisis is the primary problem that we face in Northern Ireland.

``Any review 1/8of the Belfast Agreement3/8, which I quite agree is now long overdue, should focus on that primary issue.``

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy acknowledged that the suspension of the Assembly would be a ``crucial and important part`` of the review discussions.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary David Lidington told Commons: ``We must respect the democratic mandate of all parties that have received popular support in Northern Ireland.``

However, he asked Mr Murphy: ``Would you not agree that parties that expect to participate in the Government of part of this country need to bear in mind, that to have access to a private army, to maintain stocks of weapons and to be linked to punishment beatings and other paramilitary activity falls a long way short of the commitment to `exclusively democratic and peaceful` means which lay at the heart of the Belfast Agreement.``

Mr Murphy said Mr Lidington was right to stress the issues that would be ``crucial`` in the months ahead.



Sinn Fein funded by the IRA

Sinn Fein 'morally unclean' and funded by the IRA says McDowell

JUSTICE MINISTER of the Republic of Ireland Michael McDowell launched a controversial attack on Sinn Féin last night, accusing the IRA of engaging in crime to fund the party's political rise.

In comments likely to have significant implications for the formation of a new Stormont administration, the minister claimed Sinn Féin's political purse was directly funded by IRA criminal activities.

He said Sinn Féin was morally unclean.

He claimed "there is a close connection between Sinn Féin and the IRA and I have no doubt that senior figures in the IRA are engaging in crime to fund the republican movement.

"I don't believe there are strict Chinese walls between Sinn Féin money and IRA money.

"I strongly reject the implicit suggestion that their party is morally clean," he said. When asked if this meant that Sinn Féin's electoral campaigns were funded by money coming from criminal activities by IRA members, he said he believed they were.

Last Word presenter Matt Cooper also asked him if he meant that a growing force in politics was being funded by the proceeds of crime.

"That's exactly the point I'm making. The body politic is at the moment cleansing itself through new laws enacted, through the tribunal process. It ill behoves Sinn Féin to point the finger at anybody when they have close connections to the IRA and organised crime in Ireland," he said.

Mr McDowell alleged that members of the IRA had turned to what he termed "ordinary crime" since their release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

"One of the things I find most difficult to take is the Sinn Féin party talking about corruption in political life and pointing the finger at others, when they have people very much closer to home whom they hope the media and people like me will stay quiet about. I certainly won't."

Irish Independent
9th March
Four on Provo Council are SF members

FOUR of the seven men who comprise the Provisional IRA's ruling army council are senior members of Sinn Fein.

Intelligence briefings for the Irish and British governments indicate that three of the four "dual members" are long-serving members of the army council, while the other has been on the council intermittently.

The remaining members are not in Sinn Fein and they include the current chief of staff of the military wing.

The chief of staff and another hardliner on the council are from south Armagh, while the third is from Belfast and is a keen supporter of the peace policies being implemented by the movement's political leadership.

Senior ministers in the two governments have been aware, since the start of the peace process, of the big overlap in membership at the top of the two strands of the republican movement.

But Justice Minister Michael McDowell yesterday became the first senior Irish politician to publicly declare what he described as "household Sinn Fein names figuring prominently at the head of the military wing".

Security analysts have told the governments that any major policy decision adopted by Sinn Fein must have the imprimatur of the IRA leadership before it can be adopted.

Since a stormy IRA convention in Falcarragh, Co Donegal, in October 1997, supporters of the peace strategy enunciated by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have firm control of the army council and the 12-member army executive, which is also a key body.

The convention led to the IRA's then quartermaster general, Michael McKevitt walking out, along with another executive member after he had been outmanoeuvred by peace supporters.

McKevitt subsequently set up the breakaway renegade faction that became known as the Real IRA. He is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence after becoming the first republican convicted of directing terrorism.

The Taoiseach said yesterday that he did not know who was on the IRA army council and was not sure if the Minister for Justice knew its membership.

However, Mr Ahern backed up Mr McDowell's assertions that the Provisionals had been involved in criminality at Dublin port. The Taoiseach had highlighted this connection in remarks to the Dail last month.

Both Mr Ahern and Mr McDowell have been fully briefed on the results of a special garda investigation focusing on the suspected links between the IRA and "ordinary" crime gangs in planning and executing hijackings of goods in transit and robberies from the port.

The investigation established the crime gangs were "robbing to order" and then paid a fee while the IRA masterminded the operation and disposed of the stolen goods.

The IRA leadership has clamped down on "freelance fundraising" being carried out in the State by some of its units, in particular by leading members of the so-called Dublin brigade.

Following a major investigation which resulted in the officer commanding the Dublin brigade and some of his associates being summoned to south Armagh where one of them was shot in both ankles, the Northern-led leadership carried out a wide ranging reform of its top structure in the Republic.

The Dublin commanding officer was dismissed and the IRA has given more control over fundraising to its headquarters staff in Belfast and appointed six regional commanders in the South, rather than one overall boss.

The profits generated from the hijackings, racketeering and robberies are being used to fund the the day to day running costs of the republican movement.

Tom Brady
Security Editor

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1141494&issue_id=10554

Sunday Independent
TDs pictured with Provos in prison

JIM CUSACK

THE FAMILY of Jerry McCabe has described as "shattering" and "incredibly upsetting" a picture of four Sinn Fein TDs smiling as they pose beside the four IRA men who killed the detective garda as he protected a cash delivery in Limerick in 1996.

The four TDs are pictured standing alongside the four smiling garda killers and four other Provos inside Castlerea Prison on August 16 last. The photograph has been reproduced in the Sinn Fein newspaper, An Phoblacht.

In the picture, Caoimhin O Caolain, Sean Crowe, Aengus O Snodaigh and convicted gun-runner Martin Ferris stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Martin Walsh, the man who actually shot dead Detective Garda McCabe, and notorious IRA gunman Pearse McAuley.

The two others convicted of the manslaughter of Jerry McCabe, Jeremiah Sheehy and Michael O'Neill, are also in the picture along with four other men convicted of IRA offences since the Good Friday Agreement and IRA ceasefire.

The taking of the photograph is in clear breach of prison rules and the director of the Prison Authority, Sean Aylward, has promised an investigation.

He said taking a photograph inside the jail is in clear breach of visiting rules and disciplinary measures will be taken.

Yesterday the family of Det Garda McCabe were shocked when told of the photograph. Det Garda McCabe's sister-in-law, Una Heaton, who was forcibly ejected from a Sinn Fein meeting last week, said her brother's widow, Ann, was shattered by the actions of four members of the Dail to pose alongside her husband's killers. "It is incredibly upsetting," she said.

Una Heaton attempted to get the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, to apologise to the McCabe family when she interrupted a Sinn Fein rally in Limerick last week but was booed and hissed by Sinn Fein supporters before being ejected from the hall. Adams refused to apologise although he said he "deeply regretted" the killing.

Det Garda McCabe was shot dead and his friend, Det Garda Ben O'Sullivan, critically injured when the five-man IRA gang attempted to hold up a cash delivery to the post office in Adare, Co Limerick, on June 7, 1996. Walsh walked up behind the detectives' car and emptied his AK47 into it, killing Jerry McCabe instantly. He was the 13th garda killed during the Troubles - most of them shot dead by the IRA.

Walsh, O'Neill, Sheehy and McAuley were all members of the IRA's Munster "battalion" at the time - a notorious IRA unit which was in the past headed by Martin Ferris, now a Sinn Fein TD for Kerry North.

After killing Jerry McCabe, Walsh and McAuley were hidden in an IRA safehouse in Co Cavan. Martin McGuinness has denied meeting the men in the house after the killing. The four IRA men were charged with murdering the detective but after a witness was threatened by the IRA and withdrew his evidence, they pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. The leaders of the gang, McAuley and Walsh, received 14-year sentences, Sheehy 12 years and O'Neill 11 years.

Sinn Fein has been running a campaign to have the men freed along with the other "political prisoners" released under the Good Friday Agreement. However, the Government insists they are outside the Agreement terms and will not be freed until their release dates between 2006 and 2007.

In statement on its website, Sinn Fein said the visit "afforded the TDs the opportunity to update the prisoners on the current state of the peace process and to give them an insight in to the work being carried out by the TDs in Leinster House".

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1045142&issue_id=9782

Time for the 'Private Army' to Wind Up Jan 13 2004
http://icnorthernireland.icnetwork.co.uk/pointsofview/comment/content_objectid=13810991_method=full_siteid=91603_headline=-Time%2Dfor%2Dthe%2D%2DPrivate%2DArmy%2D%2Dto%2DWind%2DUp-name_page.html


SINN Fein's Martin McGuinness makes an entirely valid point when he notes that 74 of the 108 recently elected MLAs are in favour of the 1998 Agreement.

Were the solution to our problems simply a matter of numbers, then the same man would have to acknowledge that 84 of the same MLAs are in favour of the IRA decommissioning forthwith and going out of business as a private army.

More than that, he would acknowledge that the huge 1998 vote by nationalists on both sides of the border contained not only support for the Agreement but an implicit instruction to the IRA to wind up.

The SDLP bent over backwards to create room for republicans to move honourably from paramilitarism to politics and has been floored for its trouble.

The Ulster Unionists also went to great lengths to accommodate them and are now struggling with the aftermath.

The 74 MLAs to whom Mr McGuinness refers, and whose number he now wields as a bargaining stick, are far from being a cohesive democratic partnership capable of delivering stable and enduring devolution: and the reason for that lies more in Mr McGuinness's sphere of influence than with any other party.

Right from the very first painstaking steps of the Mitchell process 10 years ago, a vital strand of the conflict management approach was that decommissioning should move in parallel with political progress.

Those involved had to bite their lips and accept that this difficult defusing of the entire conflict was not involving a "surrender" in the conventional sense that any one outfit had been "defeated". Win-win, not lose-lose, was the topical catchphrase.

But there is a different kind of surrender involved, and it involves everybody: and that is, a surrender to the democratic will expressed at the ballot box.

Sinn Fein argues repeatedly that the Agreement called on everyone to create the conditions in which the parallel winding-up of paramilitarism would proceed.

Yet, as the minimalist report by General De Chastelain showed at Hillsborough in October, the pace and extent of IRA decommissioning, while large from within its own shadowy perspective, has come nowhere near the level required to sustain confidence in the process - while everyone else had moved to, if not beyond, the edge of their own credibility.

That remains the single most important political reality. No matter what manoeuvring, juggling and finessing may be dreamed up in the Review process, the baleful clinging by republicans to their private army makes a genuine democratic partnership impossible to achieve.

Global Terrorism Isn't Going Away

NORTHERN Ireland may take a measure of grim satisfaction from being touted in international conferences as the "best training ground in the world" for dealing with terrorism.

It is, however, a questionable claim. Suicide bombing reveals both a religious fanaticism and a level of collective alienation unknown here.

Moreover, as our earlier observations indicate, it would be a mistake to regard our situation as resolved, despite the vast improvement in the expectation of daily safety.

The horrifying spectre of 30 to 50 years of struggle with contemporary international terrorism must add determination to make Northern Ireland a real examplar on the one hand: and, on the other, to get to the geopolitical and cultural roots of this insidious global condition.

FG ROW OVER SF

Meanwhile, a dispute has arisen in Fine Gael, the second
largest political party in the 26 Counties, over a possible
coalition with Sinn Fein.

Proposing a possible 'rainbow' coalition involving the
conservative Fine Gael party, left-wing Labour and Sinn Fein,
Michael Ring, a Mayo TD, said this week he would enter into
government in the 26 Counties with Sinn Fein.

In a radio interview, Mr Ring said politicians in the South
could not say to Sinn Fein that it is fit to serve in
government in North but not fit to do so in the South.

"If Sinn Fein continues to work the peace process and
continues to work the democratic system in this country, I see
no reason why they can't be in government."

However, the Waterford TD, John Deasy strongly opposed this
line of thought yesterday. "I am saying never, not for as long
as I am a Fine Gael TD...

"There should be no equivocation in my party about Sinn Fein.
They represent people who are involved in criminal activity.
They are aware of that, and they are not too worried about
it."

Last night, a spokesman for the party leader, Enda Kenny,
said: "Before the last general election, Fine Gael made it
clear that it would not enter into talks with Sinn Fein as
long as it had a military wing. That position has not changed.
However, the matter could be reviewed in the future if there
is a fundamental change in the status of Fine Gael."

Ulster terror gangs link up with mafia

Loyalists and republicans in global counterfeit scams

Tony Thompson, crime correspondent
Sunday June 15, 2003
The Observer

Former paramilitary gangs in Northern Ireland are running a sophisticated, multi-million pound counterfeiting and smuggling operation whose tentacles reach across the globe, The Observer can reveal.
Forsaking politics for profit, loyalist and republican terror gangs have linked up with the likes of the Russian and Italian mafia and the Chinese triads to reap huge rewards from a wide variety of criminal activities.

Up to 100 criminal gangs are operating in Ulster and at least two-thirds are linked to the Provisional IRA, the Ulster Defence Association and other paramilitary organisations.

The province has become a major UK hub for the sale and distribution of counterfeit goods, which is believed to have earned the gangs more than £150m last year.

Law enforcement agencies in Northern Ireland seize more counterfeit goods than all other UK police forces combined, but still believe they stop only 5 per cent of the total market.

According to a report published last week on organised crime in Northern Ireland: 'Pubs, clubs and taxi firms who operate in districts influenced by paramilitary groups are known to facilitate a lucrative trade in counterfeit goods. Door-to-door sales are also undertaken. The most popular goods include clothes, computer games, DVDs, CDs and videos.'

Much of the counterfeit clothing is believed to originate from factories in the Leicester area, while a raid on a fair in Ballycastle last year was tracked back to an operation in Glasgow. A man was stopped at Belfast International Airport last month having flown in from Singapore with £300,000-worth of counterfeit DVDs.

Counterfeit currency printed in Northern Ireland has been discovered all over the world. In addition to copies of sterling - complete with watermarks and foil strips that only experts can tell from the real thing - the gangs are also producing dollars and euros.

Customs officers have uncovered a trade in counterfeit cigarettes - made in factories in the Far East with only a minimal amount of tobacco and harmful fillers. Fake vodka made from watered-down industrial alcohol has also been found.

The sale of illicit fuel, either smuggled across the border or 'laundered' from tax-free agricultural stocks, is another big earner for the gangs. Customs officials estimate two-thirds of filling stations in the province sell some illicit fuel.

Even this trade makes use of counterfeiting skills. One gang made an exact copy of a fuel tanker, taking the company logo, number plate and livery of an existing vehicle. The bogus vehicle, used to smuggle illicit fuel, was only discovered when suspicious Customs officers following it along a motorway called the driver on his mobile and discovered he and the real vehicle were 100 miles away.

The gangs have become involved in prostitution, with hundreds of women being brought in from eastern Europe on the promise of jobs and then being forced to work in the sex industry.

Belfast last week hosted Britain's first conference on organised crime. Launching a 'threat assessement' which outlined the scale of the problem, Security Minister Jane Kennedy said: 'Paramilitary groups are involved in about two-thirds of the crime groups that have been identified. It is completely unacceptable that those who were once seen as defenders of their communities have increasingly turned to organised crime, selfishly maintaining an affluent lifestyle at the expense of those who work hard to earn their living.'

Money which previously went towards the purchase of weapons is now being spent on fancy houses and flashy cars for the gang leaders. This has led to tensions in the community and resulted in turf wars as rival gangs battle for supremacy.

According to Professor Ronald Goldstock, a former head of the New York Organised Crime Task Force and now government adviser on crime in Northern Ireland, the paramilitary gangs are able to take advantage of a pre-existing financial and organisational structure.

'The groups start off with a bad reputation and there's enormous value in that. They are known and feared. In some ways communities have been made to believe they have to rely on them for protection. Witness protection proved effective against the mafia in New York, but doesn't work so well here. Bosses of the gangs often live on the same estates that they prey on, so many victims feel there is no escape.'

Extortion remains the cornerstone of fundraising, with 65 per cent of victims asking the police to take no action.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,977879,00.html

Sinn Fein official raises funds for IRA political arm

By Terry Flynn
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NEWPORT — Ray Hebert, who teaches Irish history at Thomas More College, credited the World Peace Bell with Wednesday's visit by Northern Ireland education minister and Sinn Fein party chief negotiator Martin McGuinness.

“It's the bell,” Mr. Hebert said. “He's here because of the significance of the Peace Bell. He's a real player in the peace movement in Ireland, (so) that his appearance here is really important.”

Martin McGuinness (center), Northern Ireland education minister and Sinn Fein chief negotiator, applauds after ringing the World Peace Bell in Newport on Wednesday evening.
(Steven M. Herppich photo)
| ZOOM |
Mr. McGuinness rang the 66,000-pound World Peace Bell on Wednesday and then attended a $100-a-person dinner at Jack Quinn's Irish Ale House in Covington to raise money for Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army.

“I'm amazed by the size of the bell,” Mr. McGuinness said, “and I am so pleased that so many came here today for this celebration of peace.

“The bell is such a new concept, a new idea to promote peace.”

Tonya Rawe, 23, of Clifton, and Kate Romanello, 22, of Fairfield, said they came to the bell to see Mr. McGuinness because both had studied Irish history at Xavier University and maintained a strong interest in Ireland and its politics.

“I try to keep up with the peace process and everything that goes on in Northern Ireland,” said Ms. Rawe, who visited Ireland three years ago. “This was a great opportunity, to see and meet one of the people primarily responsible for the peace in Northern Ireland now.”

Michael McGuire of Louisville, Kentucky vice president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, said he thought the $100 donation for the dinner “is money well spent. I think everyone in this room feels that way, or they wouldn't be here. This is money that will be spent to promote peace and a united Ireland.”

About 50 people paid to break bread with Mr. McGuinness, who leaves here today to attend similar fund-raising events in New York, Boston and Toronto before he returns to Northern Ireland.

Kentucky Hibernians President Dan Fitzgerald, who also traveled to Northern Kentucky from Louisville, pointed out that “we don't see this kind of visitor. We're here to show our support for someday achieving a united Ireland and a lasting peace.”

Mr. McGuinness, who was welcomed to the Commonwealth by Lt. Gov. Steve Henry and State Rep. Jim Callahan, D-Wilder, who made him a Kentucky Colonel, credited former President Clinton, who visited Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1995, with helping move the peace process ahead in Ireland.

“If we didn't have the input from President Clinton and the support of the people of the United States, we would not have been able to broker the Good Friday peace agreement,” he said.

Mr. McGuire, who also attended the Peace Bell ceremony, said he was impressed “with the patience that comes from (Mr. McGuinness) when he speaks. During the peace negotiations, the British continued to put up hurdles, but he was able to get over them and keep talking peace. He continues to talk peace.”

As education minister of Northern Ireland, Mr. McGuinness has emphasized the need of a solid education for all Irish children, and integration of Catholic and Protestant children in the same schools.

“That's tremendously important in Ireland,” said Mr. Hebert, who said he has visited Northern Ireland several times, including a trip to Londonderry last year. “Integration in education will do more than almost anything else in bring about a lasting peace in Ireland.”

Belfast Telegraph
The night they took mum away

In 1972 Jean McConville, a 37-year-old mother of 10, was abducted from her home in Belfast by the IRA. She was never seen alive again. Three decades later, with the discovery of her probable remains on a beach in the Republic, David McKittrick counts the terrible cost for her family

By David McKittrick
featureseditor@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

27 September 2003
FOR decades the IRA refused to admit that it had killed and buried nine people, mostly in the 1970s, or to say where their bodies could be found. In doing so, it created a special category among Troubles killings, inflicting on families a unique form of protracted pain and unremitting grief.

To most, the 1970s are now history, yet for such families those events remain vivid. Although it was in 1972 that an IRA squad burst into a Falls Road flat and bundled his mother away, Archie McConville can still give a detailed description of what she wore that night. Archie, a burly tattooed west Belfast man, now in his late forties, was able to describe to police her shoes, her sleeveless jumper and the fact that she had a large blue safety pin attached to its right-hand side.

The events of December 1972 are burned in his memory. "I'll never forget it," he says. "There were about 18 of them, four of them women. My mother was in hysterics - you should have seen the state of her when she left, the condition she was in."

Most of the McConville family, three sisters and six sons, have examined the clothing found with skeletal remains on an Irish beach last month and believe that their mother's body has finally been found. The discovery was made by a walker, after earlier police searches had proved fruitless.

Confirmation will take some weeks while DNA testing is carried out, but the family believe that Jean McConville can soon be given a decent burial after all the years in an unmarked grave.

A slight woman less than 5ft tall, Jean knew little ease in her 37 years of life. Born a Protestant, she married a Catholic man and converted to his religion. But they were intimidated out of a Protestant district and moved to Divis Flats, one of Belfast's most violent areas.

The couple had 14 children, four of whom died young. A fifth was brain-damaged and died later. Then her husband died of cancer, leaving Jean deeply depressed. She attempted suicide three times before the IRA killed her.

That was the biggest trauma suffered by her sons and daughters, but it was not the last. A terrible litany of adversities followed as they tried to cope with the loss of their mother and the break-up of the family. At least one, Helen, attempted suicide after suffering serious bouts of depression and violent mood swings.

Others in the family struggle heroically to keep going. Of the impact of the murder, Archie says: "It was a close family, then we were left without a mother and without a father. It would have been a good family, but it was a family split and ruined."

His brother Michael concurs. "It's really ruined the family. It has ruined brothers and sisters - some of them just can't cope at all with the trauma. It was ripping the stomachs out of all of us, it was ripping us apart."

The IRA put it about that Jean McConville was a British Army informer, but the family does not accept that. They trace her abduction back to an incident in which she helped an injured soldier.

Recalling this, Michael says: "Divis Flats was just like a big concrete jungle. That night a gun battle was going on for a long time. You could hear the bullets bouncing off the concrete. I heard somebody crying - it must have been going on for half an hour. I remember my mother saying she was going to help, and we were pleading with her not to. But she says, 'No, there's somebody injured out there,' and she went out. The next day there was writing on the wall - "BRIT LOVERS GET OUT'."

Archie says that when the IRA gang was taking his mother away, he tried to follow. One of them put a gun to his head and ordered him back. "Everybody was hysterical, all crying. We got the younger ones settled and got them to bed. Some of them were just so frightened they wet the bed. They said she'd be back in a couple of hours. A couple of hours turned out to be 31 years."

A few days after the abduction, a young man appeared at the door and handed over Jean's purse, which contained her rings. "Once they brought the purse and the rings back, I knew then, although I was only a child, that they had killed my mother," Michael says.

The IRA had taken Jean McConville away and shot her with a single bullet in the head. The organisation apparently baulked at openly killing a widowed mother of 10 and so buried her on a beach, denying all knowledge of her fate. It went further, with republicans circulating cover stories and rumours.

She was an informer; she had run off with a soldier; she had run off with a loyalist. The IRA first took her life and then took her reputation.

At this point, the nine McConville children who lived in the flat slipped through whatever welfare net existed in the Falls area in those violent times. For weeks they were left without adults - desperate, fearful, hungry.

Michael recalls: "There wasn't much food. My brother and I were caught stealing and that was how the welfare got involved. I think we were got in Woolworths, lifting a packet of chocolate biscuits."

Family members claim the authorities assured them they would be kept together, but then proceeded to split them up. Archie was put in a home on his own. "I let on that I was getting ready for bed and jumped out the window. I just stayed on the streets, and then a good friend let me stay in his flat till I got sorted out. I never ever went back. I had to learn to fend for myself the hard way - I had to grow up and learn quick."

The brothers and sisters were placed in several homes. Michael says: "The physical abuse the Christian Brothers gave you was unbelievable, they just belted out with anything they had in their hands." Another brother, Thomas, has similar memories: "If you didn't do things right you got beatings - and it wasn't wee slaps, it was golf clubs, bats, hurley sticks, everything; even their fists with a bunch of keys in them."

Kept in a variety of homes, many of the children became habitual runaways. Thomas remembers, with a tinge of pride, how he and Michael would abscond. "The home was 16 miles away, but every time we managed to run away and get back to Belfast. I was eight and Mickey was 11. They'd take our shoes off us, but we would still run away - we took somebody else's shoes."

Why run? "Because it got to you. Why are we here? We shouldn't have been there in the first place. We were missing the rest of the family - you felt you should be with them," Thomas says.

Archie remembers: "It just was sheer hell without your brothers and sisters. You were growing up not knowing them. We had been close, but then we never had time to be together as a family. Brothers would go and take their sisters away from homes. We always made a break for it, we tried to keep them. The longest we got was a week together, in our grandmother's one-bedroom bungalow."

Thomas adds: "It was always my granny's we went to; that's where the police and welfare went to get us."

As their grandmother lived in a republican part of west Belfast, the police arrived for the McConvilles with a conspicuous and noisy Army escort. Archie says with a smile: "It took maybe two Army jeeps, two police jeeps. You always heard them before you saw them - and then we were away again, out the back."

Separation meant that they inevitably drifted apart. Michael saw the youngest two no more than five times in 10 years. He says: "I had no hope left. The only comfort would have been my brothers and sisters, and to me the welfare was to blame for wrecking our family."

He vividly remembers a member of staff letting him out of a home and telling him he would be in and out of jail all his life. "And I said, 'I'll never be in jail in my life.' And I never was. I could quite easily have wound up being a thug, because that's what you learnt in the homes. The IRA had ruined my life as a child, but I promised myself it wouldn't ruin my life as an adult."

Today, he has a 20-year marriage and three children, and he owns his own house, although it has not been easy. "At the start of my married life I went through hell. I just couldn't cope at all. A year and a half later my son was born, and I couldn't cope with that either. I was starting to panic, going through panic states."

Some of the McConvilles were less successful. Two are currently behind bars for non-political offences, and others have had great difficulty with relationships. Thomas, for example, has fathered seven children by four women.

Over the years, attempts to find out what happened to their mother were brushed off by the IRA, sometimes with a hint of menace. When Michael asked a senior republican for information, he was told: "You might be safer not knowing."

Archie says: "You were afraid to say anything in case something happened to you or your family. You had to be quiet."

Only after sustained local and international pressure did the IRA finally admit, in 1999, that it had killed Jean McConville and eight other people, known collectively as "the disappeared". Jean was buried, the organisation said, at Templetown beach in Co Louth.

The family gathered at the site as Irish police carried out a large-scale dig, but after 50 days it was called off. A further search was also fruitless.

This was a harrowing experience for the family; instead of the beginning of closure, it turned into further cruelty. According to Archie: "The searches were nerve-racking. When they were called off it just wrecked you. I was gutted, really gutted. It was heartbreaking."

Michael, too, was "unbelievably gutted". He recalls: "I was always hopeful that the next digger-load would have my mother's remains. When they told us the second time that they were going to stop, my heart just hit my feet. I couldn't even think straight for weeks after it."

Some of the family "really just went off the rails" after the unsuccessful digs, but they had an unexpected effect on Michael. "I was lying in bed one night, couldn't get to sleep, and something just came over me about forgiving these people. For 25 years it was tearing me apart. It was ruining my life, hating them. Then I forgave them and that has changed me. I think I'm a far stronger person now, a better person for it."

Archie had similar, though more ambivalent, feelings. "I have to get on with my life now and forgive them, which is very hard. When I say I forgive them, there's times I don't. I think over the last couple of years the family is coming more to each other, they're getting closer now. They were scared to discuss it, but now we can sit down and have a talk about it."

Many of the McConvilles have had large families. Jean would now have 30 grandchildren. "She would have loved seeing them," Thomas says. "She loved children, that's why she had so many of her own."

The bullet that killed Jean McConville inflicted a lifetime of pain on her children. The family's experience illustrates the tragic truth conveyed by another bereaved person, who once said: "The bullet just travels on for years through time."

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/features/story.jsp?story=447334

New theory links IRA to stolen masterpieces
Thursday March 11, 2004
BOSTON (AP) A Charlestown gangster tried to win the release of a jailed member of the Irish Republican Army in exchange for the return of priceless paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 14 years ago, according to a former art dealer and the gangster's probation officer.

New details about the daring heist of 13 pieces from the Gardner were to appear in an episode of ABC's ``Primetime Thursday,'' which interviewed William Youngworth III, a former antiques dealer and ex-convict, and Fred Ford, probation officer for the late underworld figure Joseph P. Murray.

On March 18, 1990, two men disguised as Boston police officers entered the museum in the pre-dawn hours, as the city's St. Patrick's Day celebration wound down. They persuaded the museum's security guards to open the doors to the paintings, and pulled off what remains the largest art heist in history.

Masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer were among the stolen art, which has been valued as high as $300 million. Investigators have futilely pursued hundreds of leads.

Soon after the art was stolen, Murray reportedly told investigators that he had information about a major art theft, but did not specify which one.

A person familiar with the case confirmed the ABC report, telling The Boston Globe on Wednesday that Murray himself did not have access to the stolen paintings. But he ``had an arm on the guy who had the paintings'' and claimed he could secure their return in exchange for the release of an IRA prisoner jailed in England, the source said.

Murray, who was convicted of attempting to smuggle arms to the IRA aboard the Gloucester-based trawler Valhalla in 1984, was shot to death by his wife in September 1992.

His brother, Michael Murray, took up the claim that he could orchestrate the return of the paintings, but never delivered any proof.

Years later, in 1997, Youngworth engaged in intense but fruitless negotiations with the U.S. attorney's office over his claim that he could arrange the paintings' return in exchange for immunity and the $5 million reward money.

``I'm not saying who he reached out to, but Joe Murray had the ability to end this thing where everyone winds up happy, but they wouldn't pick up on him,'' Youngworth told the Globe.

Ford, who declined to be interviewed by the Globe, gave a similar account to ABC, according to Youngworth.

But Patrick Nee, a former associate of fugitive South Boston crime boss James ``Whitey'' Bulger who was convicted with Murray of running guns to the IRA, said he knew of no attempt by Murray to broke the return of the paintings. He also denied there was any IRA involvement in the theft or hiding of the paintings.

``As far as I'm concerned, there's no IRA-Gardner connection,'' Nee said. ``Whatever Youngworth is saying is simply not true. It's a complete fabrication.''

Nee himself is linked to the theft in a soon-to-be-published book by Matthew Hart about the involvement of Irish gangsters in international art theft. The book says Nee's name was given to the FBI in 1999 by retired detective Dick Ellis, who now operates a London firm that recovers lost and stolen artwork.

Nee said he was unaware of the book and called the claim ``foolishness.''

U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said yesterday that the FBI continues to actively investigate the theft.

``I think under the right circumstances we would consider immunity in exchange for the return of the artwork,'' he said. ``There are probably only a handful of people out there who know how the artwork was taken and a handful of people who know where it is. I would encourage those people to contact this office and the FBI to see if we could reach an agreement for the return of the artwork.''

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

http://cbs4boston.com/massachusetts/MA--StolenArt-gn/resources_news_html

Sunday Independent
The victims whose families still wait for closure

BRENDAN Megraw was killed as part of an IRA cover-up. In August 1977, IRA men in Andersonstown shot dead the manager of the local IRA drinking club, possibly in a row over proceeds. They said he had been shot dead by the British Army during a gun battle. But, Megraw, 22, who had no paramilitary connections, made the fatal mistake of telling police about seeing a man armed with a hunting rifle shoot the club manager, which proved the IRA had lied. They abducted Megraw, shot him dead and secretly buried his body.

Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright were taken away for questioning by the IRA from their homes in Armagh city on October 2, 1972. Wright, 25, was married and McKee single. Wright had been arrested in February and while being held at an Army barracks in Belfast apparently agreed to turn informant. Wright returned to Armagh and went to the IRA to tell them what had happened. A couple of nights later a car called to his home and he left willingly with the men inside. McKee - about whom almost nothing is known - disappeared at the same time.

Columba McVeigh was 17 when he was abducted by the IRA, killed and disappeared in 1975. He lived with his parents in Donaghmore, outside Dungannon, Co Tyrone. The IRA apparently claimed he was an informant. In 1999, a search was made of a bog near Emyvale, Co Monaghan but there was little hope of finding any remains.

Robert Nairac's remains will almost certainly never be found. Eamon Collins, a south Armagh IRA man who later recanted and wrote a book, said that after the IRA killed Nairac his remains were fed into a rendering machine at a meat processing plant. On the night he disappeared in May 1977, the British Army soldier had been drinking in a south Armagh pub and singing rebel songs.

Gerald Evans, 24, from south Armagh, disappeared on the night of March 27, 1979. He was last seen on a road outside Castleblayney in Co Monaghan. Very little is known about why he was killed.

Charles Armstrong, a 57-year-old father of five who lived with his wife and family outside Crossmaglen, disappeared on Sunday, August 16 in 1981. He left to collect an elderly neighbour to bring her to Mass and was never seen again. His car was later found in Dundalk with no sign of a struggle. Local Republican sources said he had been killed by the IRA but gave no reason.

The body of another local man, Sean Murphy , who was killed by the IRA, was recovered from Dundalk Harbour five years after he disappeared in December 1981. His body emerged from the submerged car when it was struck by a ship.

Danny McIlhone was abducted by the IRA in July 1981 in the middle of the rioting surrounding the IRA hunger strikes, but no statement was ever issued although IRA figures in west Belfast suggested he had stolen an IRA gun. Seamus Ruddy, 33, was murdered by his associates in the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in Paris in May 1985. The INLA, which was perpetually feuding, fell out over a shipment of guns and Ruddy was shot dead and buried, possibly in parkland in Paris.

Gareth O'Connor, 24, disappeared on May 11 this year while on his way from his home in Armagh to Dundalk Garda Station where he was due to sign bail on a charge of belonging to the Continuity IRA. Gardai, the PSNI and local republican sources all concur that the Provisional IRA in south Armagh kidnapped and murdered Gareth O'Connor. It is believed the IRA suspected he was passing information to the gardai in an attempt to receive a lenient jail sentence.

Jim Cusack

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1038680&issue_id=9732

Irish Sunday Independent
Stephen is King of Kings

STEPHEN King, David Trimble's speech-writer, did some serious damage to Sinn Fein in Washington last week. That's why another King, Congressman Peter King, has been as nice as pie on RTE, promising that the Provos would sign up to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Hot from a stunning speech in support of Bush in the House of Commons, Trimble tore into Saddam Hussein and Sinn Fein in a series of savage sound bites which went down well in a White House about to go to war.

As a result, Bush's boys think Trimble is top gun and have trouble telling Sinn Fein from Saddam Hussein. Which is the whole idea.

Trimble said President Bush was fighting a "just war against a fascist and a dictator in the Middle East". Asking why Sinn Fein "sides with the Iraqi tyrant and against America", Trimble answered the question in a way that sent Adams admirers like Peter King scrambling for safety.

"Perhaps it's because Sinn Fein-IRA see Saddam as not such a bad guy. Well, their jungle adventures, and support for Farc in Colombia, sent alarms ringing in Washington. Increasingly Americans see through their blarney and doublespeak."

Getting even more down and dirty, Trimble pointed out that Sinn Fein's Farc friends were responsible for the drugs that "pollute the streets of the United States", and said Americans should treat Sinn Fein-IRA "as bullies who, just like Saddam, still possess weapons of destruction".

Trimble's greatest American admirer, Richard Perle, boss of the Defence Policy Board, was paying close attention.

As soon as Perle has seen off Saddam Hussein, he will turn his beady eye on Sinn Fein. Hence Sinn Fein's frantic signals that they will sign up for the Police Service. They'd better.

So far it's been a great week for Stephen King. And it began so badly when a computer crunched my column something wicked last week.

A sentence that said "Stephen King sounded thin on a telephone line" became "Stephen King sounded for Sinn Fein".

If Stephen ever sounds for Sinn Fein, it will be the Last Post.

Eoghan Harris

Irish Independent 20th September
US anti-terror drive puts pressure on Real IRA

ARE the Real IRA something altogether separate and distinct from the Provisional IRA? Up to this week the media coverage universally accepted the 'separate and distinct' theory. But in the past week, for the first time, there were some signs of a crack in the consensus. Provisional Sinn Fein itself vigorously maintained there was absolutely no connection between the Provisional IRA and the Real IRA. Martin McGuinness, now described as Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, was quoted yesterday as saying of the Real IRA attacks:

"These incidents are absolutely deplorable. They are despicable. They are unjustifiable and they are coming from a gang of people who are militarily useless and politically a shambles."

Other people were not so sure that there was no connection between the Provisionals and the Real IRA. The PSNI Chief Constable was quoted yesterday as saying that he had intelligence that some people connected to the Provisional IRA had been "engaged in some low-level activity." But the Chief Constable went on to hedge his bets, adding: "That is fundamentally different from the big concern I have, which is dissident republican groups."

On behalf of our Government, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen said he was satisfied that mainstream republicans were not involved in recent intimidation and threats. "I'm satisfied that condemnations that have emanated from Martin McGuinness represent the Sinn Fein position."

The SDLP, much closer to the scene, since they live and work in Northern Ireland, are not so happy about Sinn Fein's position as Mr Cowen appears to be.

SDLP deputy leader Brid Rodgers was quoted in Thursday's Irish Independent as saying: "Sinn Fein should retract threatening comments it made in recent months before its (recent) words (condemning the Real IRA) could have any credibility."

Brid Rodgers's comments, unlike some other comments, seem to relate to the actual present political and paramilitary scene in Northern Ireland. And her concerns seem to be shared, to a considerable extent, by the SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durcan. Mr Durcan called on the IRA to confirm Sinn Fein claims that it was not connected with the threats. Martin McGuinness's response was simply to accuse the SDLP of politicking.

On the face of it it seems clear that the Provisional IRA must be in tacit and deniable collusion with the Real IRA. The Real IRA is currently engaged in terrorist activity based in areas, like West Derry, where the Provisional IRA is present in formidable strength. If as Martin McGuinness claims, the Real IRA are 'militarily useless,' the Provisional IRA could snuff them out of existence with no difficulty. They show no signs of doing so.

The Real IRA's campaign goes on right under the noses of the Provisional IRA and the IRA does nothing at all about it. There are those pious verbal disclaimers from the Sinn Fein leadership, but that is all.

Provisional IRA and the Real IRA at present share a common political objective. The objective is to discourage recruitment to Northern Ireland's 26 District Policing Boards. The discouragement is done by terrorist threats and terrorist attacks and the discouragement seems to be working.

The saddest and most discouraging feature of the whole political scene is that both the British and Irish Governments seem bent on continuing to appease Sinn Fein-IRA, and to do their best to ignore the obvious fact of the collaboration of Provisional IRA and Real IRA in murderous sabotaging of policing arrangements set up by the British Government with the approval of the Irish one.

There is no immediate prospect of any improvement on this scene. Both the British and Irish governing parties are now in deep political trouble for quite different reasons. Polls show both Governments facing a near total collapse in political confidence.

In the circumstances both governments desperately need to find a success story, and it seems that the nearest thing they can find to a success story is the 'peace process' in Northern Ireland. The appeasement of the terrorists by the two Governments is likely to continue, probably well into the New Year. But in the longer term the appeasement - like earlier forms of appeasement - is likely to run out of steam.

The clock is now ticking away in Colombia, where the local terrorists are now more openly aggressive, and contemptuously hostile to the United States and to the present Colombian government allied to the United States. The local terrorists are widely - and I believe rightly - felt to be linked to the IRA. Very few people - and hardly any Americans - believe the Sinn Fein people now awaiting sentence were in Colombia - on false passports - as part of a kind of educational holiday, as the accused maintain. It seems likely that they will be convicted on the terrorist charges. At the very least they will be convicted of being in Colombia on false passports - which they cannot deny - and for that they could face quite a long term of imprisonment.

The British and Irish Governments should now be preparing themselves for what to do when sentences are handed down in the case of the Colombia Three. The present pattern of activity of the two governments suggest that they are not preparing themselves for that emergency but simply drifting along with continuing appeasement of Sinn Fein-IRA, without seeming to realise that some time fairly soon the Government of the United States seem bound to call an end to that pattern of activity.

The handwriting is already on the wall.

Recently, under President Bush, who has never courted Sinn Fein as his predecessor did, Sinn Fein-IRA have been coming out as openly hostile to the United States, and supportive of America's enemies.

The British and Irish Governments ought by now be realising that they cannot long sustain a policy of appeasement of America's enemies.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=44&si=1049714&issue_id=9817

Killers’- prison photo part of bigger picture

(Jude Collins, Irish News)

Talk about picture power. The photograph taken at Castlerea Prison recently, showing four Sinn Féin TDs with eight republican prisoners, including the men convicted of the manslaughter of Garda Jerry McCabe, has triggered an avalanche of angry words. Garda representatives, politicians and media commentators have expressed outrage at what they’ve seen and the McCabe family are said to have found the picture “shattering” and “incredibly upsetting”.

The McCabe killing and the continued imprisonment of those convicted of the killing provoke strong feelings all round.

The family of the dead garda are distressed by his death and angry with his killers. Republicans maintain that those convicted of the killing should have been released with other prisoners under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

The McCabes and their supporters are determined that the men will serve their full sentence; republicans continue to campaign for their release. So what is and isn’t a contentious issue in this latest outburst? It’s fair to assume that no-one objects to the jailed men receiving visitors. This is a normal right for all prisoners, regardless of their crime. It’s also fair to assume that no-one objects to TDs visiting prisoners. It would be odd to allow ordinary members of the public access while locking the gates against elected representatives.

Which leaves the photograph. Indignation appears to centre not on the visit but on the fact that a record – a photograph – was made of that visit and made available to the public. The taking of the photograph was contrary to prison rules, critics said, and its appearance in An Phoblacht and later the Sunday Independent hurtful to the McCabe family.

This issue of what events the public should or should not see has arisen repeatedly in the history of the recent Troubles.

The handshake between Mary Robinson and Gerry Adams, during her visit to west Belfast in the early 1990s, drew great media attention. We heard where it occurred, we heard when it occurred – but we didn’t get to see it. No cameras were allowed because, some said, it would cause hurt and outrage among a section of the population.

Spin forward a few years to the lead-up to the Good Friday Agreement. Mo Mowlam visits Long Kesh to meet loyalist paramilitary leaders. With her she takes not just photographers but TV cameras as well. The public are shown Michael Stone, Johnny Adair et al smiling and talking against a background of prison murals glorifying the slaughter of Catholics. The reaction of relatives of those killed by the likes of Stone receives little media attention. Attention instead focuses on the determination of the British secretary of state to win paramilitary assent to the coming political arrangements. Her visit, in short, is “a good thing”.

What prompted the Castlerea prison visit and the subsequent photograph?

It would be reasonable to believe that among the motives was an effort to win paramilitary assent to the developing political arrangements. Just as with Mo Mowlam in Long Kesh, the politicians who went into Castlerea Prison were intent on persuading those who had in the past resorted to violence that politics is now the only option. And just as the TV cameras beamed Mowlam’s visit to a wider unionist constituency, the photograph in An Phoblacht was to remind the wider republican community of the gains that politics have given Sinn Féin.

Given this motivation, it’s odd to hear so many voices raised to declare the Castlerea prison visit and photograph “a bad thing”. There can be little doubt that seeing the picture of the men who killed her husband caused pain to Mrs McCabe.

But then as she herself said on Radio Ulster two days ago, if it had remained within the pages of An Phoblacht she would never have seen it. It was only when the Sunday Independent published the photograph that Mrs McCabe and thousands more were affected by it. But in the end this isn’t really about a photograph.

The controversy doesn’t centre round whether the photograph breached prison rules or whether the McCabe family was hurt by its publication. The photograph is merely a weapon in a wider war being fought on two fronts.

The first, more local front is whether public opinion will allow the release of the men convicted of Jerry McCabe’s manslaughter in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement, or whether they will be forced to serve their full sentence. The second, wider front is whether republicans can continue to make gains at the polling booth, or whether their unnerving progress can be halted or reversed in coming elections to a northern assembly and/or to the European parliament in 2004.

September 19, 2003
http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2003/sep18_prison_photo_JCollins.php

Sunday Independent
IRA millionaires fight SF support for PSNI


JIM CUSACK and

DOMINIC CUNNINGHAN

MILLIONAIRE IRA figures heavily involved in smuggling and other crime in south Armagh and Tyrone are leading opposition to the idea of Sinn Fein joining the North's community policing boards and supporting the PSNI. The opposition, including the intimidation of Catholics taking part in local police liaison groups, is proving to be a problem for Sinn Fein as it engages in negotiations with David Trimble's Ulster Unionist about November elections and re-starting the North's Assembly.

One of the main opponents is the IRA leader in south Armagh. He is rumoured to have threatened to leave the IRA and take supporters with him if Sinn Fein supports the police in Northern Ireland. This man is a millionaire and is heavily involved in smuggling and in the production of illegal diesel. A return of proper policing in south Armagh could seriously affect his illegal business interests.

Many south Armagh and Tyrone IRA members are now living opulent lifestyles as a result of their involvement in crime. Smuggling and illegal diesel 'washing' has boomed in south Armagh since the ceasefires and is controlled by IRA figures.

Both PSNI and Garda sources believe Provisional IRA members were responsible for some of the attacks on Catholics who have joined the local District Policing Partnership (DPP) groups in Tyrone. The attacks have been condemned by Martin McGuinness.

Meanwhile, the negotiations to bring about elections in the North are reaching another deadline over the next week or 10 days. Both governments have demanded that the IRA issue a statement declaring the "war is over" and make "acts of completion" on arms decommissioning. David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, yesterday set out a list of demands that he insisted must be achieved before his party would return to a power-sharing administration at Stormont. He said there had to be a statement from the IRA stating the 'war' was over as well as an end to all paramilitary activity and what he described as closure on the arms issue.

Mr Trimble who has had four face-to-face meetings with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams over the past two weeks said he expected there would be proof of IRA decommissioning as part of any political deal.

If agreement is reached in the next week, this would allow elections to be held in mid or late November. A similar situation was reached at the start of this year when Unionists were waiting for movement by the republicans but this never emerged. Instead the IRA issued a minimalist statement stating its commitment to the "peace process".

If there is a repeat of this it could prove disastrous for pro-Agreement Unionists who support David Trimble if elections were to take place. It would be likely that between Ian Paisley's DUP and the anti-Trimble figures in the Ulster Unionist would then be able to block Sinn Fein from regaining posts on the Assembly executive and, effectively, bring the process to an end.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=39&si=1054879&issue_id=9863

irish independent 11th March
Developer tells how he defied IRA demands for money

PROPERTY developer Tom Gilmartin described yesterday how he defied a purported IRA demand for money for Noraid, the American-based IRA fundraiser.

Mr Gilmartin told the Mahon Tribunal that three men, claiming to be from the IRA, had called to his Luton home and walked straight in when he opened the door.

The men said they were collecting for Noraid and demanded money, Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal.

Mr Gilmartin said he told them he would not let them have a penny to buy a bullet to kill anyone. "They told me I had better cough up and I said no way. You are not getting it," he said.

When the men said they would be back, Mr Gilmartin said he told them they had better make a good job of him because he would "take two of you with me".

Mr Gilmartin said his mystery callers were probably not from the IRA because most of the people going around and "mouthing off" were not members of the organisation.

He also told how he decided it would be a waste of time co-operating with the gardai in their investigations of his allegations of corruption in the planning process after he received a mystery phone call from a man claiming to be a garda.

The tribunal was told of three phone conversations in March 1989 between Mr Gilmartin and Garda Chief Supt Hugh Sreenan who was carrying out investigations into his complaints.

Explaining why he had not made a statement to the gardai about his allegations of corruption, Mr Gilmartin said that within a day or two of the first phone call with Chief Supt Sreenan, he got another call from a man claiming to be a Garda Burns.

The caller told him that they had heard about his allegations and that they had been thoroughly investigated and that the people involved had emerged with their names unsullied.

Mr Gilmartin said he did not know who the caller really was.

John Gallagher SC, for the tribunal, said Superintendent Brendan Burns, who was involved in investigating his complaints, had said that he had had no telephone contact with Mr Gilmartin and had not spoken to him at any time.

Fergus Black

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1143170&issue_id=10565

New light shed on Shergar mystery

Racehorse was shot after IRA kidnap 'shambles'

Paul Kelso, sports correspondent
Saturday March 13, 2004
The Guardian

The kidnapping of the champion racehorse Shergar was an ill-conceived and poorly executed shambles, according to previously unreleased evidence in a television documentary to be screened next week.
Shergar, the equine Lord Lucan, was kidnapped in 1983 by an IRA gang that demanded a £2m ransom. After the horse's owners refused to pay the animal was never seen again, presumed dead, though remains have never been found. Now transcripts of negotiations between the IRA gang and representatives of the Aga Khan cast fresh light on one of the great unsolved mysteries of recent times. The Channel 4 documentary to be broadcast on Thursday also reveals that police discovered evidence linking the kidnap with the IRA days after the horse was snatched, and includes the first interview with Jim Fitzgerald, Shergar's groom, who was briefly taken hostage on the night of the kidnap.

The telephone transcripts and Mr Fitzgerald's evidence reveal that the gang made several crucial errors. Firstly they thought that Shergar was solely owned by the Aga Khan rather than a consortium, an assumption that undermined their ability to negotiate. The gang also appears to have underestimated the difficulty of taking a stallion hostage - Shergar was in stud at the time and at his friskiest. They are thought to have panicked and killed Shergar within hours.

The kidnappers' failings were echoed by the hapless search for the horse that dominated attention in Ireland, the UK and beyond in 1983. Shergar had shot to prominence two years previously when in one record-breaking season the stallion established itself as one of the greatest thoroughbreds of all time. Under 19-year-old jockey Walter Swinburn and wearing the colours of the Aga Khan, Shergar won the 1981 Derby by a record 10 lengths, then added the Irish equivalent and the equally prestigious King George VI stakes.

The horse became a national hero in Ireland, where it was born and trained. More importantly, it had guaranteed a stud value of more than £10m for the Aga Khan. Seeking to exploit Shergar's value at its peak the Aga Khan sold 34 shares in the horse for £250,000 each, keeping six for himself. Among the buyers were John Magnier, the bloodstock millionaire recently in dispute with Sir Alex Ferguson, and Shergar's vet Stan Cosgrove.

While the share issue guaranteed the Aga Khan more than £8m, the kidnappers were ignorant of this when, on the evening of February 8 1983, they arrived at the Ballymanny Stud, Co Kildare.

The gang were part of the IRA's special operations unit, a division formed with the express aim of raising funds through kidnap. Shergar was to be their first victim, selected because of the wealth of his assumed owner, and the misapprehension that kidnapping a horse would cause less public outcry than a human.

The four-man gang burst into Mr Fitzgerald's home, holding his family at gunpoint while he was forced to take them to Shergar's stable, where horse and groom were seized. After a few miles Mr Fitzgerald was thrown out of the car, but not before he had been given a password the kidnappers would use in negotiations.

What happened next set the tone for a police operation that saw a caricature of Irish police bungling broadcast around the world. Mr Fitzgerald called his boss, the stud farm manager, who called Mr Cosgrove. The vet called a racing chum Sean Berry who in turn called Alan Dukes, coincidentally the Irish finance minister. Not until eight hours after the kidnap, with the trail well and truly cold, did anyone think to call the gardaí.

Their task was not helped by one smart piece of planning by the gang, who had selected the same day as the biggest horse sales in the country, when horseboxes had passed along every road in Ireland.

Psychics

While the police searched every farm, stable and outhouse in the republic and recruited the help of diviners, clairvoyants and psychics, the gang set about seeking a ransom. Initially they put out a hoax call to three racing journalists including Derek Thompson, now a commentator at Channel 4. He was dispatched to negotiate in the full glare of the media circus that descended on Ireland. The day after the kidnap he took a call at 1.15am from someone claiming to be a kidnapper. He expected it to be traced, but was later told it had not been. "The man who does the tracing goes off duty at midnight," the police told him.

Away from the TV cameras the real kidnappers had got in touch with the Aga Khan's Paris office. On discovering that Shergar had multiple owners, the gang agreed to provide evidence he was still alive. Mr Cosgrove was deputed to collect the evidence, which was to be left at a hotel reception in the name of Johnny Logan, the Irish singer who won the Eurovision song contest in 1980. Unfortunately for Mr Cosgrove and the rest of the shareholders a conspicuous special branch presence warned off the gang.

The furious kidnappers made a further call threatening to kill the horse and the Aga Khan's negotiators. Eventually, however, a Polaroid photograph of the horse's face next to a newspaper was sent to the police, but the owners were still not satisfied. What the gang did not know was that the Aga Khan, spiritual leader to 10 million Ismaili Muslims, was used to extortion and had ruled out paying from the start. The British and Irish governments had similar policies.

Four days after the abduction the kidnappers made their last call. According to IRA informant Sean O'Callaghan Shergar was probably shot within hours of being snatched. "One of the gang strongly suggested to me Shergar had been killed within hours. They couldn't cope with him, he went demented in the horsebox, injured his leg and they killed him."

Mr Fitzgerald tells the programme: "I assume he would have got very troublesome. And with them not knowing horses they would maybe have got a bit scared of him. A horse like him would normally be buried in a special place with a plaque and all ... he's buried out there somewhere in the country and no one knows where. It's not right."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1168442,00.html

Belfast Telegraph
Faul tells IRA to lift 'death threat'

By Staff Reporter
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

13 March 2004
LEADING Catholic clergyman Monsignor Denis Faul today appealed to the IRA to lift an alleged death threat against a Co Armagh man.

The man, a 37-year-old father of six, was targeted at the start of the year in a savage paramilitary-style attack.

The victim was sitting in a bar in Jonesboro when he was confronted by two masked men who took him to wasteland where a gang was waiting.

There he was beaten about the head with iron bars before being shot.

Mgr Faul said he believed the man was still in danger and that his family was being intimidated.

And he said he believed the IRA was responsible.

"The man's life is still in danger from the Provos," he said. It was threatened again on Saturday, March 6.

"There is an orchestrated campaign of terror by the Provisional IRA against the victim's extended family, especially the younger members," he said.

Mgr Faul said the victim had been shot in the legs six times and that his legs and body were attacked with iron bars, sledge hammers and axe handles with nails.

He also said he had advised the family to lodge statements with their solicitors, saying that if anything happened to them, the statements would be released to the media.

But Sinn Fein hit back at the allegations.

A spokesman for Sinn Fein said Mgr Faul had been engaged in "an anti-republican tirade" for 30 years.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=500783

LONDONDERRY JOURNAL
Republicans Blamed For North West Attacks
Mar 12 2004

REPUBLICAN paramilitaries were responsible for five punishment style attacks carried out on people in the North West since the beginning of the year, police claimed yesterday.

According to the latest statistics obtained by the 'Journal' republicans were to blame for two paramilitary style shootings and three paramilitary style assaults in Derry and Strabane.

The latest shooting victim in Derry, who is not included in the figures, was a 16-year-old from the Carnhill area who was targeted last week.

The youth was shot in both ankles by armed men who burst into his home and dragged him outside last Thursday night.

Last week, PSNI Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, said republican and loyalist paramilitaries are still involved in violence six years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

On Wednesday, Security Minister Jane Kennedy blamed loyalists paramilitaries for seven deaths and 135 shootings in the North last year.

So far this year, however, loyalists have carried out no paramilitary style shootings or paramilitary style assaults in either Derry, Limavady or Strabane, according to the police statistics.

The SDLP's Pat Ramsey expressed dismay with the current figures and said his party has always been opposed to "these type of kangaroo courts".

"This level of activity is one of the main reasons why local politicians are unable at the moment to establish an effective devolved government in Northern Ireland.

"The challenge for everyone, particularly Sinn Fein, is to help assist and ensure that the war is over - not only against police personnel and British installations - but also against troubled youths in our society."

Sinn FÈin's Mary Nelis said: "I am unaware of the incidents from which these figures have come from. If the shootings and attacks were carried out by dissidents then I do not regard these people as republicans.

"And I am confident the IRA has not been involved in any incident which has caused a breach of its ceasefire."

The DUP's Gregory Campbell said: "If there has been five so-called punishment attacks in the last two months in this small region then, relatively speaking, that means scores more must have taken place across Northern Ireland.

"This is a two way process and it's vital the community give their total support to attempts by the PSNI to apprehend people responsible for carrying out these attacks and bring them before the courts."

http://icderry.icnetwork.co.uk/news/localnews/content_objectid=14045080_method=full_siteid=66002_headline=-Republicans%2DBlamed%2DFor%2DNorth%2DWest%2DAttacks-name_page.html

Irish Independent 9th March
Taoiseach supports McDowell's Sinn Fein crime claim

THE INCREASINGLY bitter war of words between the Government and Sinn Fein intensified last night, with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern backing allegations that the party is involved in criminality.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell attacked Sinn Fein again yesterday, alleging criminality at Dublin Port and saying household names from Sinn Fein are on the IRA Army Council.

The party reacted furiously, with its chief negotiator Martin McGuinness condemning Mr McDowell as "an ignorant and irrational man who has clearly lost sight of a vital peace process".

He called on the minister to "put up or shut up" and accused him of being anti-working class and anti-republican.

"It's very well to make accusations but it is a whole other thing to substantiate those allegations. I think Michael McDowell needs to remember that he is the Minister for Justice. He is not the Minister for Judges and he is certainly not the Minister for Juries," he said.

But the Taoiseach backed Mr McDowell's comments when he said the Provisional IRA has been involved in criminality at Dublin Port and these issues must be a matter of serious concern. "People should listen to what the Minister for Justice is saying," said Mr Ahern.

What Mr McDowell had said was "clearly not fiction" and was based on fact. "There has been a number of serious things over the last 12 months that link paramilitary and criminal issues. That's what the minister is saying."

The Taoiseach said Mr McDowell feels strongly that Sinn Fein does not have to undergo the same examination as other parties. "And he's dealing actively with files which do show that there's criminality, and that's what he's talking about in the docks."

Mr Ahern said he did not know who is on the IRA Army Council and he was not sure Mr McDowell knew, either.

On Sunday Mr McDowell likened Sinn Fein to the Nazis and on RTE's 'Morning Ireland' yesterday he continued the sustained attack of recent weeks on the party.

"There are senior figures from Sinn Fein on the Army Council and you may take that for a fact. I am talking about household names. The Army Council of the IRA dictates the strategy for the whole Provisional movement and it [Sinn Fein] takes its line from the Army Council."

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny called for action on the issue. "If the Minister for Justice has intelligence briefings that criminal activity organised by the IRA and involving senior Sinn Fein personnel goes on in this jurisdiction, then he has a constitutional duty to act on this or on any other similar activity that he is aware of."

He also called on the minister to clarify his claims linking paramilitary activity and Sinn Fein. "Minister McDowell says senior Sinn Fein members serve on the Army Council of the Provisional IRA. Yet the Taoiseach does not seem to know any of this."

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said last night that the minister was rightly voicing his serious concern based on intelligence made available to him.

"These matters are being monitored on an ongoing basis. Prosecutions are a matter for the Garda and the DPP," he said.

Ahead of his Thursday meeting in Farmleigh with British Premier Tony Blair, the Taoiseach said he did not want this issue to cause any damage to the peace process. "I don't want to mix up the two issues," he said yesterday.

He insisted the attacks on Sinn Fein were not electioneering, but Mr McGuinness said republicans were of the view that leading Dublin politicians were "panic-stricken" at the prospect of what he called huge gains at the polls by Sinn Fein.

"This is what it is all about and no one should be under any illusions about it," Mr McGuinness said.

Alison O'Connor
and Dominic Cunningham

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1141432&issue_id=10554

Analysis: Ireland's leading critic of Sinn Fein ... no, it's not Ian Paisley

By Chris Thornton
cthornton@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

04 February 2004
ONCE upon a time you could bank on the DUP's view of Dublin. The Irish Government came high on its list of Threats to Ulster, what with Dublin having "a vested interest in IRA atrocities", as Ian Paisley once contended.

These days the world's turned upside down. Instead of referring to Romanist conspiracies, Mr Paisley is drifting out of the Irish Embassy in London to talk about "good neighbourly relations" with the Republic. And Peter Robinson is speculating about "common ground" between the DUP and Dublin.

So what gives?

Part of the answer lies in who was there to receive Mr Paisley and his fellow MPs for that ground-breaking meeting last week. Alongside Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Foreign Minister Brian Cowen - the usual handlers of Northern diplomacy - stood Michael McDowell, the Justice Minister.

Mr McDowell is the man who inspires, if not admiration, then at least intrigue in the distant hearts of unionist politicians. His chief qualification in that regard? He's become Ireland's leading critic of Sinn Fein, a position that could be destined to take on some importance in the review of the Agreement that opened this week.

Not that this is anything new for Mr McDowell. Back in 2002, when he was Attorney General and a candidate for the Dail, he made waves by making Sinn Fein one of his election targets. The republican party, he said, was "still involved in torture, mutilation… smuggling, racketeering, protection rackets and taxing the drug trade in o