Showing posts with label McGuinness. Show all posts

Wednesday, 3 September 2014

BLUESHIRT McGUINNESS COALITION TO DISAPPEAR MORE IRISH YOUTH

“Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see.” ― Benjamin Franklin.

Below are two articles about current Irish political leadership's part, in the Irish disappeared. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it all, nobody has a monopoly on the truth but they would deny us our voice with their brand of Nazi Blueshirt censorship. There are at least two sides to every story and from my own experience of Irish politics, I cannot truthfully speak ill, of the vast majority of the Irish volunteers of the IRA, that I have known, not out fear, but simply in the interest of my truth and experience. Quite the opposite in fact, they are in fact generally, the most idealistic and brave of Irish youth.

However, like every group of people world wide, there are always a few rotten apples. The problem in Ireland, is that it is in Britain's interest, to mentor those, into leadership positions, with vast sums of money and intelligence resources, weeding out the best with, political assassination, coupled with dictatorial media censorship and political internment, without a proper trial, of the most talented and genuine freedom fighters, who demand change, which is also those in many cases, who advocate it by peaceful means.

Yes armies in war, are forced to execute traitors but riddle me this, what can Irish youth do, when their generals and leadership, come from a British tradition of cultivated traitors, that is intergenerational. Ireland is so weary of eight centuries this, that many just simply leave, while the others are politically interned, in both parts of Ireland. A Settlement Process not simply a peace process, must be found sooner rather than later.

The last century of Irish politics, drips with blood from Fascist Blueshirts and their loyalist counterparts in British Occupied Ireland. I believe that the religious word evil, is simply the reality word live, spelled backwards. Riddle me this my fellow Irish women and men, what choices do your Irish youth have, when they learn too late in the day, that their leaders are ruthless fascists or even worse, who speak out of both sides of their mouths?

The IRA is responsible for a very limited freedom, attained in Ireland thus far, but no one person, has the right to enforce limits on freedom in Ireland, and certainly not at the behest of a foreign entity, no more than they have the right, in any other real country in the world. A Settlement must be inclusive, not exclusively the domain of the pacified, to be a genuine enabler of all Irish youth, Orange and Green, to realize their dreams in their own island. This certainly is not the case currently, people are voting with their feet and their fight.

Informer 'murdered on orders of SF man'

Irish News

Frank Hegarty was found shot dead by the side of an isolated border road near Castlederg, Co Tyrone, on May 25 1986. The 45-year-old's eyes had been taped shut and he had been shot several times before his body was dumped at the roadside by his IRA killers, who executed him because he was an informer.
The IRA claimed that Hegarty, who had been the organisation's Derry quartermaster, had revealed the location of a consignment of arms from Libya discovered by security forces in the Republic in January 1986.
He was afterwards taken to a safe house in England but, anxious to come back to his native Derry city, Hegarty returned to his Shantallow home that May after being assured he would not be killed.
On May 27 1986 the Irish News reported: "People who knew Frank Hegarty in Derry have confirmed that he was missing from his home following the arms find on January 26.
"He was a well known figure in the city and regularly associated with known republicans.
"At the time of his disappearance a number of people thought that he was about to become the latest republican supergrass.
"Most people who knew of his disappearance were baffled by his decision to return home to Derry three weeks ago, despite knowing that the IRA suspected that he had been involved in the Sligo and Roscommon arms find.
"It is felt that he must have been motivated by homesickness as he had been in almost daily contact with his family while in England and was known to be very close to his mother."
The IRA alleged that Hegarty had been responsible for a January 1974 Official IRA bomb attack at Ebrington barracks, Derry, in which two cleaners were killed.
The security forces used their knowledge of Hegarty's involvement in the bombing to coerce him into informing against the IRA, it claimed.
He worked first as a British army agent but was later recruited by the Force Research Unit (Fru).
Allegations that Derry Sinn Féin leader Martin McGuinness had played a role in persuading Hegarty to return to Derry were made by his mother in a 1993 edition of The Cook Report.
Mrs Hegarty said Mr McGuinness had assured her son that he would be safe.
During a House of Commons debate on December 18 2001, DUP leader Ian Paisley said that Hegarty had been "murdered on the instructions of Mr McGuinness".
Speaking during a debate on whether or not Sinn Féin MPs should be allowed to enjoy Parliamentary privileges, Mr Paisley said: "We have established that Martin McGuinness was, to all effects, leading the IRA army council and was busy in Londonderry.
"Members should know for what type of people they are proposing to bend the rules.
"One of the saddest calamities in Londonderry was the death of Frank Hegarty, who was murdered on the instructions of Mr McGuinness.
"Mr Hegarty had worked for military intelligence and knew where some of the IRA's most important arms and explosives were hidden in the Irish Republic.
"When the Irish police raided them the army, fearing that Mr Hegarty's cover would be blown, pushed him away to England.
"Mr McGuinness then arrived on the doorstep of Rose Hegarty and told her that he wanted to talk about her son and how he could return.
"Twice a week for 13 weeks, Mr McGuinness dropped by, the family met him and they drank tea together.
"He assured the mother, Rose, that if Frank came home, he could sort the matter out and all would be well; a firm assurance for a mother's heart torn about her son. She persuaded her boy to come home.
"A rendezvous was arranged by Mr McGuinness. Afterwards the body was found in a roadway in Tyrone, a bullet through the head."

Tapes allege McGuinness's IRA roleLast night's BBC Panorama programme restated the allegation that west Belfast builder Freddie Scappaticci was the British army agent known as Stakeknife.
It also presented evidence, in the form of transcripts made by journalists working on The Cook Report documentary programme, that Scappaticci had revealed the extent of Sinn Féin MP Martin McGuinness's involvement in the IRA.
"Nothing happens in the Northern Command that McGuinness doesn't OK – and I mean nothing," he is quoted as saying.
"You look at every British soldier shot, every policeman shot, every booby trap, or whatever.
"McGuinness is ultimately responsible for all of it. It's all under his control. He's the type of person you don't get side by side with.
"He doesn't have friends within the IRA. He has what he calls comrades. He frowns on womanising, he frowns on drinking... (he is) a very moralistic person."
The secret recording also details Scappaticci's view of the role played by Mr McGuinness in persuading IRA informer Frank Hegarty to return to Derry after he had told his British handlers the location of an IRA arms dump.
According to Scappaticci, Mr McGuinness befriended Mr Hegarty's mother after he fled the country in January 1986.
"He befriended her, as I understand it. He ate in the house, meals were prepared by the Hegarty family – basically Martin McGuinness sold himself to the Hegarty family," Scappaticci is quoted as saying.
"Martin portrayed himself as a friend: I'm someone who can deliver. Yes, you can trust the IRA, no harm will come to your son. He just has to come back and he just has to talk to a couple of people and he'll know one of them and everything will be fine."
Scappaticci claimed that Hegarty agreed to come and was driven to a secret location for an IRA debriefing, in which Mr McGuiness was part of the Army Council who interrogated him, "court martialled him and ordered him to be shot".
"It's not important who pulled the trigger. McGuinness wouldn't dirty his hands with that," Scappaticci said.

Quickly but quietly, Ireland is disappearing its young people

Fintan O'Toole: There are good reasons to be browned off in Ireland if you’re young and well-educated

‘

Electric Picnic is now a bucolic frolic for those on the verge of middle age — which makes it a microcosm of austerity Ireland.’ Above, the crowd at the main stage at Electric Picnic. Photograph: Dave Meehan

Fintan O'Toole

So Electric Picnic is now a bucolic frolic for those on the verge of middle age — which makes it a microcosm of austerity Ireland. A century on from theIrish revolution, the equivalent of the generation that made it is being squeezed out of existence in the State it created. If the young revolutionaries were around now, they wouldn’t be around here. WB Yeats turned out to be wrong – this is no country for young men, or for young women either.

Very quickly but rather quietly, Ireland is doing a remarkable thing. It is disappearing its young people. In April 2009, the State contained 1.423 million people aged between 15 and 35. In April 2014, there were 1.206 million in the same age group. That’s a reduction from one generation of more than the entire population of Limerick city and county. This is the age group of rebellion, of adventure, of trying it out and trying it on. It’s the generation that annoys its elders and outrages convention and challenges accepted wisdom. It is demography’s answer to the stultification of groupthink. It is not always right but without its capacity to drive everyone else up the wall, smugness settles over everything like a fine grey dust.

Emigration

The biggest reason for this loss of nearly a quarter of a million young people in five years is emigration. People of my age remember the 1980s, the Donnelly visas and the flight of the Ryanair generation, and assume that what’s happening now couldn’t be as bad. They’re right – it’s not as bad, it’s much worse.

In the entire, miserable decade of the 1980s, net emigration was 206,000, a figure seen at the time as a shocking indictment of political and economic failure. In the last five years alone it is 151,000. And most of this emigration is of people between 15 and 44: in 2012 and 2013 alone, we lost 70,000 people in this age group. The percentage of 15- to 29-year-olds in the population has fallen from 23.1 per cent in 2009 to 18 per cent in 2014. And it’s not just that the young generation is physically shrinking. Many, even those who have stayed, have emigration in their heads as an active option. They are, mentally, half here.

Why are they going? Largely because they’re browned off. It’s been clear for quite some time now that most of those who are leaving are not, in a simple sense, economic refugees. Unemployment is certainly a factor: it is very bad for the very young and it’s not getting much better. While overall employment has risen significantly between the first quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2014, it has actually dropped sharply for the under-25s, from 154,000 to 142,000. The economic crisis has hit young people disproportionately hard and there’s no doubt that many of them leave simply to find work. But the majority of emigrants are actually in employment – every year since the crash somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 people who have jobs have given them up and left the country.

This doesn’t mean, however, that leaving is just a self-indulgent “lifestyle choice” — if it was it would not have increased fourfold since the bust. Having some sort of a job is one thing. Having a sense that you have a career and a future is something else. We know from the UCC Emigre research project last year that “an enormous proportion of emigrants [previously] employed in Ireland did not feel content with their professional careers before moving”.

And this is not because they’re pampered whingers. There are really good reasons to be browned off in Ireland if you’re young and well-educated and trying to get a job that gives you self-respect in the present and hope for the future. Low pay, insecurity, part-time hours, the absence of a career path — these are not uniquely Irish conditions but neither are they universal. The obvious truth for a lot of young Irish people is that they can do better elsewhere. And we’ve raised them to expect better — people of my age are the ones who told our kids to have a sense of their own worth and not to put up with being treated like dirt. We taught them well — and we’re paying the price through their absence.

Human wealth

That price is large. Economically, of course, there’s a vast loss of human wealth in the export of expensively educated young people and in some cases, like doctors, importing substitutes. Young emigrants are significantly more likely than the rest of the population to have a third-level degree. But there’s also a loss of texture, of buzz, of go. Look anywhere in Ireland that is not a specific redoubt of youth culture, and the place is heavy with middle-age. From the civil service to the media, from politics to the arts establishment, you find demographic landscapes that have been largely frozen for the last six years. The thinning ranks of the young have been unable to mount any sustained challenge to the self-serving orthodoxies of their elders. Which would be fine if the place they leave could afford the consequent culture of stasis and complacency.

BREAKING NEWS ! END OF THE IRISH PEACE PROCESS

OTR letters: IRA suspects to lose immunity from prosecution

U-turn is a victory for justice: DUP

0Comments

BY JOANNE SWEENEY – 03 SEPTEMBER 2014

A leading unionist MP has given a "cautious welcome" to the news that hundreds of immunity letters given to IRA members will be rescinded.

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said of the move, expected to be announced by the Secretary of State Theresa Villiers today: "If this is confirmed, this is indeed very welcome news for those who have suffered at the hands of the IRA.

"We have made it clear all along that these letters were unacceptable and called on the Secretary of State to rescind them.

"It's unacceptable in a democratic society that anyone could be deemed in any sense to be above the law in terms of their involvement in terrorist activity."

He added: "We hope that the NIO will send out a very clear message that victims are entitled to justice and there is no question of an amnesty being granted for a terrorist crime."

Mrs Villiers will tell MPs on the Northern Ireland select committee today that the letters granted to terrorist suspects have been annulled and are "not worth the paper they are written on".

The existence of the "comfort letters" has become one of the most controversial outcomes of the Good Friday Agreement, which only came to light earlier this year.

They were granted to individuals suspected of terrorist crimes committed before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. They told suspects whether they were being sought by police over any past offences.

A government source said: "What the Government is determined to do is make sure that nobody in receipt of one of the original letters should be in any doubt that they cannot rely on those letters to protect them from prosecution should new evidence emerge or a re-assessment of existing evidence lead the PSNI and prosecuting authorities to a different conclusion from their original one."

Mrs Villiers is expected to restate the Government's view that the original letters never constituted an amnesty, immunity or an exemption from prosecution.

She will set out plans to formally notify those who received the letters that the documents are worthless.

A source said the terror suspects in receipt of the original "comfort letters" will be left in "no doubt that they are not worth the paper they are written on".

New letters are now likely to be issued telling terrorist suspects that police will be prepared to mount a prosecution should officers believe there is enough evidence against them.

Story so far

The existence of the so-called "comfort letters" was discovered during the prosecution of suspected Hyde Park bomber John Downey which sensationally collapsed in February when it emerged he had been sent one of the letters. Mr Downey (62), from Donegal, had been arrested last year in connection with his alleged role in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing in London.

Tuesday, 2 September 2014

DR STRANGELOVE CRAICS SHANNON AIRPORT

Business is bloody bad, said one Wall Street investor, and the Industrial War Complex is the only place in the US and the City of London, where we can now make money, said another British banker, who requested anonymity.They also said that Kennedy and the U.S. was wrong, not to have gone to nuclear war with Russia, during the Cuban Missile Crises.

"JFK should have nuked Russia. It would have been interesting to see who would have survived. The World is over populated We should listen to the generals, who advocate a first strike," said another, who also requested anonymity.

They continued, saying, that Russia has a hypersonic missile delivery system, capable of penetrating US defence systems, delivering nuclear warheads and other numerous nuclear submarines while monitoring the U.S.

"The Russians are the ones who want war. We have to strike before they hit us. I say nuke 'em before they nuke us!" one exclaimed. Another neo-conservative, retired General, said war is too important to be left to politicians, "They have neither the time, training or the inclination for strategic thought. And the It's high time for a Pentagon coup to take over the U.S. government, from the black man in the White House and go to war."

Before we attack, the general, said the U.S. should have detailed plans for a post war scenario and was rambling on about the famous Dr.Strangelove plan, for post-nuclear war survival, involving living underground with a 20:1, female-to-male ratio.

"Why the hell are you people laughing at Dr. Strangelove and General Buck Turgidson, they make total sense to me. And I know Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld privately agree with me."

So what the hell, has all this got to do with Ireland, I hear you ask? Well what's above, is roughly how it all started, and the story finishes for me in Ireland, where two Irishmen, were minding their own business, cutting turf in a EU bog illegally, outside Tralee coincidentally enough, and the end went something along these lines, from what I heard! Now there's a few who still talk blarney so don't blame, I can't vouch for every detail of this story, as communications are down.

The Nuking of Shannon Airport

"Jaysus Seaneen, will you look at that !"

"What John Joe,"says Sean

Will ya look at that mushroom cloud over Shannon. Do ya see that mushroom cloud over there at Shannon Airport?

"Bejasus I do," says John Joe, "That must be one of them big magic mushrooms, that they've been on about."

"Right enough, I can taste something strange in my mouth and it feels like my body is slippin' away from me," says Sean

"Fuck it, Sean, I can feel it too, its like I'm floatin,' Holy fuck!."

Sean, a wee while later, "John Joe I see flower circles all over the bog and the turf is movin' with that breeze, that's coming in waves, over from Shannon, everything is movin. Can you see all them sods of turf flyin' around?'

My eyes are fucked Sean, everything is slow, I can't see right, when I look left and right everything is in slow motion and I feel feckin cat," says John Joe

Fuck me ! "My skin is comin' away in my hands when I touch my face, John Joe."

"I feel like I'm in the DTs after a feed of porter." These were reportedly, to be John Joe's last words.

Well that was the good part and I won't upset any sensitive souls with what followed but it wasn't nice at all, at all.

Well, that's roughly how it all ended for several million people in Ireland, except for a few Connemara people and myself, as I was luckily visiting, when the prevailing west winds from the Atlantic, blew the mushroom cloud all over Ireland, including the north.

Communication were down in Ireland after the event, so details were sketchy. The mushroom cloud drifted all the way over to the east coast to Dublin and up North, where it is reported, that every single Orangeman was nuked. Willie Frazier is reported to have kicked the bucket and died roarin' "No Surrender."Even Ian Paisley died, blaming the IRA and Rome, shoutin', "Unrepentant Fenian Bastards."

Oddly enough all the political prisoners interned, both in Maghaberry and Portlaoise survived, because of the small windows, it is said and got out because the screws were nuked. Some Republicans in South Armagh and Newry survived because of the Mourne mountains. Gerry Adams died in agony, still denying he was ever in the IRA, while McGuinness was roasted alive, blathering on about being Irish or some sort of lies about being a republican. Most of the Blueshirts departed, with their arses on fire.

Sadly one of my favourite Songs, Galway Bay had to be re-written for the Ireland, now turned into a wasteland:

If you ever go across the sea to Ireland,
then maybe at the closing of your day,
you won't sit and watch the moon rise over Claddagh,
Nor see the sun go down on Galway Bay.

Cannot hear again the ripple of the trout stream,
Nor women in the meadows making hay,
Nor sit beside a turf fire in a cabin,
or watch the barefoot gosoons as they play.

For the breezes blowing o'er the sea's from Ireland,
Are poisoned by nuked heather as they blow,
There's no women in the uplands diggin praties,
Speaking language that the strangers do not know.

For the Yankers came made Shannon Tinker Airbase
Changed beautiful Ireland into a wasteland

Gombeens traded Shannon Airport in disgrace

In greedy, greasy sell out hands

.

And if there's going to be be a life hereafter,
And faith somehow I'm sure there's going to be,
I'll ask Spirit to let me make my Heaven,
In that dear land across the Irish sea.

So there ye have it, I hope it is all a delusional nightmare or just a bad dream. Mind you it did have its wee moments, I must be very sick or have a tropical fever or somethin'.

Thursday, 12 June 2014

ROYAL ANALINGUS AGAIN

It will be the third time the former IRA brussel spout has pressed his Majesty's flesh. Muck Guinness said today, that "despite current difficulties" he was "determined to provide forward stinkin political leadership in his capacity as the Deputy Spare Penis and as a representative of all arselickers, I will be licking my Queen again," he said.

"The visit by my Queen is an opportunity to demonstrate my skills at analingus and to further build on a process that is well and truly focked. Despite the current difficulties with my partner Peter, I am determined without being a bitch, that somebody round here will provide stinking political leadership for a failed British Scum State."

Saturday, 19 April 2014

NEWRY SOUTH ARMAGH RSF WARN McGUINNESS AS SPY SHOT DEAD

Irish Republican News · April 19, 2014

McGuinness told ‘stay away’ over banquet controversy

Sinn Fein has been urged to stay away from Easter commemorations after Martin McGuinness attended a royal banquet and toasted England’s queen, Elizabeth Windsor.

The Six-County Deputy First Minister infuriated republicans last week at the event at Windsor Castle in honour of 26-County president Michael D Higgins.The strongly worded statement by Republican Sinn Fein (RSF) accuses McGuinness of being a “lackey of her majesty”
In advert placed in weekly newspapers in the Newry and south Armagh areas, it said the RSF message was directed “to the Provos and their leader Martin McGuinness”.
“Stay away from the graves of our departed Irish Republican Volunteers,” it read.
“Your presence and that of your ‘dressed-up’ Brit-loving leader, is a contamination of the sacred places, where the hunger strikers and our other revered patriots rest.
“The Provo leader... was seen lately on TV wearing full evening uniform of white tie and tails, toasting his queen”
“He is not an Irish republican but a very highly paid lackey of her majesty”.
The statement is signed by Republican Sinn Fein Newry and south Armagh.
RSF is one of a number of republican groups who will hold Easter Rising commemorations at republican plots across Ireland this weekend.
The party was formed in 1986 by a number of people who left Sinn Fein in protest at the decision to allow members to take their seats in the 26-County parliament in Dublin.
The organisation’s main commemorations at Milltown cemetery in west Belfast on Sunday will be addressed by party leader Des Dalton. A spokesperson said the leadership had no issue with the sentiments expressed in the advert.
But Sinn Fein Newry and Armagh MP Conor Murphy claimed the advert was “pathetic”.
“They represent no-one and indeed the only time you hear of them is when they put an ad containing an anti-Sinn Fein rant into the local papers once a year,” he said. “It’s really rather pathetic.”
ROYAL AFTERSHOCKSIn a wider debate over the state visit, socialists have criticised the “fawning” by Ireland’s ruling classes over English royalty and royal ceremonies.
Over 50 journalists and crew were dispatched from Dublin by Irish state-run broadcaster RTE to cover the state visit, which received relatively little attention in the British media. Coverage of the event in the mainstream newspapers was strongly sycophantic.
Commentator Eamonn McCan said that the state visit was not about “cementing relations”, but about the Irish elite celebrating their acceptance into an upper layer of society.
“They believe they have now been liberated from any need to pretend dislike for the flummery and pomp which deep down – not all that deep, as a matter of fact – they have envied and aspired to,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, historians have also railed against the Dublin government’s attempts to use the state visit as a springboard for a new anti-nationalist programme, including an ‘Anglo-Irish’ commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising -- the event which directly led to the independence of the 26 County state from British rule.
In two years time, events to mark the centenary of the Rising and the executions of the 1916 leaders are set to include a British royal -- either the queen herself, or her son, Charles Windsor, the commander-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment.
Historian Prof Diarmaid Ferriter has questioned the decision, which he said had bypassed an expert advisory group on the centenary which the government itself had appointed.
He said he was concerned that the presence of the British royal family will end up “distorting history quite significantly”.
“I’m worried that we are heading towards something that is full of holes as to the historical reality at the time,” he said.

Irish Republican News · April 19, 2014

Former CIRA man shot dead in west Belfast

A man expelled from the Continuity IRA for criminal activity was shot dead yesterday [Friday] at a diesel depot he operated.

Three men ran from a car and opened fire on Tommy Crossan in a daylight attack off the Springfield Road, shocking shoppers and mass-goers. The car used in the attack was found burned out a short distance away, at Beechmount Grove.Known as ‘Teflon Tommy’ for his ability to escape arrest despite openly trading in illegal fuel, Crossan was expelled from the Continuity IRA three years ago. There were allegations he was pocketing funds raised in the organisation’s name, and he was also accused of acting as an informer after the PSNI made a number of arms finds.
The dead man had been recently linked with a group which used the name ‘Irish Volunteers’ before it was ordered to disband by the larger breakaway group, Oglaigh na hEireann. Oglaigh na hEireann have been active recently and claimed responsibility for a unrelated attack at a licensed premises in north Belfast earlier this month.
The group said they were acting in response to “demand from the community” after allegations of criminality and anti-social activity in the vicinity of the bar. The statement said that “individuals frequenting the bar” had been warned about ongoing criminality but that had “gone unheeded”.
Despite facing death threats from a number of sources, Crossan remained active in the heart of west Belfast until Friday’s brazen attack.
The killing has been condemned by nationalist politicians. The SDLP’s Colin Keenan said there was a “real sense of shock”. “We have long hoped that the shadow of death had been lifted from west Belfast,” he said.
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness sympathised with the family of the dead man. “Nothing that is claimed by the criminals responsible can justify it,” he said.

Irish Republican News · April 11, 2014

High-profile arrests and prosecutions as OTR furore continues

Well-known loyalist Willie Frazer attempted to personally “arrest” a republican he alleged was ‘on the run’ from a conflict-related prosecution this week. The victims’ campaigner tried moved towards mourners at a funeral in County Down, but was blocked by a line of PSNI police.

Mr Frazer said he believed the man was among 187 republicans who received “letters of comfort”, telling them they were not wanted in connection with any crimes.“When I asked police and named him they said they weren’t aware of him being wanted for any crime,” he said. “I said if they didn’t want to arrest him then I would make a citizen’s arrest, but they wouldn’t let me up the road.”
Mr Frazer also complained about the number of police at the funeral. “I have been to large funerals before but I have never seen the number of police that were there yesterday,” he said.
Meanwhile, former PSNI chief Hugh Orde has denied that he came under pressure to release republican suspects following claims by retired senior RUC detective Norman Baxter of political “interference” in prosecutions.
Last week Baxter, notorious among republicans for engaging in ‘political policing’, ironically accused British officials in London of attempting to pervert the course of justice by asking for the release of republicans Vincent McAnespie and Gerry McGeough after their arrest in March 2007 for IRA actions in 1981. The request, Mr Baxter told a Westminster parliamentary committee, was prompted by a phone call by Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.
But Orde refuted the claims, and said that calls from Downing Street officials conveying complaints made by senior representatives from both sides of the political divide were frequent but “at no time did No 10 ever try to influence my decision making”.
He added that he would not have been surprised if Mr Adams had rung Downing Street to complain.
“It was not unusual for politicians of all sides to complain about what the police service was doing, both loyalist and republican,” he said.
OMAGH PROSECUTIONA spate of historical cases have been reopened in recent weeks amid the controversy over the letter given to OTRs. Most notably, County Monaghan republican Seamus Daly was this week charged in Armagh with involvement in the 1998 Omagh bombing. The bombing, directed at the commercial centre of the Tyrone market town, took one of the worst tolls in the history of the conflict when two telephoned warnings failed to clear the area around the bomb.
There have previously been two failed prosecutions against alleged members of the ‘Real IRA’ unit involved, despite their vehicle being tracked and mobile phones monitored as the attack was allowed to proceed.
A statement in 2008 by the former PSNI chief Hugh Orde indicated that no further prosecutions were likely in the case. One man, Colm Murphy, was previously tried, convicted, and then released after it was revealed that the Gardai forged interview notes used in the case. Mr Murphy’s nephew, Sean Hoey, was also tried and found not guilty.
FLORIDA CASE REOPENEDThe PSNI has also said they are to reinvestigate controversial claims that the Provisional IRA brought guns from the US into Ireland in the late 1990s. It follows a BBC Spotlight programme that alleged a senior member of Sinn Fein was involved in a gun-running operation from Florida.
It was alleged in the programme that Sean ‘Spike’ Murray, now a senior Sinn Fein strategist, was involved in smuggling guns before and after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Mr Murray has denied the allegations.
MCCONVILLE ARRESTMeanwhile, the sister of Sinn Fein Assembly member Fra McCann has been arrested in connection with the abduction of informer Jean McConville in December 1972. Geraldine Rogan was arrested at her west Belfast home before being released without charge. The PSNI said it is preparing a report for Crown prosecutors. Hers was the third such arrest in the case.

April 19, 2014

ANGLO BOSS GOES FREE

The disgraced chairman of Anglo Irish Bank has been cleared this week of hatching a highly illegal loans-for-shares plot months before the bank’s collapse. Two of his colleagues were found guilty.

British statement on the past angers victims

Theresa Villiers, who implements British Direct Rule in Ireland, has set out a sharply pro-unionist agenda for her government in dealing with the past conflict in the Six Counties.

Former CIRA man shot dead in west Belfast

A man expelled from the Continuity IRA for criminal activity was shot dead yesterday [Friday] at a diesel depot he operated.

McGuinness told ‘stay away’ over banquet controversy

Sinn Fein has been urged to stay away from Easter commemorations after Martin McGuinness attended a royal banquet and toasted England’s queen, Elizabeth Windsor.

Easter commemorations face PSNI harassment

Colour party uniforms belonging to Republican Sinn Fein due to be used during an annual easter commemoration in Lurgan this Saturday have been seized during police raids in Craigavon.

Loyalist racists confront Irish language demo

Loyalists greeted members of an Irish language rally last weekend with Nazi salutes.

Banquet gesture draws Tory hate

Efforts to boost reconciliation between the 26 County state and Britain during the formal visit to London by 26-County President Michael D Higgins were undermined by a leading Tory’s call this week for the murder of Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness.

Governments working together to manage Rising commemorations

The Dublin and London governments have signalled a major effort to combat nationalist sentiment in the run-up to the anniversary of the 1916 Rising following this week’s heavily promoted state visit to London by 26-County President Michael D Higgins.

UDA violence linked to Larne arrests

The unionist paramilitary UDA are understood to be planning riots this weekend in the town of Carrickfergus, in County Antrim following serious disturbances last night.

Belfast language protest as Irish speaker faces court

Recent protests over discrimination against Irish language speakers in the north of Ireland are to reach a climax on Saturday with a major demonstration through Belfast city centre.

High-profile arrests and prosecutions as OTR furore continues

Well-known loyalist Willie Frazer attempted to personally “arrest” a republican he alleged was ‘on the run’ from a conflict-related prosecution this week. The victims’ campaigner tried moved towards mourners at a funeral in County Down, but was blocked by a line of PSNI police.