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| Britain |
| Irish Governemnt: Adams and McGuinness are members of IRA's army council |
| 2005-02-21 |
| Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were accused last night of being members of the IRA's ruling army council by the Irish government. The Irish justice minister, Michael McDowell, named Mr Adams, the Sinn Féin president, and Mr McGuinness, the chief negotiator - who are both MPs - as well as the Sinn Féin member of the Irish parliament for Kerry North, Martin Ferris, as members of the IRA's ruling army council. There have been suggestions from others that the three men were involved at the top of the IRA, but Mr McDowell is the first to make the direct accusation. He told Dublin's Today FM: "We're talking about a small group of people, including a number of elected representatives, who run the whole [republican] movement. We are talking about Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams, Martin Ferris and others." Mr McGuinness, who served two jail terms for IRA membership in the mid-1970s, said the claim was a politically motivated attempt to criminalise Sinn Féin. But the Irish foreign minister, Dermot Ahern, said: "We're absolutely satisfied that the leadership of Sinn Féin and the IRA are interlinked. They're two sides of the one coin." The republican movement is reeling from the worst crisis it has faced in years following Irish police raids which netted more than £2.3m linked by officers to a money-laundering ring. Northern Ireland's chief constable, Hugh Orde, said yesterday the IRA had planted £50,000 in stolen Northern Bank notes in the toilet of a police sports club to divert attention from the investigation into republican money-laundering in the Irish Republic. The banknotes, in five shrink-wrapped £10,000 bundles, were this weekend the first notes confirmed to have surfaced from the £26.5m stolen from the Northern Bank vaults in Belfast in December, the biggest bank robbery in UK history, which police have blamed on the IRA. The notes were found in a toilet at Newforge country club in south Belfast, a leisure centre used by police, after a man claiming to be a police officer contacted the police ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan. Mr Orde said: "It's a distraction. It's people trying to take the focus off the key issue which is the operation run by the garda and the major crime inquiry we still have ongoing _ Places like sports clubs have become far more open; it was an easy thing to do _ I'm not particularly impressed by it, but I did ask them to give the money back _ and they have started to listen." Sinn Féin has denied that the IRA was involved in the Northern Bank robbery and last night vowed it would "weather the storm". It faces the possibility of financial sanctions from the government tomorrow. Mr Adams warned yesterday of a "campaign of vilification" against his party. |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #1 I thought it was common knowledge that McGuinness was the IRA boss man? |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2005-02-21 7:34:05 AM |