SAOIRSE32

Indymedia Ireland

Irish facism in action

by Seamus O Raghallaigh
Thursday, Oct 6 2005, 5:09pm

A personal encounter with the Irish version of the Stasi- the special branch of an Garda Siochana.

Last Wednesday (5th Oct.) I decided to go into the Sinn Fein Phoblachta book shop at 223 Parnell Square (just down from the UCI cinema at the junction with Capel Street).
It was unplanned and spur of the moment. I look in the shop window and though it would be interesting to see what they had for sale. As I am also very interested in 1798 books and memorabilia I though this could be a good place to find more obscure publications that are hard to find in main stream book shops (Easons etc).

Anyway, I went in and browsed for a while and discovered a 1798 old song book which I was delighted to find. I had a chat with a nice lady there, Josephine, and discussed Wolfe Tone and the 1798 rebellion.

I then left with my books and had walked about 200m towards the cinema when an middle aged white/grey haired man in what I would describe as a flashers trench coat, approached me at a slight run. Stop he said and flashed out his gold garda badge. Here we go I though, should have know this would happen. He then asked me in an aggressive tone what my name was and where I lived. I was stunned frankly and replied that I wanted to know why he was requesting this from me. This wasn’t what he expected I think, as his tone suddenly got more menacing. He said that I was seen coming out of the Sinn Fein office and wanted to know what I was doing there. I said I went in to buy some books that’s all. Let me see he demanded. Hang on I said this is intimidation; I have a right to visit any book shop I want without this kind of abuse. Its not intimidation, he replied, and said that “they” are terrorists in that shop. Oh? I was under the impression that Sinn Fein Phoblachta was a legal political party I replied. No, he said, they aren’t legal.

This made me realize this guy was talking rubbish, which irritated me no end. I felt like asking him why the shop was open and allowed if they were illegal, surely the shop would have been closed long ago. I then said that my wife and child were waiting to collect me and that I need to go. He then threatened me by saying that they would be waiting 24hrs as he was going to arrest me under the “offences against the state” act that he and could hold me for 24hrs if I didn’t show him what I bought and give my name and address. Now I wasn’t sure if this was true or not, but I didn’t relish being arrested for a day for simply going into a book shop. I gave him my details and he then let me on my way. Does anyone know if this act allows citizens to be detained for 24hrs for not giving their details? Is this the type of fascist state we now live in Eire? If you go to the “wrong” book shop you will be stopped by the secretthought police aka the special branch. I though this ended with the fall of soviet style communism. I naively thought I had political freedom to visit the premises of any political party without fear of intimidation. Sad sad sad.

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BBC

The inquiry is thought to involve Dermot Craven and Thomas Murphy

Searches of 250 properties in Greater Manchester worth an estimated £30m and thought to be linked to the IRA are continuing after a series of raids.

The investigation is being led by the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA).

The action is thought to be linked to a probe into the affairs of Thomas “Slab” Murphy, widely considered to be head of the IRA, and businessman Dermot Craven.

Irish justice minister Michael McDowell vowed to track down those who “had control of the proceeds of crime”.

Documents were seized in the searches, which took place 10 days after the IRA put its weapons beyond use and on the day Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams met Prime Minister Tony Blair in Downing Street.

But Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the timing of the raids was coincidental and insisted the ARA acted independently from the government.

Mr Adams said he did not believe the raids would affect the political process.

Mr McDowell said police from both sides of the border in Ireland were cooperating with the Criminal Assets Bureau and the ARA.

He added: “It’s not simply what happens in this island [Ireland]. It’s people who transfer assets abroad to be outside the reach of the long arm of the law.”

Mr McDowell, an outspoken critic of the IRA, insisted London and Dublin were working together to track down illegal assets.

He said political developments would not “airbrush” questions of the “proceeds of criminality” and the “massive portfolio of assets” allegedly held by many people involved with paramilitaries.

One of the premises raided was in Sale, Greater Manchester

DUP leader Ian Paisley welcomed the raids but said they were “a bit late in the day”.

He told BBC News: “I trust that soon these people will be brought to the courts, have British justice applied to them - and removed from our society, which they’ve cursed far too long,” he added.

Among the premises searched were Craven Properties in Britannia Road, Sale - part of Mr Craven’s Craven Group - his home, Craven House, in South Downs Road, Bowdon, and a block of flats in Sale.

The operation is understood to have originated in Northern Ireland and then extended to the Republic and the rest of the UK.

An ARA statement said: “The agency has so far identified approximately 250 properties held by both persons and a number of property management companies.

Documents have been seized from business and domestic premises

“The equity in the properties appears to be in the region of £9m.”

An ARA spokeswoman said it was an investigation against assets, not individuals or companies.

Murphy lost a libel case against The Sunday Times in 1998, after the newspaper described him as a prominent IRA member.

The authorities on both sides of the border have been investigating him for years.

Murphy describes himself as a County Louth farmer. The family property is in an area straddling the border with the Irish Republic at Hackballscross.

Irish Examiner

06 October 2005
By Alan Erwin

MURDERED ex-loyalist terror boss Jim Gray was shot five times in the back after being tricked into dropping his guard, it emerged last night.
He was assassinated as he shifted weightlifting gear from the boot of a car outside his father’s home in East Belfast.

A former business associate is among four men being questioned. Two women were also held after police found gun parts in a car stopped later, security sources said.

It is believed men trusted by Gray, 47, had agreed to meet him at the house where he was ordered to live while out on bail, accused of money laundering offences.

Details emerged as the security forces prepared for the deposed Ulster Defence Association commander’s funeral in the city later this week. Police have carried out tests on five bullets fired into Gray as he stopped to remove dumb-bells.

The 6ft 3in gangster, nicknamed Doris Day because of his flamboyant love of designer clothes, bleach blonde hair and heavy tan, was a fitness fanatic. During his terror reign, he had amassed plenty of enemies, and with police probing his financial affairs, former loyalist allies were desperate to silence him.

As police chiefs blamed the UDA for murdering Gray, loyalists claimed he provoked his own death by returning to East Belfast after being freed on bail.

One said: “He was sticking two fingers up at the organisation and there’s nobody bigger than the organisation.

“Once he got out and flaunted himself, coming back to live in a community where he wreaked havoc for years, his fate was sealed.”

Even though detectives had warned him he was under threat several times since he was thrown out of the UDA in March, Chief Constable Hugh Orde stressed no protection was given to him. But police who had charged him with money laundering did fear he would be killed after he was allowed out of jail.

BreakingNews.ie

06/10/2005 - 16:11:03

Republican and Unionist leaders today travelled to Downing Street in London to meet with the British Prime Minister.

DUP leader Ian Paisley presented Tony Blair with 64 pages of fresh demands ahead of the restoration of devolved government to the North.

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams described the talks as crucially important. Emerging from Number Ten, he contrasted the DUP’s refusal to share power with the blind eye being turned to loyalist criminals.

“The DUP has no problem sitting on commissions and other bodies with the representatives of Unionist paramilitaries which are currently engaged in campaigns of violence and yet appears to be casting about for excuses not to be part of the institutions which they are mandated to serve in,” he said.

BreakingNews.ie

06/10/2005 - 12:11:12

Robert Holohan

The 20-year-old man accused of murdering Co Cork schoolboy Robert Holohan has succeeded in having his trial delayed until next month.

Wayne O’Donoghue, from Ballyedmond in Middleton, is accused of murdering his 11-year-old neighbour close to both their homes in January of this year.

The youngster’s body was found near Inch Strand on January 12th, eight days after he disappeared while out riding his bicycle.

Mr O’Donoghue was due to go on trial later this month, but his legal team sought more time today to prepare their case.

The presiding judge approved the application and set November 29th as the new start date for the trial.

BreakingNews.ie

06/10/2005 - 14:01:10

Three alleged Real IRA members were arrested after a major garda surveillance organisation against the dissident terrorist organisation, the Special Criminal Court was told today.

The court heard that members of the Special Detective Unit and the Crime and Security Branch were involved in the four day surveillance operation on the alleged Real IRA members.

Prosecuting counsel Mr Tom O’ Connell SC told the court that detectives found eight timer devices which could have “both a legitimate and sinister purpose’’ in a bag in the boot of a car they stopped outside Edgeworthstown in Co Longford.

It was the opening day of the trial of three men who have denied membership of an illegal organisation.

Adrian Kirwan,25, a native of Ballymun in Dublin, with an address at Ardilaun Green, Ballymahon Road, Mullingar, Co Westmeath and Colum Wiggins,24, of Annagry, Letterkenny, Co Donegal each pleaded not guilty to membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on December 5th last year.

Sean Connolly,26, of Bernard Curtis House, Bluebell, Dublin denied membership of an illegal organisation on December 14th.

Mr O’ Connell said that the membership charges referred to the dates that the men were arrested. He said the main prosecution evidence against the men would be the opinion evidence of Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Kelly that Kirwan and Connolly were members and the opinion evidence of Chief Superintendent Noel B. White that Wiggins was a member on the dates in question.

Mr O’ Connell said that the men were alleged to be members of the faction of the IRA known as the Real IRA.

He said that the Special Detective Unit and the Crime and Security Branch monitored Wiggins arriving in Dublin from Letterkenny by bus on December 2nd and meeting the accused Kirwan. Wiggins was observed staying at Kirwan’s house in Mullingar for a number of nights and also meeting Connolly in a laneway in Inchicore.

When detectives stopped Kirwan’s car on outside Edgeworthstown on December 5th they arrested Kirwan and Wiggins and found eight timers in a bag in the car boot.

Mr O’ Connell said Detective Garda John Higgins of the Ballistics Section would give evidence that the timers could be used for both legitimate and sinister purposes.

The court would also hear evidence that the timers were purchased by the accused Connolly at a shop in Rialto. When gardaí searched Kirwan’s home they found a number of firearms manuals, including a US Army sniper training manual and on a computer they found a file containing information in relation to the assembly and operation of an AK 47 rifle.

The trial is continuing.

Irelandclick.com

The Love Ulster campaign says it’s going to hold a parade and rally at the City Hall on Saturday, October 29. Squinter is pleased to pass on a leaked programme of events that arrived on his desk in a brown envelope this morning. Squinter can exclusively reveal that the BBC have confirmed that the rally will be broadcast live and, at the request of their union, cameramen will be provided with helmets and flak jackets with ‘TV’ written on the front in white tape.
11am Open air prayer service outside Norman’s Bargain Beers & Wines on lower Shankill
11.30am Blessing of the petrol bombs and swords by Rev Major Simpson Gibson, patron of the Keep Ulster Lit society
Noon: Proceed to City Hall via Whiterock Road, Suffolk, Ardoyne shops and Short Strand (In keeping with the Love Ulster pledge to keep the parade orderly and responsible, stewards, quartermasters, medics and stretcher-bearers will have easily identifiable armbands)
2pm: Assemble City Hall for speeches…
i) Grand Lodge Vizier Hamilton Turkington McClurg on ‘How I suddenly turned from a plain-speaking, proud and honest Ulsterman into a pathetic, whingeing, clueless, headless chicken’
ii) Thompson Wilson, Democratic Official Unionist Party, MP, MEP, LLB, FTP on ‘I’m not delighted that Jim Gray had his brains blown out in front of his old dad, but I can certainly see why some people might be’
iii) Davy McIlbelcher, Progressive Unionist Party (Upper Shankill Lenny Murphy memorial branch), on ‘Protestants have finally learned that violence pays’
iv) Sammy Macoinring of the Ulster Political Research Group on ‘Catholics have got everything while we’ve got nothing’ (Copies of this keynote address can be had by writing to Sammy at The Gables, 4 Sandy Lane, the Cayman Islands, West Caribbean, or on his website at www.investmentsolutions.com)
6pm: Programme of cultural events
i) Scottish sword dancing display (PSNI members attend at own risk)
ii) Pipes and drums (Parents should note we mean pipe bombs and oil drums)
iii) The Protestant Unionist Loyalist Young Boys True Blue Dolly’s Brae Prod Ulster Defenders will play a medley of tunes including ‘No More Room for Writing on My Grandad’s Ulster Drum’.
iv) The Ulster Scots poet and former UDA brigadier Tommy ‘Knuckles’ Normanson will read extracts from his latest collection (which is believed to have been £200 quid from the Chinese, £50 from the wee sweetie shop and £1,000 from the building site). His acclaimed poem, Ulster, Mah Ulster, recently won the prestigious Timberland poetry prize. Here’s a short extract…
Shaved heids, muscles, cashmere, earrings, jewellery, the Titanic,
Hoots mon, it’s just hit me, the UDA’s in a homosexual panic.
v) DJ Stewarty presents techno-trance mix (drugs strictly forbidden, except from franchised outlets)

Irelandclick.com

The PSNI this week stormed the house of a Clonard man, kicking in his door and searching his house – with a warrant for someone else.

Gerard Austin, son of veteran republican Joe Austin and Lower Falls Sinn Féin Councillor Janice Austin, was angered when the PSNI aggressively conducted a search of his Lower Clonard Street house and removed a photograph picturing two of his friends and himself.

PSNI officers arrived at Mr Austin’s house in four Land Rovers and two cars, dressed in blue boiler suits, on Sunday morning at 10.50am.

“I had opened the inside door of the porch and was about to open the front door. The cop saw me through the glass but still kicked the door in, breaking the lock and the door panel,” said Mr Austin.

A PSNI officer produced a search warrant claiming that it provided the authority required to search the premises, however it named a person other than Mr Austin.

He informed them that the person named on the warrant did not live there, and that the person was unknown to him.

At this stage a PSNI officer informed Mr Austin that the correct address on the warrant was enough to support a legal search and that they did not need the correct name.

The officers would not tell him if the search was conducted in connection with either a criminal or paramilitary-related incident. The officers proceeded to search his house, as he protested.

Before the PSNI left the house they asked Mr Austin to sign a statement outlining, amongst other things, that they had not searched his house. He refused to sign the statement.

A sinister development to the incident came after the officers had left the house. Mr Austin realised that two photographs that he had left in his living room that morning had been removed. The photographs were of Mr Austin and two friends from County Tyrone, one of whom is very anxious about this development.

Mr Austin believes that the security forces have been involved in collusion in the past and is suspicious of the PSNI’s motives for taking the photographs.

“I have concerns over the removal of the photographs because I don’t know whose hands they are going to fall into.

“I have been a victim in the past of loyalist attacks. In 1992 I was in my parents’ house when the UDA carried out a bomb attack, and that was only weeks after an RUC raid,” said Mr Austin.

“Nothing has changed since then except for the name. It is the same force.”

A PSNI spokesperson said, “A number of searches were carried out in relation to the passing of counterfeit notes in a shop in Dundonald on October 1. On information received, police went to an address at Lower Clonard Street to carry out a search on Sunday morning, however the search was not completed.”

Journalist:: Damien McCarney

Irelandclick.com

Girl too traumatised to tell her mum. She typed ordeal, ‘handed me the sheet and ran upstairs.’

(photofit of rapist

The mother of a 15-year-old girl who was raped on the Glen Road has spoken to the Andersonstown News about her family’s determination to bring to justice the man who “tried to destroy” her child.

The distraught West Belfast woman, who’s not being named in order to protect the identity of her daughter, made a heartfelt plea for help from the local community.

“What’s happened can’t be changed,” she said. “All I can do now is beg local people to go to the police with whatever information they might have.

“No matter how insignificant they think it might be, no matter what their loyalties are, I’m pleading with local people – try and understand how devastating this is for our family and help us bring this man to justice. I’m absolutely convinced this man will strike again in the future if we don’t catch him.”

The teenager was attacked on the Glen Road at about 9pm on September 23 – a Friday night.

The teenager had visited shops opposite St Teresa’s Church and had crossed the Glen Road when a man in his thirties shouted at her from behind.

Ignoring his shouts, she pretended to be on the phone as she walked past the church, but the man grabbed her from behind and close to railings at St Teresa’s Primary School. A struggle ensued before he dragged her into bushes in the grounds of the nearby Glenmonagh Resource Centre (formerly St Patrick’s Training School) and raped her.

Described as being in his late 30s, of chubby build and with dark hair, the girl also said his breath smelt of alcohol and he was wearing Joop aftershave.

Police said he had a distinctive short, bushy moustache, bushy eyebrows and two dents on either side of his nose suggesting he may wear glasses.
His right ear was pierced and he spoke with a local accent.

Following the attack, the traumatised girl eventually confided in a close friend, but refused to tell her family or go to the police.

“I could tell something was wrong,” said her mother. “She wouldn’t go to school on the Monday, she wouldn’t eat, she didn’t seem to be sleeping – she looked absolutely exhausted. She’d gone from being a bubbly, talkative, confident wee girl to this quiet person that I hardly recognised. I kept asking her what was wrong, but she just said she was sick.

“Her daddy said he passed her room on the Friday night and she was just sitting on her bed in the dark staring into space. He asked her what was wrong but she wouldn’t say. She told me later that she was sitting there wanting to die – wishing she was dead.

“Her wee friend told her last Wednesday that if she didn’t tell me, he would.
“But she couldn’t speak the words to me. She went into school last Thursday and typed out on a computer what happened to her and printed it out. When she came home, she handed me the sheet and ran up the stairs.”

Unable to describe the pain of reading the details of her daughter’s attack, the mother said simply: “I can’t forgive myself. I feel like I let her down, and the only way I can stop feeling like this is to put every last drop of energy I have into bringing this animal to justice.

“Her father’s taken it really bad too. He blames himself for not being there, her older brother blames himself for being out that night. We’re all blaming ourselves, but we’ll get through this for her sake. We’ll see this man put behind bars for her sake.”

Her mother described the local schoolgirl before the attack as being “a brilliant wee girl who got all A’s and B’s in her exams and had no interest in boys yet – she had never even had a boyfriend.”

The girl has been offered counselling, but declined. “I think she’s not ready for it,” says her mother. “She’s been through too much – having to go through intimate examinations at that age, to be tested for STDs. It’s horrific.”

The girl was brought to County Meath by her father yesterday in an effort to take her mind off the events of the last fortnight.

Her mother says the family would consider moving to Meath if the teenager was willing.

“I don’t want to stay around here any more,” she said. “I have three more girls to rear and I want to protect them. This place is a disgrace – there’s no law and order any more, and there won’t be until this community comes together to stamp out this sort of thing. No mother should have to go through what I have. No 15-year-old should have to go through what my daughter has. When is it going to stop?”

The mother said she plans to join a rally on Friday night in protest at the rise in anti-social behaviour and sexual attacks in the area.

The ‘Reclaim the Streets’ rally is supported by the Falls Community Council, the Safer Neighbourhood Project, Community Restorative Justice and the Andersonstown Community Network. Anyone wishing to attend can join the protest at the Falls Community Council at 5.30pm.

The Andersonstown News can also reveal that the PSNI have taken CCTV footage from local shops as part of their investigation into the rape.

Journalist:: Laura McDaid

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
06 October 2005

Pressure was increasing on the Government today to toughen up its proposals for dealing with IRA fugitives.

With the Conservatives already lining up opposition in the Lords, Alliance Party criticism has signalled that the Liberal Democrats could also stand against the proposals.

Legislation dealing with the fugitives - known as ‘on the runs’ or OTRs - is due to be introduced at Westminster later this month.

Under proposals published two years ago, the fugitives - including various Maze escapers, former MP Owen Carron and Sinn Fein’s US representative Rita O’Hare - would be allowed back into Northern Ireland if they apply to a quasi-judicial process.

The crimes they are wanted for would be reviewed at a hearing, but they would not be required to appear.

Opponents say that it amounts to an amnesty.

Earlier this week, shadow Secretary of State David Lidington told a Tory party conference meeting that the Conservatives will oppose the measure as it stands.

While the Government still has a commanding majority in the House of Commons, the legislation could run into difficulty in the Lords.

Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers could combine with cross benchers to make passage of the legislation difficult.

Alliance leader David Ford told Secretary of State Peter Hain that his party opposes the current proposals during a meeting at Hillsborough Castle on Tuesday night.

“Our concern is that OTRs will be dealt with in a way that is not a general amnesty,” said Mr Ford.

“But my impression is that what has been promised is an amnesty.”

He said his party wants the Government to treat the OTRs the same as early release prisoners - making their freedom dependent on good behaviour.

“When you consider the pain that early release caused, allowing OTRs anything less than that is unacceptable.

He said Mr Hain has offered his party a meeting with Criminal Justice Minister David Hanson before the legislation is published.

Belfast Telegraph

‘Arrogant ex-UDA boss signed his own death warrant’

By Jonathan McCambridge
06 October 2005

Milltown murderer Michael Stone today claimed slain loyalist Jim Gray “signed his own death warrant” by becoming a supergrass prepared to betray his former UDA friends.

In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, killer Stone - once a close associate of Gray - said the former UDA leader’s arrogance and refusal to stay in prison led to him being gunned down in east Belfast this week.

Detectives are still holding six people over the murder of the flamboyant former brigadier known as ‘Doris Day’, who was shot five times in the back on Tuesday night.

Michael Stone, convicted of six murders, including three at Milltown Cemetery, recalled one occasion when Gray told him he “was a businessman rather than a loyalist”.

Gray was at the killer’s side at a loyalist rally at the UIster Hall in 1998 when Stone was on temporary release from the Maze.

When Stone was later released under the Good Friday Agreement in 2000, Gray was at the prison to greet him.

But their relationship later soured and Stone was forced to leave east Belfast as he believed Gray wanted him dead.

He said: “I knew Gray since he was young. His father is a gentleman but there was always something strange about Jim - wearing slacks and shoes with no socks, even in winter.

“I would be a hypocrite if I said I was surprised he is dead - what goes around comes around.

“He never pulled a trigger in his life but he got where he was by bullying people and ordering them around. He didn’t do anything but he knew a lot.

“I know for sure he was a supergrass and that signed his death warrant. He thought by talking and giving evidence he would be allowed to hold on to some of his cash abroad.

“He once told me he was a businessman, not a loyalist. He said loyalism doesn’t pay the bills.

“There will be so many suspects because Gray double-crossed just about everybody he came into contact with. Police will be looking at a long list of people. You could look at it as a bit of internal house-keeping.”

Gray was stood down as UDA east Belfast commander earlier this year. Shortly afterwards he was arrested by police and charged with money laundering offences.

Stone said: “The cops lifted him for his own protection. He knew that by going on remand he would be staying alive.

“He knew it was coming but his arrogance meant he kept going for bail and when he came out he was going to bars and Chinese restaurants on the Newtownards Road right up to the end as if he owned the place.

“He got where he was by bullying and bluffing. He was never a loyalist.”

Newshound

(Brian Feeney, Irish News)

Weapons decommissioning and the end of all IRA activity have certainly caused a right old stir.

Not here, where the reaction has been all too predictable with the DUP running round like headless chickens isolated from the real world in their own wee hen run.

No, the IRA going out of business caused a lot of fluttering in another chicken coop. All last week southern politicians were falling over themselves to predict what the outcome of the next election in the Republic will be.

Sinn Féin’s Dublin ‘Make Partition History’ rally certainly put the wind up some Fianna Fail people.

Seamus Brennan, bearer of the peculiar title of minister for social affairs, was even moved to remind FF members that the party should “not feel guilty” about saying it stands for a united Ireland.

Hardly a ringing endorsement of the policy from the self-proclaimed ‘republican party’.

He added that FF has “hidden or played down this aspiration because the taoiseach wanted to make progress in the north”. Hmm. Does that mean they kept the policy secret from the DUP?

Maybe he thinks the DUP didn’t know? Or worse, did FF pretend it didn’t have that policy any more?

Brennan then went and gave away the real motive for his speech by pointing out that it was also a ‘message to Sinn Féin’.

Brennan of course was taking his cue from the taoiseach who told the party faithful in Cavan that unity was “the basis of Fianna Fail’s being and our guiding star”.

You don’t suppose this would have something to do with the recent polls which show first, that the Republic’s electorate is just beginning to edge towards preferring a change of government and secondly, that SF’s support is steady around eight to10 per cent, more than twice as much as Fianna Fail’s coalition partner, the PDs? Just a coincidence?

Several commentators and election pundits believe that with decommissioning and the end of IRA activity SF would be likely to double its Dail representation in the next general election.

That poses the central question, would FF then go into coalition with SF to stave off Fine Gael and Labour?

No, said Bertie, because SF’s economic policy was incompatible with Fianna Fail’s and besides, it was ambivalent about the EU which is stupid because of the vast sums of cash Ireland receives from Brussels. A coalition couldn’t last five days he said, let alone the five-year life of a government.

Take all that with a large pinch of salt. As always Bertie spoke very carefully, though he seems not to. He knows very well that Sinn Féin’s economic policy in 2007 will be very different from what people say it is now. In fact Dessie Ellis of Sinn Féin told RTE last week that SF is in the process of “developing” its policy. Watch them steal FF’s clothes.

Secondly, while SF opposed the Nice treaty and rejects the doomed Euro constitution, along, it may be said with the voters of France, Denmark and Britain, they do not oppose the existence of the EU or Ireland’s membership.

Notice also that Bertie said nothing about accepting support from Sinn Féin in a minority government without entering a formal coalition. There is also a range of other permutations involving the Independents. All of which really means you’re looking at the opening gambits of all the Republic’s parties in the jockeying before the next general elections and included as a player on the national stage for the first time since 1922 is Sinn Féin.

It has to be so because if, as predicted, SF win nine or 10 seats, that number of TDs can’t be ignored in a Dail of 166. When you need 83 votes to be taoiseach any 10 will make a massive difference.

The Dail assembled after the summer break last Wednesday and the race is on.

Fianna Fail faces difficult choices. Do they try to out-republican Sinn Féin?

An impossible task and a foolish policy.

Do they try to repudiate the awful PDs and blame them for all the uncaring failures of the government in health and education?

Or do they try to make friends with SF because they know they won’t be able to form a government on their own?

If all that doesn’t give the DUP food for thought, nothing will.

October 6, 2005
________________

This article appeared first in the October 5, 2005 edition of the Irish News.

The Boston Globe

Ex-UDA leader slain in street by gunmen

By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff
October 6, 2005

Even as peace is breaking out in Northern Ireland, there are a handful of men for whom the question is not if they will be killed, but when.

By many accounts, 47-year-old Jim Gray was one of those men.

As commander of the East Belfast brigade of the Ulster Defense Association, a loyalist paramilitary group, Gray struck fear in Catholics, who were surrounded by hostile Protestants in a neighborhood whose lost privilege is symbolized by the cranes of the formerly bustling shipyards that still dominate the horizon. Since its creation in 1971, the UDA has killed about 400 people, most of them Catholics chosen at random.

Gray, whose nickname, ‘’Doris Day,” drew on his loud clothing, garishly dyed blond hair and year-round tan that made him stand out in a city of sartorial conservatism and pasty complexions, was also an alleged drug dealer and racketeer. Such activity historically has been tolerated in loyalist circles until there was a falling out with the powers that be.

Since he was expelled from the UDA last spring, Gray’s days were numbered. His survival was chalked up mostly to his having been in jail from April until a few weeks ago, when he was freed on bail to await trial on charges of laundering drug money.

So it was far from shocking for many in East Belfast who looked out their windows Tuesday night and saw Gray’s body lying beneath a blood-stained white sheet. He may have known the two men with guns who witnesses said approached him outside his house. They certainly knew him.

The police officer leading the investigation into the slaying, Superintendent George Hamilton, said Gray may have been killed by erstwhile comrades-in-arms. There is a long tradition within the UDA, especially in East Belfast, of internecine warfare.

Gray’s path to power was paved by the assassination of the UDA commander in whose image he seemed to be created: Jim Craig. Like Gray, Craig was constantly tanned from frequent visits to locales far sunnier than Belfast, and invariably involved in some criminal enterprise that had nothing to do with keeping Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom.

In 1988, after his friends concluded that Craig had been helping their enemies in the Irish Republican Army to kill off loyalist rivals, the UDA lured Craig to an East Belfast pub with the promise of fencing a large consignment of stolen jewelry. Craig had a pint of beer in his hand when his assassins opened fire.

After Craig’s killing, William ‘’Billy” Elliott became UDA brigadier in East Belfast. But after his arrest, Elliott feared he would be branded an informer and bumped off like Craig. Upon his release from jail, Elliott simply up and left Belfast.

Craig’s sudden demise and Elliott’s equally sudden departure made Gray’s rise in the UDA leadership especially meteoric. In their book, ‘’UDA: Inside The Heart of Loyalist Terror,” Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald note that Gray ‘’looked more like an aging New Romantic than the leader of a terrorist group.”

Yesterday, Cusack recalled that Gray was an accomplished golfer whose grasp of the game did not extend to its emphasis on sportsmanship: Gray was banned from the Ormeau Golf Club in Belfast after he beat up someone who had bested him on the course.

While some loyalist leaders tried to emulate the IRA by calling cease-fires and promoting a political approach to ending the conflict, Cusack said, Gray was an old-fashioned sectarian racketeer who used the cover of ‘’the cause” to fund a comfortable lifestyle amid a growing sea of poverty in East Belfast, where the guaranteed jobs in the shipyards and factories disappeared.

‘’He was forever going off to Spain,” Cusack said in a telephone interview. ‘’He had property in Spain.”

He had enemies in Belfast. Geordie Legge, a UDA member, had openly complained about the way Gray and the East Belfast brigade were making money and living large. One night in 2001, Legge was abducted from the same East Belfast pub where Craig was killed. When police found Legge’s disfigured body in a field the next day, it showed signs of torture.

Johnny ‘’Mad Dog” Adair, leader of the UDA’s feared ‘’C” company of West Belfast, held Gray responsible for Legge’s murder, and there are some who believe it was that grudge that led to an assassination attempt on Gray the following year. Adair himself was driven out of Belfast last year by UDA feuding.

Cusack said many loyalists suspected Gray was a police informer. That suspicion intensified after Gray was thrown out of the UDA.

Yesterday, police arrested six people for questioning in Gray’s killing. Cusack said police also want to question an East Belfast man who some believe could have been behind Gray’s slaying. It is the same man who was suspected of but never charged with being one of the assassins who gunned down Craig in the Bunch of Grapes pub in East Belfast 17 years ago.

BBC

Thomas Murphy is widely considered to be head of the IRA

Properties worth £30m and thought to be linked to the IRA are being targeted by an asset recovery team in Manchester.

Searches have identified about 250 properties linked to two businessmen, which are being investigated by the Assets Recovery Agency (ASA).

It is thought to follow an inquiry into the business and financial affairs of Thomas “Slab” Murphy, who is widely considered to be the head of the IRA.

Police were also raiding at least two businesses in Greater Manchester.

Property groups

Greater Manchester Police confirmed they were raiding a property in Britannia Road, Sale, in connection with the ARA investigation.

The business property raided was Craven Properties and Craven Group with the name Dermot Craven on the door.

Police were also raiding a second business premises, Craven House on South Downs Road in Bowden, Greater Manchester.

The ARA searches were carried out on business and domestic premises and documents seized.

An ARA statement said: “The agency has so far identified approximately 250 properties held by both persons and a number of property management companies.

“The equity in the properties appears to be in the region of £9m.”

Libel defeat

The raids followed a High Court application for search and seizure warrants.

Murphy lost a libel case against The Sunday Times in 1998, after the newspaper described him as a prominent IRA member.

The authorities on both sides of the border have been investigating him for years.

Murphy describes himself as a County Louth farmer. The family property is in an area straddling the border with the Irish Republic at Hackballscross.

Guardian

Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Thursday October 6, 2005
The Guardian

Police investigating the assassination of Northern Ireland’s most flamboyant loyalist godfather believe he was killed by his former comrades in the Ulster Defence Association. Jim Gray, whose year-round Florida tan and bouffant blond hair inspired his nickname, Doris Day, was shot dead on Tuesday night outside his father’s home in east Belfast. Less than three weeks earlier he had been released from prison on bail while awaiting trial on money laundering charges.

Four men and two women were being questioned by police last night after searches in Belfast.

Gray, 47, a former east Belfast UDA brigadier and drug dealer, symbolised the brazen gangsterism of paramilitary commanders. A star on the loyalist golfing circuit who loved to pull out wads of £50 notes from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirts, he was a cocaine user who allegedly played a part in planning the murders of two prominent loyalist rivals. He thought nothing of battering people who got in his way, once beating up a man at an outdoor Rod Stewart concert. Dripping in gold jewellery, the “Brigadier of Bling” had property in Spain, where he would travel on a monthly basis to oversee smuggling rackets. He took Caribbean cruises and holidayed in Thailand - his 19-year-old son, JJ, was found dead from a suspected drugs overdose during one such trip with him.

In March the UDA expelled Gray, deciding his brazen criminality had become a liability and amounted to “treason”.

Police continued to gather evidence on the east Belfast council estate where he was shot at point-blank range by two gunmen at his father’s home, where he had been ordered to stay while on bail.

The Alliance party had written to the lord chief justice demanding justification for what it said was the “crazy decision” to release Gray on bail when he was clearly under a death threat.

Police said they had given him several warnings of death threats but he was not under 24-hour police protection.

It was unclear yesterday whether the murder was sanctioned by the UDA leadership as an act of internal “housekeeping”, or whether it was a personal hit. Many of his old associates feared he was about to turn supergrass. If the killing is found to have been ordered by the UDA leadership it will put the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, under pressure to review the group’s ceasefire.

The killing is not expected to reignite a bloody UDA feud. Gray was isolated and his few remaining cronies have been warned against turning up at his funeral.