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BBC

Andre Shoukri is due to appear in court on Saturday

The leader of the UDA in north Belfast has been charged with blackmail, intimidation and money laundering.

Andre Shoukri, 28, was arrested earlier this week following a series of police searches in the Westland estate in the north of the city and Castlereagh.

Another 36-year-old man has also been charged with blackmail, intimidation, money laundering and possession of a firearm in connection with the raids.

Both men will appear at Belfast Magistrates Court on Saturday.

Derry Journal

Friday 11th November 2005

A Dungiven man has said he is ‘totally disgusted’ at the way he was treated after he was stopped entering the United States last week and pressurised into becoming an informer for the PSNI. The man, Sean Devine, also said he is deeply perturbed at the extent of the surveillance he must have been kept under in order for the security services to know so much about him.
Mr. Devine said that he had been involved in work for republican prisoners in Maghaberry but had never been before a court on any sort of charges. He told the Journal what happened: “I went to the US on Saturday and we landed at Newark airport. As I was waiting to go through all the usual checks this Customs man approached me in the line and asked me to come with him to another room. “I did so and this man came in and identified himself as an FBI agent. Then three other people identified themselves, one said he was ‘Stewarty’ from MI5, the other two identified themselves as ‘Declan’ and Mervyn from the PSNI. Mervyn spoke with a strong Derry accent.” Mr. Devine went on: “I was asked did I know why I was there and I told them I wanted a solicitor and an official from the Irish embassy. They ignored that and told me that they knew everything about me and that they wanted me to do something from them. They then named a load of republicans from Derry who they said they wanted me to inform on and as they put it ‘put them away for a long time.’
They started pressurising me and offered me a house in Lisbon and a large sum of money although they never actually produced any. They also said they could arrange for me to have a holiday anywhere in the world for a couple of weeks to allow me to think their offer over.” Mr. Devine continued: “They also told me that I was being refused entry to the United States but that if I agreed to ‘help’ them they could make a call to the White House and have a waiver issued which would allow me in.
“All during the questioning they kept telling me things which they could only have known from an extremely close surveillance. They mentioned that they waited in the Isle of Man for me to come there and that was my original intention to go there for a holiday. They were also able to tell me all my movements on the Thursday when I was originally supposed to fly out. They knew my passport had been faulty and that I had been refused permission to fly and also where I had gone after I left the airport and even where I went in Dublin.” The Dungiven man was held from 11 a.m. until 5. 30 p.m. then told he was being deported from the US . He was placed on a flight coming to Ireland at 8 p.m. He added: “I am disgusted at the way this was done and by the fact that they seemed to have invaded my life. I refused to have anything to do with them even though they gave me a number to phone when I got back. Also it seems that the FBI and PSNI are working closely together trying to recruit informers.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Marie Foy
11 November 2005

Glittering costumes and prancing pumps have taken over the Waterfront Hall in Belfast for the popular Ulster Irish Dancing Championships.

Around 1,500 entrants will take part in the competition which is running until Sunday.

This is the first time the championships have been held at the Waterfront, although it has already hosted two successful world championships and, earlier this year, the largest ever all-Ireland contest.

The dancers hail from ten counties, including Louth, which also competes under the Ulster banner.

Finnola McGrath (13), from Glengormley, was one of the talented youngsters taking part in the under-13 class yesterday. Her 21-year-old sister, Christina, dances professionally and is on tour with Riverdance in France.

Proud mum Marie said: “The girls both love dancing. When she was small Finnola watched her sister and has been dancing practically since she could walk.

“The Waterfront is a brilliant arena with a fantastic stage and plenty of room for the girls to show off their steps.”

Sharing her enthusiasm, Finnola said: “Dancing takes you to lots of different places. I have been to the American championships in San Francisco. It’s great.”

Emily Logue (13), from Strabane, has been practising jigs and reels for the last eight years

“You do feel nervous before you go on stage but once you’re up there you enjoy it,” she said.

One of the organisers Jack Connolly, said: “Irish dancing is hugely popular with thousands of youngsters in Ulster taking part. We’re thrilled to be at the Waterfront which is an excellent venue.

“We try and move the championships around and have held them in Newry, Bundoran and Enniskillen, but we are already booking in to come back here again next year. The world championships will also be held here again next Easter.”

The Ulster Irish Dancing Championships are the first major event to be brought to the city as part of the Celebrate Belfast 2006 programme.

RTE

11 November 2005 13:56

A 25-year-old man appeared in court in Armagh today, charged for the second time with the murders of two teenagers five years ago.

Steven Leslie Brown was remanded in custody at Armagh Magistrates Court charged with the murders of Andrew Robb, 19, and David McIlwaine, 18, in February 2000.

The teenagers were stabbed to death after leaving a nightclub at Tandragee in the county and being abducted by a number of men.
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Their bodies were dumped at the side of a country road. They had been repeatedly stabbed and had their throats cut.

Brown, of Castle Place, Castlecaufield, County Tyrone, was charged with the murders soon afterwards. However, the charges were withdrawn and the case never went to trial.

He appeared in court today dressed in a Chelsea football top, and surrounded by armed police. He spoke only to confirm his name.

Detective Chief Inspector Tim Hanley told the court that when he charged Brown last night, he replied: ‘Not guilty to each charge’.

However, Chief Inspector Hanley told the court he could connect the accused to the charges.

Brown was remanded in custody until 6 December to reappear at the same court by video link.

RTE

11 November 2005 14:01

The Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has said there should be a statutory right to exchange of information between her office and the Office of the Garda Ombudsman’s Commission in investigations into allegations of police corruption.

Nuala O’Loan also said that she believed that investigators should have total and immediate right to access to all police files and not have to inform a minister, as is the provision under the current Garda Bill.

She said having to inform a minister or anyone else could compromise the integrity of the investigation and slow the process down.

Ms O’Loan was speaking at a conference on community safety in Dundalk this morning.

The conference also heard criticism of the Gardaí and the judiciary in reacting to anti-social behaviour and complaints about public order.

However, a garda representative at the conference said they would take all criticism on board and were working on strategies to increase manpower and create a higher garda visibility on the streets.

Belfast Telegraph

By Sean O’Driscoll
11 November 2005

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams spoke by live satellite link to the annual Friends of Sinn Fein dinner in New York last night to circumvent a US fund-raising ban.

Adams told the guests, who paid $$500 a plate to attend, that Friends of Sinn Fein had sold more tickets for the event than ever before because of the publicity surrounding the fund-raising ban.

“I’d like to thank those in the US administration who made this possible,” he joked to cheers from more than 700 guests.

“I’m disappointed not to meet with old friends, meet new friends and make a report on the process of progress since last we met,” he said.

His speech was broadcast on two giant screens on either side of a ballroom in the New York Sheraton Hotel near Times Square.

A team of technicians worked to carry the signal, while Friends of Sinn Fein officials stood beside them, working out logistics with technical staff in Ireland.

Mr Adams said that Sinn Fein’s refusal to sit on the policing board was the reason given by the US government for refusing the fund-raising visa.

“It appears to have been at the root of the disappointing decision by the US administration to refuse me a fund-raising visa. Nationalists and republicans want to be policed, we are a law-abiding people,” he said.

Earlier, labourers’ union boss, Terry Sullivan, made a fiery speech attacking the US government’s decision not to give Adams a fund-raising visa.

His words were strongly supported by Bronx Congressman, Charles Engel, described the fund-raising ban as an “absolute disgrace”.

“At the very time when Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams are taking all kinds of risk for peace, it’s absolutely the wrong time to slap them in the face,” he said.

Former Ardoyne resident, Jim Smith, a long time New York Sinn Fein supporter, said he challenged the US envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, about the fund-raising ban at an event on Tuesday night.

He said Reiss told him the ban was put in place because Sinn Fein would not take seats on the policing board.

Sinn Féin

Published: 11 November, 2005

Sinn Féin MP for Newry & Armagh Conor Murphy has said that there is widespread disgust and anger at SDLP support for the British government’s latest repressive laws including the power to intern people for up to 28 days.

Mr Murphy said:

” Irish nationalists and republicans are only to aware of the fall out from the use of repressive powers and arbitrary detention. Tens of thousands of people have been detained under such powers here in the six counties. We have lived through the years of internment without trial, we have lived through the years of the torture centres and conveyor belt justice. The Good Friday Agreement was about ending all of that.

” Having fought so hard to see the Special Powers Act removed and with it the 28 day provision which was available in it, the SDLP comfortable in their British parliamentary seats had no problem in voting to reintroduce such repressive powers back into the six counties.

” The victims of this measure will be young Muslims in England and given the experience of the past week young nationalists and republicans here in the six counties. The SDLP action has been greeted with disgust and anger within the broad nationalist and republican community.

” It is now clear that the SDLP is very much part of a new policing establishment. They already support the use of plastic bullets and CS gas on our streets and now they have clearly given the green light to the re-introduction of internment as well.” ENDS

BreakingNews.ie

11/11/2005 - 11:32:11

The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has walked out on reporters who questioned him about his defence of the church’s relationship with the State.

Yesterday, Mr Ahern defended the church’s involvement in the Irish education system and its overall role in Irish society following stinging criticism earlier this week from Progressive Democrats TD Liz O’Donnell.

Ms O’Donnell said the church could not be trusted to tell the truth in the wake of the clerical child sex abuse scandal in Ferns.

She also said the church’s involvement in education should be re-examined and its finances should be independently audited.

When Mr Ahern was questioned about the matter before a Fáilte Ireland conference in Dublin today, he walked away from reporters and refused to answer any questions.

His handlers had earlier told the media that he would only speak about tourism.

The Taoiseach’s defence of the church has already sparked criticism from a number of areas.

The One in Four support group has described his comments as “ill-timed and poorly judged”, saying the good works of the church did not cancel out the rape and abuse of children.

Labour Party TD Liz McManus, meanwhile, said Mr Ahern had displayed an ignorance of the full implications of the Ferns scandal.

“The Ferns Report shows a high level of depravity and cover-up by the institutional church, as well as negligence by the State,” she said.

“The Taoiseach’s response was grossly defective. It offended the survivors of abuse. It didn’t appreciate the importance of reform when it comes to the education of our children.”

BBC

More than 15,000 Primary Seven pupils in Northern Ireland have completed the first of this year’s 11-plus transfer tests on Friday.

>>How are northern schools run and funded?

The hour-long exam covered English, Mathematics, and Science and Technology and will be followed by another test in two weeks’ time.

The government is to abolish the controversial transfer test in 2008.

Then grammar schools will no longer be able to choose pupils on the basis of their academic performance.

In recent years, the number of children eligible to sit the tests has been dropping, and the proportion of them who choose to do it has also been falling.

The decision to abolish the 11-plus transfer test and academic selection in Northern Ireland was announced in January 2004, following consideration of the Costello Group’s report.

The government-appointed working body was set up to suggest alternatives to the current transfer tests.

Earlier this year, the Department of Education published a list of options for what should happen when the 11-plus ends.

The department said the intelligence of a pupil would not be permitted as a factor.

Burns and Moley

Click to view - Left top: Vol. Paul Smith - Bessbrook, Co. Armagh. Right top: Vol. George Keegan - Co. Wexford.
Left bottom: Vol. Paddy Parle - Co. Wexford. Centre bottom: Their friend Michael Watters - Co. Louth. Right bottom: Vol. Oliver Craven - Newry, Co. Armagh.

At 12.50am on the morning of November 11th 1957, five Republicans met their death on a lonely hillside near Carrickaman frontier post overlooking the Louth/ Armagh border. History books record that the five died when a bomb exploded prematurely in a two roomed slated house at the foot of the Mourne mountains. As part of the Irish Republican Army’s ‘border campaign’ (1956-62) which had earlier that year claimed the lives of the famous Sean Sabhat from Garryowen and Feargal O’hAnluain, the unit had planned to attack the six county statelet’s communications network. The intended target for the bomb was a bridge and telephone exchange.

>>Read on

An Phoblacht

BY SHANE Mac THOMÁIS

Click for full view of Edentubber Memorial from South Armagh at Danny Morrison

On Monday 11 November 1957, five republicans were killed in an explosion which demolished a small cottage at the foot of Edentubber Mountain in County Louth.

Gardaí on the scene shortly after the explosion, found human remains scattered by the blast and only after lengthy examination of the remains was it established that five men had been killed.

Four Thompson sub-machine guns and ammunition were found among the wreckage. The Newry Frontier Sentinel reported: “The finding of a machine gun strapped to a bicycle led to the belief that the men were starting out on an expedition when a land mine they were handling exploded.”

The five men killed in the explosion were Michael Watters, Patrick Parle, Paul Smith, George Keegan and Oliver Craven.

Vol George Keegan

Born under the shadow of Enniscorthy’s Vinegar Hill, George Keegan came from a family with a deep-rooted republican tradition, being a descendant of a rebel hanged in 1798. His father, Captain Patrick Keegan, was commandant of the IRA’s North Wexford Brigade during the Tan War and was in the Atheneum in Enniscorthy in 1916 when they were the last group in Ireland to surrender to British forces. A single man George was last seen in County Wexford several weeks before his death at Edentubber. He was 29.

Vol Paul Smith

Adjutant Paul Smith from Bessbrook, County Armagh was the eldest of a family of seven. An architect’s apprentice he was said to be of a happy and carefree nature, was widely read and had a flair for leadership and responsibility. Slightly built, he was described as being ‘as hard as iron’ and had been involved in many daring missions. For this the British and Stormont authorities had put a price on his head. Paul had been away from home for over six months. He died aged 19.

Vol Oliver Craven

From Newry, Oliver Craven was a labourer and had been a driver before joining Oglaigh na hÉireann. Described as powerfully built and quietly spoken, he was particularly noted for his cool headedness. On the run and wanted by the Stormont authorities, he had evaded capture several times. Also single, he had been away from home for almost six months and was only 19 when he died.

Vol Paddy Parle

Paddy, from William Street, Wexford Town was a founding member of the Parnell GAA Club. A worker in a local printing firm, he loved all things Irish and was a member of Conradh na Gaeilge. Paddy also had a special regard for James Connolly and the cause of the working class.

In the mid-’50s he joined the local IRA unit on the outbreak of the Border Campaign and was instrumental in organising an active membership. Seven or eight Wexford men became part of the Vinegar Hill Column and operated for a few months until arrests put an end to their activities. He was last seen by his brother, two months previously. He was 27.

Michael Watters

Michael, who owned the cottage where the bombs exploded, was a forestry worker and had lived there alone since the death of his mother two years previously.

After a Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dundalk, on Thursday 14 November, the coffins of the Wexford men were taken away on the first leg of their final journey south. Throughout the day people from Dundalk, South Down and South Armagh filed past the coffins of the remaining three, over which was mounted a Fianna Éireann honour guard.

Later at their funeral in St Patrick’s Cemetery, John Joe McGirl, Sinn Féin TD for Sligo/Leitrim, delivered the graveside oration. In the course of it he said:

“The tragedy which brought to a sudden end the lives of five great Irishmen is a tragedy of the Irish nation, the tragedy of an Ireland that is unfree and divided. These men came from the North and the South to join together to end the tragedy of our nation and our people.”

McGirl, a leading republican for four decades until his death in the late 1980s, also pointed out: “For 35 years the nationalists in the North looked to their brother Irishmen in the South for a direct lead against British occupation. They were sadly disillusioned by the inept approach to the problem of occupation by their fellow Irishmen in the South.

“Having examined and employed all peaceful approaches to the unnatural division of our country, they once again asserted their God-given right to freedom and have fought side by side with gallant men from the South.”

There is no trace today of Michael Watters’ home but a monument marks the spot to which republicans have returned each year since the first anniversary of the explosion.

The Edentubber Martyrs died on Monday 11 November 1957.

An Phoblacht

Click to view - US soldiers in uniform

• Photographs taken at Shannon Airport last Saturday and published above, show in graphic detail the 26-County state’s continuing complicity in the war in Iraq. Huge numbers of US soldiers, in full uniforms, mixed with civilians in the main lounge of Shannon Airport last Saturday. This gives a lie to the government’s pretence of neutrality and is also in direct contravention of the Defence Act of 1954, which specifically prohibits foreign soldiers from appearing on Irish soil in their uniforms.

An Phoblacht

BY LAURA FRIEL

Click to view

“The PSNI operation against republicans is being driven by the political agenda of securocrats within the PSNI,” said Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew.

The MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone was commenting following a series of raids and arrests in Tyrone, Down, Belfast and Derry being linked to last year’s £26.5 million Northern Bank robbery.

The robbery has been repeatedly attributed to republicans by the PSNI and media despite the fact that to date no evidence supporting this assertion has emerged.

The PSNI operation, which saw five arrests within 36 hours, and a further three arrests, began last Tuesday.

Gildernew was speaking after one of those arrested was released without charge. Media tip offs accompanied the arrest of Brian Arthurs, a well-known Tyrone republican.

The PSNI arrived at the Dungannon home of Brian Arthurs on Wednesday morning 2 November. Over five hours the PSNI removed 39 bags of personal property including children’s course work and a child’s birthday money. Arthurs was arrested and held for two days before being released.

Paula Arthurs woke to the screams of her youngest child as a PSNI raiding party punched and kicked their way into her home. “It was before seven in the morning. I awoke to the noise of banging and shouting. They were screaming, ‘PSNI, PSNI, open the door, open the door’. They were kicking the front door and shouting very loudly,” says Paula.

“My youngest child sleeps in a bedroom downstairs at the front and the PSNI were banging on his window with their fists. Declan is only eight-years-old and by the time I got to him he was hysterical with the shock and fear of it all.

“I opened the door and a number of PSNI officers pushed past me, ran upstairs and handcuffed by husband. Brian was immediately dragged from the house and taken away,” says Paula.

“I was alone with the children, my two teenage daughters and son Declan. When my brother arrived at the house, the PSNI refused him entry, they physically threw him across the garden and then locked us in. I was effectively under house arrest,” says Paula.

“I have experienced raiding since I was a child, it’s not something I want for my children. Declan had never experienced a raid before. He has been utterly traumatised. My son can no longer sleep in his own room. His confidence has been badly shaken.”

“I can’t begin to describe how undermining the invasion of your home is for a child. A home is the centre of a child’s security, but when the PSNI arrive, it counts for nothing,” says Paula.

“I am really angry that because of the political agenda of some people, those who are determined to thwart political progress, those who don’t want real change, and because of that my children have been subjected to this ordeal.

“It has already changed the way they view the world. Years of nurturing and preparing them for a new and more hopeful future has been lost in a moment. Last week the PSNI turned back the clock for me and my family,” says Paula.

Commenting on the media’s role, Brian Arthurs said the PSNI had only been at his home a short time before the television cameras arrived. “They must have been tipped off, how else could they have arrived so fast. I was set up through the media and my arrest was stage managed so it could appear on television throughout the country,” he said.

Brian said his arrest had followed prolonged media campaign against him. “I’ve suspected for a while that with stories like this appearing in different newspapers I was being set up for something,” said Arthurs.

The PSNI informed Arthurs’ solicitor that his client was being held on the word of an unnamed intelligence source. “The PSNI do not have a scrap of evidence linking me to the robbery. They know I had nothing to do with it. Politicians talk about a new beginning to policing. There is no new beginning,” he said.

A formal complaint has been lodged with the Police Ombudsman’s office. “The PSNI subjected my family and myself to verbal and physical harassment. My teenage daughters had their A level and GCSE course work confiscated,” said Arthurs.

“A PSNI detective threatened my eight-year-old son with being shot dead like his uncle. Declan was told to “get in the fucking house or we’ll shoot you like your uncle”. Brian Arthurs’ brother Declan was shot dead by the SAS in Loughgall in 1987.

On Tuesday the quiet village of Kilcoo, County Down had been the focus of the PSNI operation. Two young men were arrested during raids on their families’ homes. Twenty-two-year-old Peter Morgan was later released without charge. Accusing the PSNI of heavy handedness, Morgan said he had been “terrified by the aggressive manner of the PSNI”.

“There is not one bit of evidence against me and there was no evidence produced during my arrest and detention,” he said.

Meanwhile, 23-year-old Dominic McEvoy, also from Kilcoo, denied all charges against. According to the PSNI, McEvoy’s DNA has been identified amongst a number of DNA samples of unidentified people connected to a hat discovered somewhere outside Loughinisland and allegedly linked to the robbery.

Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness has described the PSNI case against a Coalisland man as “paper thin”.

“I have learned this evening that the PSNI plan to charge a constituent of mine with failing to inform them that he sold a van similar to the one the PSNI believe may have been used in the robbery. This kind of ridiculous, phoney charge will fool nobody,” said McGuinness.

Forty-three-year-old Martin McAliskey has denied attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to the purchase and sale of a white van. He has been released on bail.

“As in the past, I am quite sure that this and other cases will collapse but not of course in the blaze of publicity generated by the PSNI in recent days,” said McGuinness.

“The PSNI, realising the widespread anger caused within the nationalist community, appear to be trying to justify their operation with what can only be described as paper-thin cases,” he said.

According to the media a third man from Kilcoo has been arrested, a 40-year-old Belfast man and another man from Derry are also being held.

Irish Independent

THE organisation led by convicted Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt was responsible for “murder and mayhem on this island”, a court heard yesterday.

State counsel George Birmingham, on the third day of McKevitt’s appeal against conviction for directing terrorism, said that the State was obliged to bring the individual who led that organisation to trial.

McKevitt (54), of Beech Park, Blackrock, Co Louth was jailed for 20 years by the Special Criminal Court in August 2003 after he was convicted of directing the activities of a terrorist organisation.

McKevitt was in court for the appeal hearing, which was also attended by his wife Bernadette Sands McKevitt.

He said the DPP had gone to elaborate lengths to ensure that Mc Kevitt was given a fair trial.

Mr Birmingham said that this even involved making officers of the British Security Service available for interview by lawyers retained by McKevitt.

McKevitt’s lawyers have appealed against conviction on the grounds that there was not full and proper disclosure of all material and that the Special Criminal Court erred in law.

The appeal is continuing.

Ann O’Loughlin

BBC

The petition was handed in to Downing Street

A victims’ delegation has handed in a petition to Downing Street against proposals to allow fugitives from Northern Ireland to return home.

It urged the government to justify the “staggering contradiction” between its proposals for Northern Ireland and its planned 90-day anti-terror law.

The group was accompanied by DUP MPs who have refused to back the NI plan.

Aileen Quinton whose mother died in the 1987 Enniskillen bombing said victims felt it was an “amnesty” to terrorists.

The proposals, which were introduced in the House of Commons on Wednesday, cover up to 150 people wanted for crimes committed before the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Their cases would be heard by a special tribunal, but if found guilty they would be freed on licence without having to go to jail.

Ms Quinton said the government had under-estimated the difficulties it would have in passing the legislation.

She read out the text of the letter the group had handed in to the prime minister.

“We are writing to you to request a meeting face-to-face so that you can explain to us how you can justify this legislation,” it said.

“You claim that victims are at the heart of your policy in Northern Ireland. If that is so then you should have no difficulty in meeting with us.”

The DUP MPs who went to Downing Street included Jeffrey Donaldson, William McCrea and Iris Robinson.

Mr Donaldson said there were no circumstances under which the DUP would support the law, calling it a “betrayal” of the victims in Northern Ireland.

He said: “There really is no stomach for this legislation.

“I think there is a real prospect now that it will be defeated in the House of Commons as well (as the Lords).”

A DUP delegation earlier met NIO minister David Hanson and reinforced their opposition to the bill.

‘Deeply offensive’

Meanwhile, the contentious issue was high on the agenda when an Ulster Unionist delegation met Tony Blair in Downing Street on Thursday.

Party leader Sir Reg Empey accused the government of “rubbing salt mercilessly in the wounds of the victims of terrorism”.

Sir Reg said that the UUP had made it plain to Mr Blair it would fight the legislation.

He also criticised the “contradiction” of the government in bringing the Northern Ireland Offences Bill forward on the same day it had tried to push through powers to detain terror suspects without charge for 90 days.

The UUP’s sole MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon, said the government’s move had been “deeply offensive”.

She confirmed, however, that she had voted with the government in favour of the 90-day detention plan, after taking advice on the matter from Chief Constable Hugh Orde.