SAOIRSE32

Daily Ireland

by Ciarán Barnes

A man accused of running brothels in Belfast is a former SDLP council election candidate.
Dominic Marsella, from Chichester Avenue in the north of the city, appeared in Belfast Magistrates’ Court yesterday charged with two counts of controlled prostitution and one of trafficking people.
The PSNI shut down suspected brothels he had allegedly been running at the Lucas Building on Ormeau Avenue and Margarita Plaza on Adelaide Street on September 24. A defence solicitor said all the charges would be contested.
The case was adjourned until January 9, with Mr Marsella released on continuing £1,000 bail. At a previous court appearance on October 17, a police officer said he could connect the accused to the charges.
In the 1997 local government elections, Mr Marsella stood unsuccessfully for the SDLP in the Castlereagh Central ward of Castlereagh borough council.
It was the first time the party fielded a candidate in the area, with the 57-year-old polling 224 votes.
After his failed election attempt he drifted away from politics to concentrate on teaching languages in different schools in the Belfast and south east Antrim areas.
A spokeswoman for the North Eastern Education and Library Board confirmed he had been an employee.
She said he had taught English as an additional language at schools in the board area until being made redundant on May 31. Mr Marsella refused to speak to the press as he left court with his solicitor.
A spokeswoman for the SDLP confirmed he had been a council candidate, but that his party membership had lapsed “years ago”.

Yahoo! News

By CHRIS THORNTON, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 7, 9:56 AM ET

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - A Northern Bank supervisor who claimed he aided a gang of robbers under the threat of death was charged Wednesday as a willing participant in the record $50 million heist.

Chris Ward, 24, did not offer a plea as he stood in the dock for his arraignment, but his defense attorney, Niall Murphy, said the accusation that Ward was the gang’s inside man was completely circumstantial.

“My client denies absolutely these offenses and, such as it is, the police case in its entirety,” Murphy said.

Magistrate Ken Nixon ordered Ward held without bail until a Jan. 4 court appearance. Ward, who did not speak during the 10-minute hearing, offered a “keep your chins up” gesture — touching and lifting his chin — to relatives in the gallery as officers escorted him from the dock.

Police arrested Ward on Nov. 29 at his family home in Poleglass, an
Irish Republican Army power base on the edge of Catholic west Belfast. They interrogated him for 7 1/2 days — a half-day longer than any previous suspect in this British territory.

Government officials, police chiefs and a panel of international experts have blamed the robbery last year on the outlawed IRA, which denies involvement.

Ward said in media interviews after the heist that an armed gang took over his home the night of Dec. 19 and warned him to cooperate with a robbery of the bank’s central vault or he and his family would be killed.

Ward said the gangsters drove him to deputy manager Kevin McMullan’s rural home south of Belfast, where McMullan and his wife were being held hostage at gunpoint. Ward said both bank employees were given detailed instructions on aiding the robbers when they went to work the next day.

Police have not questioned McMullan as a suspect.

Video footage from bank surveillance cameras the next day showed Ward ferrying about $2.1 million in a gym bag to a gang member outside the vault, which Ward described as a test of the bank alarms.

Then, Ward said, he and McMullan pushed cart after cart of boxed cash to the gang’s van within sight of passing Christmas shoppers.

Police said they were not alerted until McMullan’s wife stumbled freezing out of an isolated forest where she had been taken and released. The gang had driven off with its second, final load of cash about an hour earlier.

Experts considered the Northern Bank raid the world’s biggest cash robbery of a bank in peacetime until it was knocked into second place in August, when robbers stole about $70 million from a Brazilian bank.

Three other people arrested in the Northern Bank investigation were charged last month with offenses that include taking McMullan and his wife hostage, withholding information on the robbers’ van and possessing documents and other information likely to be of use to the IRA or other terrorist groups.

Ward is the first figure to be charged directly with the robbery.

Northern Ireland police said they have accounted for about $9.5 million of the stolen cash.

Police in the neighboring Irish Republic seized about three-fifths of that in February raids on the homes and offices of people suspected of involvement in IRA money-laundering. Police believe the remaining two-fifths was burned before it could be seized.

Police said the bulk of the missing money has been rendered worthless because the Northern Bank — which prints and distributes its own versions of British currency — withdrew previous designs from circulation and issued new notes.

::: u.tv :::

The Irish Government today faced calls from a unionist MEP for an inquiry into collusion between members of its police force and the IRA during the Troubles.

WEDNESDAY 07/12/2005 14:58:08
By:Press Association

Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson issued the challenge as campaigners against British security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland lobbied parties in the European Parliament to investigate controversial murders in the province.

Mr Nicholson said: “It is only right and proper that the Irish Government conducts a public inquiry into allegations of suspected collusion between members of the garda Siochana and the Irish Republican Army in the planning and execution of acts of terrorism.

“They have not been dealt with and I think they warrant a full and impartial investigation.”

The Irish Government has committed itself to an inquiry into the double killing of Royal Ulster Constabulary officers Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan in 1989 after they returned north of the border from a meeting with Gardai.

The inquiry was recommended by retired Canadian judge Peter Cory, who also secured separate inquiries in Northern Ireland into the murders of solicitors Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson, Catholic father-of-two Robert Hamill and loyalist prisoner Billy Wright.

However Mr Nicholson pressed for a wider inquiry, arguing over the years there had been a number of serious allegations about collusion between members of the Garda and the Provisional IRA.

“Evidence of such collusion has emerged from books by respected journalists, Northern Ireland authors and individuals living in areas in which incidents such as the murder of RUC officers and the attempted murder of RUC, Royal Irish Regiment and Ulster Defence Regiment officers have occurred,” the Ulster Unionist MEP said.

“There has also been the murder and attempted murder of officials of the Northern Ireland judicial system and others.

“While I recognise the attempts made by Garda officers at a local level to help and assist the RUC and the security forces with murder inquiries and other investigations, allegations of collusion will not go away until they are properly dealt with.

“The Northern Ireland Assembly debated this in a motion laid down by UUP Assembly member Danny Kennedy in 2001 which called for the Secretary of State to make representations to the Irish Government to conduct an inquiry into allegations of collusion.

“To date nothing has been done on this issue.”

Mr Nicholson said unless and until there was an inquiry the wounds suffered by people, particularly unionists, in border areas who had experienced a murder campaign would not heal.

“They will never be able to have a proper relationship with the Irish Republic or trust the Irish Republic and its authorities if this issue is not resolved,” he warned.

The Ulster Unionist MEP was commenting as groups including Relatives for Justice, the Campaign Against Plastic Bullets and An Fhirinne briefed MEPs and several human rights and social justice groups on collusion between members of the British Army and police with loyalist paramilitary gangs in Northern Ireland.

The group are pressing MEPs from European Parliament groups to send a cross-party delegation to Northern Ireland on a fact-finding visit about British collusion.

BBC

Twenty-nine people died in the Omagh bombing in August 1998

A £14m civil action by some relatives of Omagh bomb victims has been given the go-ahead by a court.

The Appeal Court in Belfast dismissed an application by two of the defendants to take the case to the House of Lords

Lawyers for Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly wanted to challenge a ruling that London solicitors acting for the families had not breached court rules.

It was argued the firm did not have an NI business address and was merely represented by Belfast solicitors.

Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Kerr described the point as technical and ruled the court had the discretion to allow the proceedings to go ahead.

In court on Wednesday, a lawyer for Mr Murphy and Mr Daly applied for leave to appeal to the House of Lords.

However, Sir Brian told the lawyer: “You may be aggrieved at the decision we took, but it does not constitute of point of law of general public importance and the application is refused.”

Criminal injury claims

Despite the ruling, two outstanding matters have to be resolved before a date can be fixed for the compensation hearing.

Parliament has still to approve an amendment to legislation to permit fresh legal aid to be made available to the families to fund their court claim.

In addition, a decision is still awaited in the appeal by Michael McKevitt, another of the five defendants, against his conviction and 20-year sentence for directing the RIRA.

Last month, it was revealed victims of the Omagh bomb received more than £20m in compensation.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the Compensation Agency had fully resolved 826 of 852 criminal injury claims.

Of the 220 criminal damage claims, 214 have been resolved with approximately £7.5m paid in compensation, Mr Hain added.

Earlier this year, County Armagh man Sean Hoey was the first person charged with murder in relation to the bombing.

BBC

Twenty-nine people died in the Omagh bombing in August 1998

A £14m civil action by some relatives of Omagh bomb victims has been given the go-ahead by a court.

The Appeal Court in Belfast dismissed an application by two of the defendants to take the case to the House of Lords

Lawyers for Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly wanted to challenge a ruling that London solicitors acting for the families had not breached court rules.

It was argued the firm did not have an NI business address and was merely represented by Belfast solicitors.

Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Kerr described the point as technical and ruled the court had the discretion to allow the proceedings to go ahead.

In court on Wednesday, a lawyer for Mr Murphy and Mr Daly applied for leave to appeal to the House of Lords.

However, Sir Brian told the lawyer: “You may be aggrieved at the decision we took, but it does not constitute of point of law of general public importance and the application is refused.”

Criminal injury claims

Despite the ruling, two outstanding matters have to be resolved before a date can be fixed for the compensation hearing.

Parliament has still to approve an amendment to legislation to permit fresh legal aid to be made available to the families to fund their court claim.

In addition, a decision is still awaited in the appeal by Michael McKevitt, another of the five defendants, against his conviction and 20-year sentence for directing the RIRA.

Last month, it was revealed victims of the Omagh bomb received more than £20m in compensation.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the Compensation Agency had fully resolved 826 of 852 criminal injury claims.

Of the 220 criminal damage claims, 214 have been resolved with approximately £7.5m paid in compensation, Mr Hain added.

Earlier this year, County Armagh man Sean Hoey was the first person charged with murder in relation to the bombing.

Derry Journal

By Joe Doran

Click to view - Claudy memorial

Tuesday 6th December 2005
A man, whose mother was killed in the Claudy bombing, last night claimed he knows the identity of the people responsible for the atrocity - and has challenged them to meet him face to face. Liam McLaughlin’s mother, Rosemary, was one of nine people who died when three IRA car bombs ripped through the village in a no warning attack in 1972.
Mr. McLaughlin, who now lives in America, says the bombers owe his family and the relatives of the other victims an explanation. He was speaking to the “Journal” from his home in Chicago just days after four people, including Sinn Fein MLA, Francie Brolly, were arrested in connection with the bombing but were later released without charge. After his release, Mr. Brolly said that he had nothing to do with the atrocity and had no foreknowledge of what would happen. Mr. McLaughlin, whose mother was 51-years-old when she was killed, said police investigating the bombing agree that without firm evidence no one is ever likely to be convicted.
He says 19 people were involved in the attack and many still live in the Derry and South Derry areas. The others, he says, live outside Northern Ireland. “I just want to sit down face to face with these people, look them in the eye and ask them why.
“I know who they are and I know they deny involvement in it. If they did agree to meet with me I know they would just lie again. “But I want the satisfaction of sitting down with these people and telling them what I know to be fact.” Mr. McLaughlin was due to take his first step yesterday in requesting the face to face meeting. He says the reason why nine people, including three children, died was because the bombers were a “crowd of amateurs”. He also questioned an alleged cover up by the British Government of the involvement of a Catholic priest in the atrocity. It has been claimed that the late Father Jim Chesney was in charge of the IRA unit which carried out bombing.
Soon after the story emerged, detectives said the government and Church shielded the cleric. The PSNI later announced a senior detective was to lead a new investigation into the attacks.
“The question is why did the British Government do a deal with the Catholic Church that let the bombers walk free. Who are they protecting?,” said Liam. He added: “The Government has bent over backwards to appease terrorists. They are getting everything they want and not going to jail for their crimes. “All those responsible need to do is own up and say sorry. That would go a long way to placating everybody. “Every time this issue comes up in the papers its like our loved one has died all over again. It’s not nice.”

Derry Journal

Tuesday 6th December 2005

Several dozen people remembered the victims of the Droppin’ Well bombing at a memorial service in Ballykelly on Sunday. Relatives of the victims stood alongside local dignitaries, British Army representatives and Limavady Borough Council officials in the pouring rain at the Shackleton Barracks service in memory of those killed in the INLA pub bombing on December 6 1982.
Of the 17 who lost their lives in the attack eleven were members of the British Army’s Cheshire Regiment. A number of civilians, including five Protestants and one Catholic died in the blast, with two children among the dead. Widowers and children bereaved by the attack 23 years ago attended Sunday’s event along with members of the Cheshire Regiment and the organisers, the Cheshire Regiment Association. Attending the ecumenical service for the first time, SDLP Mayor of Limavady, Michael Coyle, said it was a “very sad” event.
“That was the first time I’d been to the annual service, although other mayors have attended in the past. “It was a very sad occasion. When you think not only of the deaths in Ballykelly but the number of deaths throughout the North during ‘The Troubles’ you begin to question the why it all happened.
“That question is especially common in the present political climate when the level of violence is vastly reduced.” However, Colr. Coyle warned that much more has yet to done to end politically-motivated violence in the North once and for all. “I think people appreciate that violence has been dramatically reduced and that the IRA has given up its arms.” “But much more work must be done. We only hope that the same happens on the loyalist side so that we can all live in peace,” he added.

RTE

07 December 2005 18:55

Frank Connolly

The former journalist, Frank Connolly, has said he has never been to Colombia and did not travel on a false Irish passport.

Speaking to RTÉ News, he rejected the allegation made by the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, that he had travelled to Colombia on a false passport.

Mr Connolly, who is the Executive Director of the Centre for Public Inquiry, said he was questioned in 2002 by gardaí but no prosecution had been taken against him.

He said a picture shown to him by gardaí in connection with the false documentation was not of him.

Mr Connolly accused Mr McDowell of abusing his position and said it was not the minister’s job to interfere in the legal process.

Dáil hears claims

Speaking in the Dáil last night, the minister accused Mr Connolly of being connected with a plot by the IRA to provide the Colombian FARC guerrilla movement with expertise in the use of explosives.

In a written Dáil reply, Mr McDowell claimed Mr Connolly travelled to Colombia on a false passport in April 2001, along with his brother Niall, and a convicted IRA member, Padraig Wilson.

In a reply issued this morning, Mr Connolly said he had issued forthright denials of these ‘false and malicious statements’, when and where he felt it appropriate.

Mr Connolly said that what he called the ‘campaign of vilification’ descended to a more vicious level since his appointment to the Centre for Public Inquiry.

The centre, he said, had been targeted by ‘certain elements’ in Irish society which are hostile to a body established to carry out independent scrutiny.

He said Mr McDowell had done a grave injustice and damage to him, by joining what he called a ‘witch hunt’ against him.

He claimed the minister had also done incalculable damage to the integrity of his own office.

The real target of the ‘venom and mendacity’ that had been visited upon him, Mr Connolly said, was the Centre for Public Inquiry.

Newshound

(Susan McKay, Irish News)

It is a terrible thing to hear of a child so scared he says to his mother, “I’m going to die, amn’t I?”

This is what Alison Mitchell’s seven-year-old said to her after men petrol bombed their home in Glengormley two weeks ago. She was terrified her son might be right. Her father-in-law, Chuck, took a heart attack. Alison’s husband, Gary, ran after the attackers but they got away. The family was told to get out of the area and they are now staying with relatives.

Chuck and his wife had already been intimidated out of their home in Rathcoole.

The thugs who did this would call themselves loyalists but this wasn’t the usual sectarian intimidation of a Catholic family out of a Protestant area.

Gary Mitchell is a Protestant. He is a writer. He has, in a series of excellent and award-winning plays and films, given a voice to the angry men of loyalism. He has presented their dilemmas to the world and demanded that they be understood. He is passionately committed to his own people.

When I interviewed him for my book Northern Protestants – An Unsettled People in 1998, I asked him why he was so determined to stay in the place he’d grown up. He was already a highly respected dramatist and had been appointed writer in residence at the National Theatre in London.

Unmarried then, he was living with his parents in Rathcoole, flying to London only when necessary.

“Why should I leave?” he replied. “It is important for me to stay here and keep in touch with the people I’m in touch with. If you are not aware of how things are changing, you’ll lose the detail and you’ll write a lot of nonsense.”

At the same time, a community worker in Rathcoole talked to me about how she was in high demand to sit on management committees for local groups because funding agencies required professional people to be involved.

“In Protestant areas those people have cleared off,” she said.

“Our ones leave and don’t look back.”

She also talked about destructive ways of thinking among working-class Protestants, defeatism and apathy.

“There is also this thing of wanting to drag people down. You know. ‘Who does he think he is? What would he know anyway.’”

Mitchell said he felt he’d been “psychologically damaged before I was born”. He talked about what he’d learned at school. “How to talk my way out of difficult situations. How to take punches and kicks. How to get up and walk away.” He hated it. Later on, he spoke to a careers teacher about wanting to be a writer. The response? “Well you can forget about that for a start.” The teacher told the teenager he had no choice and no chance and then how to go and sign on the dole.

The painter, Dermot Seymour, who is from the Shankill Road, told me that being a Northern Protestant for him was “like having no head, in the sense that your are not allowed to think – there is this constant putting each other down so that no one moves. It is a world of inferiority complex.” There was a “pride in being ignorant”.

An artist got slagged off as a homosexual.

If you were different, you were ‘a Lundy’. Lundy was the Protestant governor who proposed a “timely capitulation” to end the 1688 siege of Derry.

He was driven out as a traitor.

Mitchell was on the dole for years, doing ‘murky’ things. When he did a drama course, his peers said acting was for “Taigs and faggots”. However, he forged his path.

“I made the journey through violence and out the other end. I learned that you CAN talk, you CAN compromise and everyone CAN win so there is no loser.”

This is a lesson loyalists have been trained by their political leaders NOT to learn.

In one of Mitchell’s plays, a politician tells a paramilitary lieutenant to speak to the foot soldiers about knocking off the violence. He replies: “They don’t talk. They don’t listen. They follow orders. I made them that way.”

Mitchell has eloquently explained the mindset of those who turned on him.

One of his plays is called In a Little World of Our Own. Another is As the Beast Sleeps. Artists like him should be celebrated by their people and supported by all of us. Not burned and banished. They burned Lundy in Derry last weekend. They do it every year.

December 7, 2005
________________

This article appeared first in the December 6, 2005 edition of the Irish News.

Irelandclick.com

Cops clueless as more details emerge of what kidnap victims had to go through.

Cops carry out forensic examination on Poleglass home after £22million robbery

A family home in West Belfast was yesterday forensically examined as part of the investigation into the robbery of £22 million from the Northern Bank.

The Ward family from Colinmill in Poleglass were held hostage at gunpoint for 25 hours by those behind the heist. Son Christopher (22), who works for the Northern Bank Cash Centre at Donegall Square West, was kidnapped from his home as part of the elaborate robbery plan.

Neighbours in Colinmill say that they are shocked that the close-knit family were held hostage in the area. They have described both Christopher and the other members of the Ward family as quiet people who keep themselves to themselves. It is believed that the family will now require counselling for the ordeal they endured.

Christopher is a leading member of one of the north’s top Celtic Supporters’ Clubs, Eire Go Bragh.

The PSNI have said at this stage that they are not in a position to say who carried out the robbery, but have said that the number of robbers in the gang ran into double figures. They are examining a number of lines of enquiry and said that one of the lines of enquiry they are spending much time looking at is paramilitary involvement in the incident.

The stolen money is made up of £12 million in new Northern Bank £10 and £20 notes, £1.15 million in new Northern Bank £100 and £50 notes, and in excess of £5 million in used notes.

Events began to unfold at 10pm on Sunday night when a number of masked men went to the Ward family home. At home at the time with Christopher were his parents, Rose and Gerry, Christopher’s brother, Gerard, and Gerard’s girlfriend.

The masked men entered the house and at least two masked men stayed with the family for over 24 hours, holding them at gunpoint. Christopher was taken in a red car from Colinmill in Poleglass to Loughinsland Road near Downpatrick, where his supervisor, Kevin McMullan, lives. When Christopher arrived in Downpatrick masked men had already taken over the house. Men dressed as PSNI officers had earlier called at the Co Down house and told Mr McMullan that a member of his family had been killed in a road accident. A gun was then put to the bank official’s head and he was tied up. The man’s wife was taken in a car to an unknown location where she was held for 24 hours.

At around 6.30am the masked men left the house in Downpatrick and gave instructions to the bank officials as to what they were to do. The bank workers went into work at midday and carried on as normal during the afternoon. Both men were working in the cash centre in the basement of the bank in Wellington Street. At 6pm one of the workers left the bank on foot carrying a holdall and walked to Upper Queen Street where he met a man.

The holdall, containing in excess of £1 million in new notes, was handed over to a man wearing a hat and a scarf.

Over the next few hours more money from the cash centre was loaded on to crates. Twice, shortly after 7pm and shortly after 8pm, a white van registration number RCZ 6632, called at the Wellington Street entrance to the bank and took away substantial amounts of cash. The van headed towards Grosvenor Road and the Westlink, say cops. The PSNI will now examine hundreds of hours of CCTV footage from the bank and city centre cameras in an attempt to identify those who took part in the raid.

Detective Superintendent Andy Sproule, who is in charge of the investigation, said that at the time of going to press no arrests had been planned. He said that although forensic examinations were ongoing, he believed that the robbers had been “forensically aware”.

“There is clear evidence that the individuals who took over the houses were forensically aware and that they took precautions so that they could not be forensically traced.”

Christopher Ward and Kevin McMullan are currently being interviewed by the PSNI in a bid to get further information on the heist gang.

“The bank employees are being interviewed as witnesses and the line of enquiry in relation to insider involvement is ongoing but it happens in all these type of enquiries and this is standard procedure,” added the PSNI officer.

The National Australia Bank, which owns the Northern Bank, said the robbery would have no knock-on effect on the sale of the Northern to the Danish Danske Bank Group announced earlier this month.

“The theft is covered by self-insurance and, as such, National Australia Bank will bear the impact of any losses arising from the theft.”

Journalist:: Roisin McManus

BBC

A bank worker charged with a £26.5m robbery has accused police of “hounding and torturing his family and friends” in order to “frame” him.

Chris Ward, 24, from Colinmill, Poleglass, has been charged with the 2004 Northern Bank robbery in Belfast.

He appeared at the city’s magistrates’ court on Wednesday where he spoke only to confirm he understood the charge.

But the court heard that when charged, he said police had held him “longer than the hostage takers” to frame him.

“Police have bugged my house (and) a holiday in Spain, went through all my phone records, my bank accounts, hounded my friends - even going as far as Australia,” he was reported to have said, when he was charged at Antrim police station on Wednesday.

“They have tortured my family in an attempt to frame me with the Northern Bank robbery.

Mr Ward accused police of “framing” him

“Police have failed in all these attempts. They have held me longer than the hostage takers who seized me last year.”

A detective inspector told the court he could connect Mr Ward with the charges.

The court was told that the case against him was based on four main areas: his actions on 18 and 19 December; his actions on 20 December, the day of the raid; his original account of what happened and a works rota.

Mr Ward was remanded in custody to appear by video link next month.

He was arrested just over a week ago at his Poleglass home.

The bank robbery was the biggest cash theft in UK history.

Three men have already been charged in connection with the raid.

Belfast Telegraph

By Brian Walker
07 December 2005

The Secretary of State has said the Government will keep its word to Sinn Fein by not forcing IRA fugitives to appear in court when they return to Northern Ireland.

But he has hinted he could be forced to compromise if the majority view in Parliament is weighted against it.

Mr Hain was speaking to the Belfast Telegraph hours after MPs of all parties attending the Commons unleashed a bitter attack against the Bill on the first day of detailed scrutiny in committee.

Committee sessions will extend over the next two Tuesdays and Thursdays and MPs may sit into the small hours picking apart 250 amendments.

This record number of proposed alterations is designed to bury the Bill under its own weight. The Government may seek a truce with MPs later but is adopting a “wait and see ” attitude now.

Leading for the DUP, Peter Robinson called the Bill “profane and unacceptable in every direction.”

To SDLP leader Mark Durkan it was “the most awful legislation to do with Ireland that the House has ever had in front of it.”

Joining the chorus, Ulster Unionist Sylvia Hermon predicted it would never make it through the Lords.

It is when the Lords seek to block the Bill that ministers are likely to offer concessions.

Commenting on the latest attacks, Mr Hain held out hopes of a compromise over demands to set a formal time limit on the whole process. He will have powers to do so himself.

“On the time limit, there may not be a lot of difference,” he said.

Asked if he thought Sinn Fein would stop co-operating if the Bill was changed to compel offenders to plead before tribunals in person, he replied that “any party that does not attend Parliament to persuade their fellow members on the detail of the Bill, though not its principle, have only themselves to blame.”

On Gerry Adams’ objections to including the security forces in the conditional amnesty he said: “I will not accept their removal. I took the decision to include them with the Prime Minister’s full support in the late summer.”

The issue of bringing the security forces within the scope of the Bill produced the first crack in the parties’ united front, when Mark Durkan was pressed by Peter Robinson.

Asked by the DUP deputy leader to say if he would oppose an outcome which would benefit terrorists but not the security forces, Mr Durkan said he “saw no problem in holding the governments to account on the original premise of the legislation “.

Mr Hain said he would “wait and see ” what changes opposition parties could unite around.

But he added: “The principle of the OTRs Bill, including their non-appearance before the tribunal, was agreed at Weston Park.”

Belfast Telegraph

**See also Bank hostage ordeal and Belfast bank worker upset

Northern employee in court today

By Chris Thornton
07 December 2005

The man who carried the first million pounds out of the Northern Bank in Belfast a year ago was accused today of taking part in the massive robbery.

Poleglass man Chris Ward (24), was charged by police in the early hours of this morning with robbery over the £26.5m heist and was due to appear at a court in Belfast today.

Ward’s family were held hostage last December during the record heist - the largest cash robbery in history.

As the carefully planned operation unfolded at the bank’s Donegall Square West headquarters, Ward carried out around £1m in a holdall. He said in a newspaper interview in January that he handed over the cash to a man at a bus stop after his family had been threatened.

That handover was believed to have been a test run for the main phase of the robbery. Mr Ward and another employee whose wife was being held, Kevin McMullan, then loaded up more cash that was taken away by a lorry.

Ward, from Colinmill, Poleglass, was arrested on November 29 for questioning about the huge theft.

Yesterday he became the person held longest under new anti-terrorism legislation in Northern Ireland when a series of court hearings approved a police application to question him for an eighth day.

His lawyers had protested that they had been excluded from part of the hearing approving the police request.

During that part of the hearing, police detailed five topics they wanted to put to Ward during extra interviews.

The High Court was convened in the middle of the night to discuss the exclusion, but Mr Justice Anthony Hart said the judge who excluded Mr Ward and his lawyer had acted within his powers.

Afterwards Ward’s solicitor, Niall Murphy, said: “He continues to protest his innocence.”

Police had initially interviewed Ward on video tape as a witness in the days immediately after the robbery.

In January he also spoke to the BBC and the Irish News.

In the newspaper interview, Ward said the robbers told him: “If you co-operate everything will be okay. If you don’t, you and your family are dead.”

He also said he believed people suspected him of being involved in the robbery. “They don’t say it directly, but there is an insinuation that because I am a west Belfast Catholic that I must have been part of the robbery,” he said.

But Ward said he would never have put his family through ordeal they suffered during the robbery.

A 35-year-old man arrested yesterday for questioning was released without charge.

Another Northern Bank worker, Seaneen McKenna, is issuing civil proceedings against police after she was arrested last week along with Ward. Ms McKenna has since been released.

BreakingNews.ie

07/12/2005 - 08:21:38

The Irish Justice Minister has abused parliamentary privilege by repeating unfounded allegations in the Dáil, Sinn Féin claimed today.

Michael McDowell last night accused the director of the Centre for Public Inquiry, journalist Frank Connolly, of being linked to a plot by the IRA to provide Colombian terrorists with bombing-making information in return for cash.

In a written reply to a Dáil question by independent TD Finian McGrath, Mr McDowell claimed that Mr Connolly travelled to the Farc-controlled region of Colombia on a false passport in April 2001 along with convicted IRA member, Padraig Wilson.

The visit was a well-organised sinister enterprise, the minister claimed.

Mr Connolly last night rejected the allegations and accused the minister of being part of a “witch hunt” aimed at destroying the Centre for Public Inquiry, which promotes ethics and accountability in public life.

Mr McDowell claimed under Dáil privilege that Mr Connolly also travelled with his brother, Niall, one of the Colombia Three, who re-appeared in Ireland in August after jumping bail in Bogota.

Sinn Féin today accused Mr McDowell of abusing his powers within the Dáil.

A party spokesman said of the minister’s claims: “It is an outrageous abuse of parliamentary privilege by the minister as these allegations are completely unfounded.”

In his reply to Mr McGrath, Mr McDowell said he had been informed by gardaí that prior to the arrest of the so-called Colombia Three in August 2001, authorities had established that three Irish people also entered Farc-controlled territory on false passports, and one of those was Frank Connolly.

He added under Dáil privilege: “On the basis of intelligence reports furnished to me, the [April and August] visits appear to have been connected with an arrangement whereby the Provisional IRA furnished knowhow in the use of explosives.

“The consideration received by the Provisional IRA under the arrangement is believed to be the payment of a large amount of money by Farc, which finances its activities by its control of the cocaine trade in the area of Colombia which it controls.”

Mr Connolly is expected to make a statement today to completely refute the allegations.

Irish Independent

Clock ticks down to strike as talks to resolve dispute end in stalemate

Paul Melia

TRADE unions from across the UK will protest at Holyhead port in Wales today in support of SIPTU workers currently embroiled in a dispute with Irish Ferries over plans to employ low-paid Eastern European workers.

The move comes as talks at the Labour Relations Commission in Dublin ended in stalemate last night with no end in sight to the dispute which has suspended Irish Ferries services for the past 11 days.

SIPTU regional secretary Patricia King said that talks being held today would determine if the matter could be resolved within the LRC. The union has served strike notice to take effect from tonight if there is no agreement.

Talks, which begin at 10am, are expected to last the day.

Asked if the strike would be extended to all SIPTU branches, Ms King said: “It’s a matter for how people react.”

Exploitation

Today at least six UK-based unions will travel to Holyhead to support Irish Ferries workers and to highlight the issues of job displacement, exploitation and employment standards, John Tilley from the RMT, the union representing rail, maritime and transport workers, said.

“We’ve organised it at the request of the ITF (International Transport Workers Federation),” he said. “We’re bringing a coach load from Liverpool and from parts of Wales as well. We’re thinking it’ll be a pretty good turn-out. While the Irish workers are stuck on the vessels we’ll be demonstrating support.

“But there are other issues as well. The Irish workers on the ships have not had access to their trade union and under international maritime law they’re entitled to that. Not only is that illegal, it’s also a breach of their human rights.

“Irish Ferries have not allowed the unions near the ships on the spurious grounds of security, which is a disgrace. We’re not looking to disrupt the port, we’re going to support our Irish colleagues.”

Meanwhile, the Irish Bishops Conference has lent its support to Friday’s National Day of Protest, saying that the Irish Ferries dispute “draws attention” to how migrant workers were treated in Ireland. It called for a resolution to the dispute that respected the “rights of all involved”.

In a statement, the Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs said that while labour costs were “a legitimate concern”, Irish Ferries was a profitable company and the desire to maximise returns should not be made at the expense of workers or in a manner which would undermine society’s acceptance of “appropriate standards of employment and rates of pay”.

Disruption

The ICJSA said the dispute had the potential to undermine the social partnership, and that society should ensure that immigrants were not exploited but paid a “just wage”.

“Social partnership promotes an ideal of equity or fairness, and it is at least arguable that this model of social partnership has in recent years gone some way towards countering inequities in Irish society,” the statement read.

“In this light, the ICJSA offers its support for the day of protest on December 9 that is being organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.”

Yesterday, it also emerged that members of the National Bus and Rail Union would support Friday’s National Day of Protest, which would lead to some disruption in city bus services.

However, inter-city and commuter rail services are not expected to be affected.