SAOIRSE32

BN.ie

**See this Google unison.ie site search for ‘Veronica Guerin’ for more links to information.

25/06/2006 - 18:04:20

The 10th anniversary of the cold-blooded killing of journalist Veronica Guerin will be marked tomorrow with a minute’s silence.

The mother of one was gunned on the outskirts of Dublin after mounting a high-profile war against Ireland’s drug barons in a national newspaper.

As she sat in her car at a traffic light near Newland’s Cross on the Naas Road, she was shot by a pillion passenger on a motorbike.

A minute’s silence is expected to be held at the site at 7.30pm tomorrow night.

A journalist with the Sunday Independent, Ms Guerin was one of the country’s leading crime reporters when she was killed.

The criminal investigation was one of the largest in the history of the state and led to over 150 arrests.

Brian Meehan was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Paul Ward was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison in November 1998 but this conviction was later overturned on appeal.

Drugs baron John Gilligan was extradited from England in February 2000. He was tried and acquitted of her murder but convicted of importing cannabis and sentenced to 28 years in prison, which was reduced to 20 years on appeal.

The man named in court as having shot dead Veronica Guerin, Patrick ’Dutchy’ Holland, reiterated his denial after being released from a prison sentence for a drugs conviction in April.

The killing was the first assassination of a reporter in the Republic and sparked shock and anger among colleagues, the public and gardai vowed to track down her killers.

Then Taoiseach John Bruton called the murder “an attack on democracy” and the Dail marked it with a minute’s silence.

In a joint statement, newspaper editors in Ireland and Britain branded the assassination “a fundamental attack on the free press“.

A bursary was last week launched in memory of the murdered journalist by Independent Newspapers. The Veronica Guerin Memorial Bursary will support the education of new journalists at Dublin City, where Ms Guerin served as a member of the governing body from 1982 to 1992.

The journalist’s life has also inspired the making of two films, When the Sky Falls in 2000, starring Joan Allen, and Veronica Guerin in 2003, which starred Cate Blanchett.

BBC

Police said the burning roof may contain asbestos

Police have warned residents in Armagh to keep their windows and doors closed after a fire broke out in the city’s Cavanagarvan Road area.

The blaze is believed to have started in an outhouse near Drumhillery Church and police fear the roof may contain asbestos.

A PSNI spokeswoman has issued a request that the area be kept clear until further notice.

The spokewoman said the cause of the fire was not yet known.

BN.ie

25/06/2006 - 17:13:43

The British and Irish governments will tomorrow review the lack of progress in restoring devolution in Northern Ireland since the parties were given a November deadline to a breakthrough.

Northern Ireland Secretary of State Peter Hain and Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern meet at Hillsborough Castle in Co Down to see if they can identify any progress since Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern set the clock ticking down to November 24 in April.

Mr Blair and Mr Ahern are expected in Belfast later in the week to re-emphasise to the parties the need for progress and remind them what will happen if they don’t do the premiers bidding.

But with scant sign of movement Mr Hain was accused of double standards and being the reason behind the lack of recent political progress in the province.

The Democratic Unionist Party North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds branded Mr Hain and Sinn Féin “a shoddy double act” which was extremely counter-productive to creating circumstances where confidence could be built towards establishing devolution.

He said there were two boycotts of the Assembly going on, Sinn Féin’s refusal to attend, and Mr Hain’s refusal to permit business to take place in the Assembly.

Mr Dodds said: “Mr Hain is displaying an atrocious attitude to the democratically elected representatives of Northern Ireland. He continues to stymie meetings of the Assembly for no apparent reason other than he feels the need to pander to Sinn Fein/IRA.”

In an angry onslaught he said: “The glaring double standards of Peter Hain are now blatantly exposed. He calls the Assembly into being but vetoes meetings.

“He criticises MLAs but rejects efforts to ensure debate and discussion on the Assembly floor.

“He pours money into the coffers of Sinn Féin/IRA at Westminster which they never attend whist harping on about money to Assembly parties who do wish to attend the Assembly but are prevented by him.”

It was six weeks since the Assembly had been recalled to Stormont, but for most of that time there had been no business because of Mr Hain, he said – it was no wonder people were frustrated and questioned the purpose of having an Assembly.

Mr Dodds added: “The responsibility for the current situation lies firmly at the feet of Peter Hain and he has created a very bad context in which the discussions with the Prime Minister are due to take place later this week.”

Yesterday Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, MP, warned his party may walk away well before November 24 if there is not progress.

He announced a review of Sinn Féin involvement and cautioned the Government’s against claiming things were going to plan.

Mr Adams said: “We are coming to the end of the six week sit-in of the Hain Assembly and we need to recognise that no progress has been made.”

He accused the DUP of showing no interest in progress and the two governments of allowing them to prevent progress.

Calling for Mr Blair and Mr Ahern to act he said: “If there is to be any possibility of power-sharing institutions being restored, there is a need for them to take decisive action.”

Indymedia.ie

Press release posted Sunday June 25, 2006 14:03
Michael McKevitt Justice Campaign

Members of the Michael McKevitt Justice Campaign highlight their case at the 8th Annual NGO Forum on Human Rights Croke Park, Dublin.

Marcella Sands, Bernadette Sands-McKevitt and Carol McKevitt attended the 8th Annual NGO Forum held in Dublin 24/6/06. Marcella Sands, who spoke during the questions and answers sessions, stated that the purpose of her being there was to inform the participants about the injustice of Michael McKevitt’s case. She pointed out to the panel that a number of questions remained unanswered in this case, in particular who authorized MI5 to operate in this state and what was meant by the DPP statement at Michael’s appeal that ‘international relationships would be affected if he were freed.’ Marcella stated: “We will be going to Europe with this case. I would like a pledge from this panel that they will read this book about the case as we will be in contact with you shortly.”

Representations were also made to number of individuals including Mr. Conor Lenihan, Minister of State for Development Co-operation and Human Rights, Ms. Erika Feller, Assistant UN High Commissioner for Protection with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Mr. Ambeyi Ligabo, UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right of Opinion and Expression.

(To view photos go to www.michaelmckevitt.com)

BN.ie

25/06/2006 - 13:04:05

A spokesman for the Rossport Five is denying there is any split in the group.

Reports today suggest the five men jailed over their protest against Shell’s proposed gas pipeline in Mayo, has lost one of their members.

They claim that Brendan Philbin is pursuing his case against Shell separately from the others.

But a spokesman for the group, Dr Mark O’Garavan, said today that the reports were exaggerated, and the group is functioning as usual.

Sunday Life

Baby, just look at you now

By Sinead McCavana
25 June 2006

Baby James Hynes’ dad said last night that he’s overjoyed at the progress his seriously ill son has made in a German hospital.

The 13-month-old, who was just weeks from death earlier this month, is now eating, drinking, sleeping and playing like a normal toddler.

Jim Hynes says the past nine days at Tubinger Children’s Hospital have been like a “holiday” for the family.

“It is just unreal,” said the dad-of-two.

“James is absolutely bouncing - it’s hard to put into words how we feel.

“It’s the best nine days we have spent with our son since he was born - it’s like a holiday.

“He’s in great form, playing and running around, and the swelling in his face has gone down.

“James had his feeding tube removed and now he’s eating and drinking like a trooper.

“Last night he slept from 8pm until 7.30am - that’s never happened before.”

The Hynes family left for Germany in an air ambulance just over a week ago.

Mum Cathy told Sunday Life then how she feared her son, who has leukaemia, might not make the journey.

Earlier this month doctors at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children had sent James home, saying there was nothing more they could do for him.

Sunday Life exposed James’ plight and following a huge outpouring of public sympathy, the Eastern Health Board agreed to fund a bone marrow transplant operation.

James’ mum Cathy will be the bone marrow donor.

Although this is a painful procedure, Jim says: “She told the doctors she would cut off her right arm to help James.

“Cathy is so happy about James’ progress that she isn’t concerned about her own treatment.

“It begins on Thursday when she’ll get an injection five-times-a-day.

“James will be on a new chemo (therapy) drug for about a week and then the transplant will begin.”

Cheques are still being sent into the Baby James Appeal which will help fund the Hynes family’s lengthy stay in Germany.

It will also go towards helping other children like James.

Sunday Life

By Sunday Life reporter
25 June 2006

A former Army officer claims that no fewer than THREE different Special Branch agents took part in a series of IRA attacks which claimed the lives of seven soldiers in less than a year.

The officer also claims security chiefs continued to use the agents to gather intelligence after the south Down attacks in spite of knowing they had been involved in murder.

The three agents were all members of the IRA’s south Down unit based in the Newry area during the 1980s and 1990s.

All three had a long history of involvement in terrorism stretching back several years.

They were recruited after intelligence handlers identified them as “suitable” for an approach.

None of the men knew the others were working for Special Branch as they planned and took part in IRA operations.

It has been claimed that the agents were involved - either individually or collectively - in:

–An explosion that killed three members of the Parachute Regiment near Mayobridge, Co Down, in November 1989;

–a landmine attack that claimed the lives four UDR men outside Downpatrick in April 1990, and;

–The ‘human bomb’ attack on an Army checkpoint near Newry that killed RIR soldier Cyril Smith in October 1990.

The officer said that at least one agent was known to have been involved in all three attacks.

He told Sunday Life: “(RUC) Special Branch was running these men ‘hands-on’.

“They knew the IRA was planning these attacks - the agents were providing police with that information.

“Yet the attacks were allowed to proceed and seven soldiers died needlessly.”

The former officer said the Downpatrick and Mayobridge landmines had been built by a top IRA bomb-maker later linked to the 1998 Omagh atrocity. Another leading Provisional detonated both devices.

Neither man has ever been charged in relation to any of the attacks.

The former officer said information about the agents had come to light during Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s investigation into the murder of WPC Colleen McMurray.

He added: “Relatives of the dead soldiers have a right to know why their loved-ones were callously sacrificed.

“They should be asking the Police Ombudsman to investigate these deaths.”

A spokesman for the Police Ombudsman’s office said it had not received a complaint about Special Branch agents being involved in the soldiers’ deaths.

Sunday Life

**Carrying on the Sunday Life tradition of ‘All-Shoukri-All-the-Time’…

By Stephen Breen and Alan Murray
25 June 2006

The UDA last night teetered on the brink of all-out civil war.

Jailed north Belfast brigadier Andre Shoukri was switched to a secure unit at Maghaberry prison amid growing fears for his safety - as the feud with south Belfast UDA boss Jackie McDonald threatened to spiral out of control. (Click photo to view)

And senior loyalists predicted Eleventh night bonfires could descend into vicious hand-to-hand fighting between drink-fuelled UDA rivals.

One veteran loyalist told Sunday Life: “It wouldn’t take too much to spark a fist-fight - to say the very least.”

Meanwhile, exiled Shankill terror-boss Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair crowed from his Scottish bolt-hole: “I always said I would have the last laugh.

“The people who conspired against me and tried to kill my family are now either dead or in jail - the UDA is finished.”

UDA on the Brink of all-out war…

The bitterness below the surface between north Belfast and the other Belfast brigades didn’t take long to surface last week.

After five senior figures from north Belfast handed over the statement - reproduced here for the first time - rejecting the previous day’s call from the ‘inner council’ to dismiss and replace three figures including the Shoukris, the barbed comments weren’t long in coming.

And it was Jackie McDonald whose name was most freely bandied about.

Said one of the north Belfast leadership: “The inner council statement, in reality, comes from just four people. We are confident in our own position and always have been throughout this process.

“This has all been brought on by the lies of three people in north Belfast - three puppets brought up by Jackie McDonald. There is no evidence. We proved that all that was said were lies.

“We are a bit at fault, because we allowed these three to sit in here and do their own illegal business, and didn’t stop them.

“But the inner council statement doesn’t change one thing.

“There’s not going to be any more meetings of the brigade. The membership has confirmed their support for the leadership and there will be no changes.”

Added another: “As far as (Tuesday’s) statement goes, we don’t recognise the statement or the authority of it. There is no aggression from the north Belfast UDA, but we will not have puppets interfering in our area. The rest of the association should mind their own business and stay out of our affairs.

“We say to the other UDA brigades: ‘Look at yourselves before pointing your fingers at anyone else.’ We are 100pc united, we’re not going to tolerate any interference.”

Another of the five - one of those the inner council wants removed as brigadier - claimed: “I offered to step down, but not one man in the room said I should go.

“There is crime in every UDA brigade area. What about the east Belfast brigadier?

“His boys wrecked a pub because the landlord wouldn’t let them sell their own booze in it and one of his men was involved in the threat that closed the Cregagh youth club.

“Is that not crime?”

Statement by north Belfast UDA brigade staff

IN the past weeks and months, some have attempted to divide Ulster loyalism by making a series of allegations about drug-dealing and criminality against their fellow loyalists, in particular against the brigade staff in north Belfast UDA.

In an attempt to address these spurious allegations, a series of meetings took place with the inner council. At these meetings, independent witnesses (churchmen and community workers) attested to efforts to tackle drug-dealing and crime by north Belfast UDA. This testimony was supported by PSNI statistics.

Indeed, it was accepted by the inner council that one of those who made the original claims was a pathological liar.

This process should have resolved the matter. Unfortunately, some have chosen to continue with their lies.

They have deliberately tried to smear certain individuals through the media to cause discord and unrest in north Belfast. This vendetta was extended to certain inner council members, providing misinformation to Government officials in Ulster and the Republic of Ireland in an attempt to undermine our work to maintain calm in the most volatile part of Belfast. Throughout this process, north Belfast UDA has consulted widely with its membership.

It is their choice that the present leadership remain with their full support and confidence. This decision should be fully respected and accepted.

Thus, no interference in the affairs of north Belfast brigade will be allowed.

The motto of our organisation is Quis Separabit - None Shall Divide Us.

Our full co-operation and media silence throughout this process shows north Belfast UDA remains committed to that standard.

We would urge the rank-and-file of other brigades to ask: did their leadership show the same commitment?

Regardless of the decisions and actions of others, north Belfast UDA will not be swayed from its support of the peace process, maintaining calm at interfaces, the process of dialogue around parades, tackling drug-dealing and crime and working for the regeneration of our much-neglected communities - five important tasks that north Belfast UDA look forward to with a renewed sense of strength, positivity and purpose.

Quis Separabit

Why ‘day of reckoning’ may bolster the peace process

UNLIKE the IRA or even their loyalist rivals in the UVF, the UDA was never run on the lines of a centralised military command structure.

Throughout its 34-year history, the UDA has always been a loose confederation of disparate loyalist military units rather than a conventional secret, underground ‘army’.

Autonomy and independence were consistently valued by the various so-called ‘brigades’ who often acted on their own - sometimes even without the knowledge of the UDA’s nominal central body, the ‘inner council’.

So, when Johnny Adair decided to launch an assault on the UVF in the greater Shankill six years ago, only his closest allies in just one company of the west Belfast brigade were aware of his plans.

Adair took UDA ‘federalism’ to its extreme end and acted totally independently from the other UDA ‘brigades’ and two of his other ‘companies’ in the west of the city.

Two of Adair’s usurpers, the men whom ‘Mad Dog’ believes betrayed him in the next feud three years later - the Shoukri brothers - were pinning their hopes of survival last week on the UDA’s long history of federalism. In response to their expulsion from the main organisation, the Shoukris and their supporters in the UDA’s north Belfast ‘brigade’ pointed out, in secret meetings with their rivals, that each area is entitled to act on its own as long as they are not breaching the terror group’s ceasefire.

What this means is that the Shoukris and their cohorts - including Alan McClean - can continue in their lucrative criminal activities, even while the rest of the UDA tries to eschew criminality and move into an new mode.

The UDA’s leadership, however, the one that defeated Adair’s ‘C’ company and exiled Mad Dog’s team to greater Manchester, has had enough of federalism.

Led by Jackie McDonald, the UDA’s south Belfast ‘brigadier’, the organisation, barring north Belfast, appears more united than it has been for decades.

All of the other key players on the UDA’s inner council, once a basin of scorpions where rivals used to sting and stab each other in the back the second they were out of the room, now back McDonald.

Shorn of Adair and realising that paramilitarism is a thing of the past, the McDonald-led UDA can no longer afford to allow individual units do what they want.

The penalties for continuing to operate as UDA Crime Inc. are potentially massive. The prize for winding the organisation up is millions of pounds being injected into Protestant working-class areas and hundreds of jobs created for the UDA’s new unemployed army.

There are two bizarre ironies about the current stand-off between McDonald and his UDA mainstream against the north Belfast rebels.

The first is that, if the bullets start flying, the larger faction will be engaged in a ‘war for the peace process’, in yet another Orwellian twist to Ulster history, they will be shooting their rivals in order to bring to an end to paramilitarism.

The second irony is that, for the first time since the 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike, the UDA has never been so united - only this time in the conviction that the organisation set up to defend Protestant communities should finally go out of business.

Henry McDonald
- Henry McDonald is co-author of UDA - Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror (Penguin Books, £7.99)

Shoukri is furious after prison move

Caged terror boss Andre Shoukri has been moved to a secure wing at Maghaberry Prison.

A senior source at the jail told Sunday Life that the north Belfast UDA leader was re-located amid growing fears for his safety.

He was also joined by close pal John ‘Bonzer’ Boreland.

Shoukri, who is on remand on blackmail charges, had been sharing the same landing as prisoners loyal to the mainstream UDA.

Although the UDA’s ‘inner council’ has not issued any threats against the north Belfast leadership, jail bosses moved Shoukri last Friday night.

The source said Shoukri pleaded with prison officers not to move him.

Said the source: “It took a lot of prison officers to move Shoukri and he didn’t like it one bit. Up until now, he thought he was the top man in the prison.

“When he was being moved he was shouting that his life had been turned upside down and he was telling the officers he was not in danger.

“He was in a right mess because he thought it was the last thing that would happen to him.

“The prison moved Shoukri for his own good because it could just take one prisoner loyal to his former comrades to try and kill him.

“The same thing happened to Adair when he was moved and Shoukri is furious this has happened. He has demanded a meeting with the governor because he can’t stand being on his own.”

The source also told how Shoukri “went ballistic” after his expulsion from the UDA.

Added the source: “He went and was shouting about all sorts of things. Nobody went near him.

“He had spent the days before the expulsions telling inmates that he would be a millionaire by the time he was released.

“But when news of the expulsions came in and Shoukri was moved, some of the prisoners turned on him and started laughing in his face.

“It will be interesting to see what sort of life he leads once he is released from prison and if in fact he does have millions stashed away somewhere.”

Fears Eleventh night will fan the flames

In spite of an assurance from the inner council that it has no intention of spilling blood over the Shoukris and Alan McClean, there were fears last night that the two factions could clash over the Twelfth.

It could kick off at Eleventh night bonfires and spill over into the next day’s parades.

While each faction insists they don’t plan any incursions into the other’s territory, the Eleventh night brings revellers from different parts of the city into other areas to meet up with friends.

Most years see at least one serious incident involving rival paramilitary groups or figures from different elements of the same organisation.

While, in Belfast, supporters of rival UDA brigades are separated behind district lodges from across the city, the danger of confrontation arises when the demonstration reaches its destination at Barnett’s Demesne and Orangemen and bandsmen have three hours to kill before the return leg.

Said one senior loyalist source: “That’s the danger time - it mightn’t take too much for some words from someone in south Belfast or north Belfast to spark a fight, to say the least.

“Everyone in the organisation knows what bands are UDA-associated from each area and, unless there is a clear commitment from all to ensure that nothing happens at the Belfast field, then there could be chaos.”

Johnny’ll come marching home soon: ‘Mad Dog’ Adair

Exiled terror boss Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair last night taunted his bitter enemies in the UDA by declaring: “You’re finished.”

And Adair, now living in Scotland, claims his return to Ulster will now come quicker because of the inner council’s decision to expel the Shoukris.

The Shankill loyalist, who has always vowed to return, claimed the UDA was in “disarray”.

He also promised to confront the man who he claims were responsible for exiling him and his family when he returns.

Said Adair: “I always said I would come home some day but I now expect this to be sooner rather than later because of the way things are in the UDA at the moment.

“The people who conspired against me and tried to kill my family are now either dead or in jail. I always said I would have the last laugh.

“These people were big enough to take me on because they had supporters around them but they are all falling by the wayside.”

The Shankill loyalist hit out at the UDA’s inner council.

Added Adair: “Why was the UDA leadership afraid to take on people who only joined the organisation after the ceasefire?

“They took action against me because they had a lot of people around them but now they are all becoming increasingly isolated.

“During my time the UDA fought a war against republicans but now it’s just a laughing stock.”

Daily Ireland

Via Newshound

Another police informer is linked to 1994 Loughinisland pub massacre

By Ciarán Barnes
22/06/2006

A second police informer has been linked to the massacre of six Catholics in a Co Down pub 12 years ago.
The man, who is from the Newtownabbey area on the outskirts of north Belfast, was boss of the southeast Antrim Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) at the time of the Loughinisland murders.
Security sources have confirmed he sent an order to a second police agent, code-named ‘Mechanic’, to provide the getaway car used in the slaughter.
Eamon Byrne, Barney Green, Malcolm Jenkinson, Daniel McCreanor, Patrick O’Hare and Adrian Rogan died in the UVF attack on the Heights bar, while they were watching Ireland play Italy in a World Cup game.
Last week their relatives spoke publicly about the murders for the first time. At a press conference in Belfast they accused detectives of protecting their loved one’s killers.
The families also hit out at police for crushing the getaway car used in the attack, a move that led to crucial forensic evidence being destroyed.
Speaking to Daily Ireland yesterday, security sources revealed the identity of a second police ‘tout’ involved in the attack.
He was handled by Special Branch, unlike ‘Mechanic’ who was a CID informant.
On June 17, 1994, the agent was asked to provide a car to be used for Loughinisland at a meeting of UVF ‘brigade staff’ in a club on the Shankill Road in west Belfast.
The massacre would be revenge for the INLA murders of Shankill Road UVF men Colin Craig and Trevor King the previous day.
The southeast Antrim ‘brigadier’ is said to have ordered leading UVF member turned police agent Mark Haddock to source a getaway car. Haddock allegedly then approached his fellow UVF informer friend ‘Mechanic’ to provide the vehicle.
Within hours ‘Mechanic’ handed over a red Triumph Acclaim to senior UVF figures on the Shankill Road, not knowing for what purpose the vehicle was to be used. The next day the UVF carried out the Loughinisland massacre.
‘Mechanic’s’ CID handlers learned of his role in the murders in August 1994, days before the first arrests were made in connection with the case.
Security sources have told Daily Ireland they suspect Special Branch knew the identities of those involved earlier.
A source said: “The Special Branch agent who attended the UVF brigade staff meeting at which it (Loughinisland) was planned would have told his handlers within days, if not hours, what was planned and who was responsible.
“Arrests could have been made. The getaway car was found intact, weapons and gloves were discovered nearby. All the evidence was there on a plate, the only thing lacking was a willingness to prosecute.
“This begs the question why was no one charged. My belief is that the Special Branch was covering up for its agents within the UVF,” added the source.
The Loughinisland families’ solicitor, Niall Murphy, told Daily Ireland that reports of more agents being involved in the murders were coming to the fore.

Newshound

(Barry McCaffrey, Irish News)

Solicitors for the only man charged with the Omagh bomb claim their client cannot receive a fair trial after the British army was given access to sensitive legal documents vital to his defence.

Sean Hoey (36) of Molly Road, Jonesborough is awaiting trial in connection with the Real IRA bomb attack on Omagh in August 1998 which killed 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins.

He has been held in Maghaberry prison since March 2004.

However, in a highly unusual move Prison Ombudsman Brian Coulter has now said that he cannot guarantee that the British army or other unnamed persons were not given unauthorised access to confidential legal papers vital to Hoey’s defence.

The ombudsman’s concerns relates to an incident when prison officers removed Hoey’s legal papers during a search of his cell in November last year.

Hoey, who was not present during the search, said he only became aware the papers were missing when he returned to his cell.

A subsequent investigation by Mr Coulter found that prison officers had come across references to explosives in the legal papers and had removed them.

The Prison Service assured the Ombudsman that the legal papers neither left the prison nor were photocopied.

However in a report into the incident, Mr Coulter wrote: “My investigating officer requested to view all records relating to the chain of custody for the documents from when they were removed from Mr Hoey’s cell on November 1 until they were returned again to him.

“I am disappointed to learn that the only records available are those recorded by the staff who searched Mr Hoey’s cell and removed the documents.”

“The absence of these records makes it impossible to prove or disprove who actually had access to Mr Hoey’s legal documents.

Hoey’s solicitor Peter Corrigan said he would now be demanding that charges against his client were dropped.

“This is a total abuse of a person’s entitlement to prepare a proper defence,” he said.

“We have very real concerns as to who had access to this material.” Mr Corrigan said.

June 25, 2006
________________

This article appeared first in the June 24, 2006 edition of the Irish News.

Guardian

Antony Barnett and Mark Townsend
Sunday June 25, 2006
The Observer

The staggering number of AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles being imported into Britain has been revealed for the first time by new figures obtained by The Observer.

Details of import licences granted by the Department of Trade and Industry between March and June 2005 reveal that arms firms were given approval to import 250,000 automatic weapons, including at least 100,000 AK-47s.

Many are believed to have come from the Balkans. AK-47s are not used by the British army and it is feared the guns could be exported to war zones or end up in the hands of criminals. This week, Trade Minister Malcolm Wicks will be asked to explain the imports in Parliament.

Brian Wood, Amnesty International’s arms control expert, said: ‘It is astonishing that the government has granted import licences to UK firms for a vast quantity of military assault weapons that are banned from UK civilian use and do not appear amongst British soldiers. Where are they going? A full inquiry is needed to ensure that such weapons do not find their way to human rights abusers or criminal gangs.’

Amnesty, which will release a report on the international trade in AK-47s this week, claims the US Defence Department used chains of arms brokers to channel weapons to allies and military groups across the globe. It has already suggested that three UK firms had imported a consignment of 20,000 AK-47s in June 2005 from Bosnia.

However, this allegation is denied by the directors of those firms, who claim that the rifles were imported to the UK to be decommissioned, with the approval of the Home Office, the DTI and the Security Service.

A spokesman for the DTI said: ‘Before any import licence for such weapons is granted all the necessary checks are made.’

Sunday Times

Stephen O’Brien, Political Correspondent
June 25, 2006

THE Rossport Five has become the Rossport Four. Differences among the men jailed last year over their protest against Shell’s proposed gas pipeline in Mayo have resulted in a split in the group.

One of the five, Brendan Philbin, has not taken any active part in the group’s discussions for about two months and is now pursuing his case against Shell through a separate legal strategy.

Tensions also exist within the remaining four, according to local sources, but they survived a falling-out last month over their response to an “apology” issued by Shell following the release of a safety review by Advantica, consultants hired by the government.

One of the four, Willie Corduff, angrily disagreed when the apology was accepted by Micheal O’Seighin, the group’s de facto leader and oldest member.

The differences among the Rossport Five are unlikely to make it any easier for Shell to find a compromise solution, however. The company is understood to be examining possible alternative pipeline routes, including some through the environmentally sensitive Sruwaddacon Bay.

None of the five could be contacted for comment last week. In any case, they have given undertakings not to comment publicly on a mediation process being conducted by Peter Cassells, a former trade union leader.

Dr Mark Garavan, a spokesman for the Shell to Sea group that is opposing Shell’s pipeline project, said: “Brendan [Philbin] is still very much in touch with what is going on, but the other four men are, for the most part, conducting the negotiations.”

Garavan conceded there were “different views” when O’Seighin accepted the apology issued by Andy Pyle, the managing director of Shell Exploration and Production Ireland Ltd (SEPIL). But he pointed out that none of the five publicly distanced themselves from O’Seighin’s statement.

The publication of the Advantica report, Pyle’s apology for Shell’s “mistakes” and the “hurt caused” by the jailing, and O’Seighin’s acceptance of that apology were seen as the foundations for progress in the mediation process.

Cassells, the former general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, has held a number of meetings in Mayo since, but local sources say no face-to-face meetings between Shell and the Rossport Four have taken place.

Garavan said there were no indications of an imminent breakthrough. Diverting the Shell pipeline away from the Rossport peninsula and into Sruwaddacon Bay to the south would require “a whole new set of consents” from Noel Dempsey, the energy minister, he said.

The bay is a European Union-designated Special Area of Conservation (SAC), which means planning permission would be more difficult to secure and it opens up the prospect of long-running challenges in the European courts. The state does, however, have the authority to grant permission for development “of national importance” in SACs.

Jailed for defiance of a High Court order not to obstruct Shell’s work last year, Philbin is now back in the High Court defending an action taken by Shell for permanent restraining orders against him and Brid McGarry, the owner of one of the largest land-holdings in Rossport.

Sunday Times

Liam Clarke
June 25, 2006

THE UDA’s ousted leader in north Belfast, Andre Shoukri, has been forced to leave the paramilitary group’s wing in Maghaberry prison where he was being held.

His expulsion is further evidence of the terrorist group’s isolation of Shoukri and his brother Ihab, who were expelled from the Ulster Defence Association last week.

The Shoukris had hoped to make a stand against the movement and there were fears that a vicious loyalist feud might develop, similar to the one that followed the expulsion of Johnny Adair from the organisation in 2002.

But UDA and British government sources are now cautiously optimistic that things will not come to that. They say violence is unlikely unless the volatile Shoukris take the initiative.

One loyalist source said: “Both Andre and Ihab are used to gambling and losing, and there is no certainty that they will know when to cut their losses.” This is a reference to courtroom revelations that Andre, who is remanded in custody on extortion charges, once lost £863,000 (€1.25m) in a bookmaker’s.

The UDA believes that £30m in British government funding to loyalist areas hinges on a peaceful outcome to the internal dispute.

There is also the potential of several million more being levered from Irish government and business sources by Martin McAleese, the Irish president’s husband.

This appears to be why the UDA cautiously isolated the Shoukris before removing them. The strategy was designed by Jackie McDonald, the UDA’s south Belfast brigadier, who is a friend of the McAleeses.

McDonald is known to have an astute political sense, while being a ruthless man. What sets him apart from the rest, and makes him the UDA’s effective leader, is his ability to build up favours and goodwill even among businessmen from whom he had extorted money.

“I won’t always be a brigadier, but I’ll always be Jackie McDonald,” he once said. “I’ll have to be able to live with people without looking over my shoulder. Being a hard bastard won’t get you that.”

This pragmatic approach has won him real political influence with the Irish government and the McAleese family, to the point where he is sometimes referred to as “the Irish ambassador” by fellow loyalists.

The plan that McDonald has sold to the UDA is that the British government investment can be used to employ former UDA activists and released prisoners as community workers. It would be a way out of criminality for those who want one.

The Shoukris did not fit this vision. While McDonald is in his fifties, Andre is 28 and Ihab, frequently pie-eyed on the painkiller Nubain, is 31. A third brother Yehia, known as Yuk, is not a member of the UDA.

They are the sons of a Coptic Christian Egyptian seaman who married a Belfast woman and settled in the Ballysillan estate. He was killed in a car accident when the children were young.

His sons suffered racial abuse and were forced to move to the Westland estate, their present power base. Andre spent some time in Hazelwood, a religiously integrated school, then he and his brothers moved to the largely Protestant Boys’ Model School.

They dealt with the prejudice endemic in loyalist working class areas through good humour and boxing. “Even now Andre takes that sort of thing (racial discrimination) in good part,” one loyalist associate said. “He sometimes tells people he’s known as ‘the Paki’ to put them at their ease.”

After leaving school Andre, a handsome man with a powerful physique, became a male model for an agency, coincidentally called Pharaohs. Later he and Ihab worked for the Child Support Agency, which collects money from absent fathers, but Andre was forced to leave after being charged with a serious crime.

He joined the UDA after being accused of other offences. “We gave him a choice between being a member or being punished,” one UDA source said.

He and Ihab were initially proteges of Adair, whom Andre met in jail. Adair engineered the removal of Jimbo Simpson, dubbed the “Bacardi brigadier” because of his drink habit, as leader in north Belfast and his replacement by Andre. Later both brothers backed the leadership against Adair.

Since then the two brothers have alternated the leadership of north Belfast between them. It is an area where members of the UDA control lucrative rackets in prostitution, drugs and extortion that they fear they will lose if the Shoukris are replaced. But supporting the brothers with armed action could mean a death sentence.

A key to the future is the south-east Antrim brigade, where the brigadier is said to be involved in a land deal with the Shoukris. So far the brigade has remained neutral, earning it the nickname the Swiss. Over the next fortnight it and the north Belfast brigade have to decide whether to ditch the Shoukris or risk a bloody feud.

Sunday Times

Liam Clarke
June 25, 2006

A JOINT MI5 and Irish police sting operation appears to have thwarted plans by the Real IRA to launch a gun and bomb campaign in Ireland and Britain aimed at derailing the peace process.

MI5 officers posed as French arms dealers to uncover what appears to have been the dissidents’ plans, obtain their shopping list of weapons and drain them of funds. The operation took months and involved co-operation with the authorities in France, where the bogus arms deal was to take place.

Officers waited until the money had been handed over and the alleged arms’ buyers had returned to Northern Ireland before pouncing. They seized the deeds to an apartment in Portugal as well as a six-figure sum in cash.

Four suspected republican dissidents have now been arrested and charged, but a senior security source described the operation as “by no means over yet”. None of those charged made any plea in preliminary hearings last week and there is no evidence so far that any of them are members of an illegal group.

Whatever the outcome of the case, police sources are appalled at the extent of the terror campaign the Real IRA appears to have planned. If successful, the deal would have given the Real IRA — which bombed Omagh in 1998 — the ability to shoot down helicopters, blow up armoured vehicles and shoot their targets with long-range sniper rifles.

“They thought they had made contacts in those countries to buy heavy weaponry,” said a security source. “They had made all the plans to do so and they had made plans to use it.”

Weapons for which the dissidents allegedly handed over money include:

• Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles capable of piercing military body armour
• Long-range sniper rifles similar to those used by the Provisional IRA in south Armagh in the 1990s
• Heavy machineguns capable of slicing through armour plate and bringing down helicopters or low-flying aircraft
• Pistols with silencers, probably for close-quarter attacks on police patrols in the street
• SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles usually used against helicopters and aircraft
• 100kg of Semtex and C4 plastic explosive o Booby trap devices and mines
• Disposable rocket-propelled grenades used by the IRA for attacks on MI6 headquarters in London
• Detonators and detonator cords of the type used on mortars and anti-tank, armour-piercing weapons.

The armoury demonstrates an apparent intention by the dissidents to begin a widespread campaign on the scale of that carried out by the Provisional IRA. One likely aim was to destabilise the Sinn Fein leadership by attacking the security forces during political negotiations.

The arms shopping list and the success of the security force sting bears out the judgment made by the Independent Monitoring Commission earlier this year. “Dissident republicans remain determinedly committed to terrorism and deeply engaged in other crime, but they are not always capable of fulfilling their paramilitary ambitions and have recently been foiled by successful police operations,” it said.

The latest success is further evidence of the extent to which the dissident groups are penetrated by informants and monitored electronically by the security forces.

In the last sting, launched by MI5 in 2002, the Real IRA sent three members to Slovakia where they met MI5 agents and attempted to arrange an arms deal. All three were convicted of conspiracy to buy weapons.

BBC ON THIS DAY

25 June 1985

Thirteen people have been arrested in connection with a suspected IRA mainland bombing campaign uncovered by police two days ago.

The men - who are being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act - include a 33-year-old from Belfast, suspected of carrying out the attack on the Conservative Cabinet in the Brighton Grand Hotel last year.

The IRA may have planted several devices in resorts around the UK

It is feared the IRA may have planted devices in a dozen seaside resorts around the UK - timed to go off at the height of the summer season - and a massive police hunt has been launched.

A controlled explosion was carried out on a suspect package in Brighton and a hotel in Hull was evacuated, but both incidents proved to be false alarms.

The only bomb discovered so far was found in the Rubens Hotel, London, where civil dignitaries and mayors were expected to stay for three Buckingham Palace garden parties next month.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher congratulated the police on their prompt action and said the eight forces involved in the bomb hunt had averted a disaster “calculated to maim and kill many innocent people”.

Home Secretary Leon Brittan told the BBC he had given Metropolitan Commissioner Sir Kenneth Newman three weeks to make safe the resorts named in the IRA plot.

In Context

The alleged IRA summer bombing campaign was successfully averted.

One of the 13 men arrested, Patrick Magee, was charged on 29 June 1985 for the murder of the five people killed in the Brighton bombing the previous October.

He was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for that attack and the seaside resort conspiracy, but released in 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Sunday Business Post

By Tom McGurk
25 June 2006

Quite simply, Fr Faul had contacts and insights into the Northern troubles that nobody else had.

As we sat talking that day, beyond his office, the North seemed to be a landscape of bombed-out town centres, security gates, road-blocks, lonely county roads and silent, chilling, empty night-time streets. In this landscape, a seemingly endless stream of unstoppable acts of death and destruction took place.

In the war between the IRA and the British security forces, particularly in the mid-Ulster murder triangle, the Catholic community was increasingly becoming the meat in the sandwich.

Fr Faul said something to me that seemed then simply incredible, beyond belief and something that was to occupy my working life for years to come.

‘‘You know all those people are completely and utterly innocent, no relationship whatsoever with the IRA,” he said. ‘‘I mean the entire Maguire family, the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and Judith Ward.” It was an astonishing claim; that 18 people, some convicted of the worst mass murders in British criminal history, and some in jail with ‘never to be released’ on their files, were all totally innocent. These 18 miscarriages of justice were simply off any Richter scale.

‘‘Here,” he said, handing me a list of relative’s phone numbers and lawyers, ‘‘talk to these.’’ He also handed me a small pamphlet that he and his colleague Fr Raymond Murray had written on the Birmingham Six case. As I contemplated the enormity of what he was saying, my discomfort wasn’t helped by the fact that Fr Faul was uniquely well-versed on the secret world of the IRA.

Every Sunday, he said mass in Long Kesh and there he had contacts, relationships and access to senior IRA people that nobody else had. In all the years I’d known him, I had never known him to get things wrong; his instinct for the truth was as powerful as his sources.

As they buried Fr Faul this weekend, I hope that across Ireland, people remember him as the man who took the first brick out of the wall of the dreadful judicial tomb in which those 18 unfortunate people seemed buried forever. For the record, he was the first to put up his hand, the instigator of a wider journalistic and forensic investigation, that eventually, more than a decade later, saw justice finally done.

But these miscarriage of justice cases, gigantic as they were, constituted only a tiny part of this truly remarkable man’s contribution to the terrible years in the North. As the Troubles deepened and more people became the unwilling meat in the sandwich between all sorts of legal and illegal armies, Fr Faul’s door in Dungannon was often a last refuge.

Like some Archbishop Romero, in this third world of assassinations, spies, touts, murder gangs, informers, intelligence operations, prisoners, armed confrontations and the terrible, terrible suffering of ordinary people and families, thousands literally came to his door in desperation for help. With remarkable courage and the utter conviction that, as he used to say, ‘‘the strangest thing about the truth is that it will always eventually come out’’, he took the side of victims against all establishments.

He took on the Northern Ireland Office, the RUC, the British Army, the IRA, loyalist paramilitaries and the British and Irish governments and even the Catholic Church’s own establishment. For example, when he tried to raise the miscarriage of justice cases in the US, he was astonished that the Irish Embassy in Washington and the then ambassador, Sean Donlon, were briefing against him. In those Section 31 days, just about anybody who suggested that the British state was somehow complicit in state terrorism in the North was dismissed as a Provo to fellow travellers.

Because of the climate created by Section 31,which prevented any thorough reporting of the reality of the conflict, Fr Faul became the only voice attacking that consensus. Now, we know all about - or are at least beginning to understand - the secret involvement of the British state in assassinations and bombings, the link between the security services and sectarian murders, the truth about the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the IRA disappearances, or the killings of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson.

Fr Faul said it all loud and clear back then and was frequently dismissed as the ‘Provo priest’. Now we know he was right. Most of the thousands who came to his door were the small fry swept up in the detritus of the conflict.

They were ordinary people who the RUC or the intelligence services were trying to terrorise into informing, informers fleeing the IRA, families of the murder triangle victims with compelling evidence of state collusion, mothers and fathers of suspects beaten and abused and thousands in desperate need of a few bob to visit prisoners in England or to buy food in a house now minus its breadwinner. Any time of any day, of any week, of any year Fr Faul’s telephone would ring and he would wait at the door to help those who needed his assistance.

When the Irish government took the British government to the European Court of Human Rights on torture allegations following internment, Fr Faul did the early ground work. His dossier of statistics on prisoner abuse, including long lists of those with perforated eardrums, led to the Lord Gardiner Report. And of course he was central to ending the 1981 Hunger Strike in Long Kesh.

It was the parting of the ways for the Republican Movement and Fr Faul - afterwards they became increasingly disenchanted with him and he with them. When I last spent an afternoon with him in Carrickmore, where he went to be parish priest at the end of his long teaching career, he was deeply cynical about their part in the peace process. Always a nationalist rather than a Republican politically, he simply could not accept their new peaceful bona fides. He was deeply concerned about their power on the ground and in theNorthern community.

In the face of the intractable crisis between the Thatcher government and the dying and trapped hunger-strikers, Fr Faul recognised that there was one power still left unutilised. It was ‘mother power’ as he explained it to me and he simply turned to the mothers of the hungers-strikers and said ‘‘go and save your children’’. They did. If anything exemplified what Fr Faul was about and what he believed in, it was this defining moment. He passionately believed in the divine right of individual justice, the rights of the individual caught up in the raging seas of competing political establishments.

The poor people; the poor man or woman; the poor family. Time and again the adjective ‘poor’ was the key into Faul’s magnificent compassion. Beyond all this was his truly remarkable bravery. For years - especially during the murder triangle days when many of his neighbours and close friends were killed simply because they seemed to be influential Catholics - Fr Faul must have known the risks he was taking. He got bullets in the post, threatening phone calls and was once told that his grave had already been dug.

Can you imagine what is was like in those dark days with Fr Faul consistently making allegations about UDR and RUC involvement in the mid-Ulster murder campaign and driving alone, along those terrifying dark roads night after night, meeting RUC and UDR roadblocks?

He drew a remarkable coterie of people around him including two local priests Fr Raymond Murray and Fr Brian Brady, Sister Sarah Clarke in London and two local councillors, Jim Canning from Coalisland and Jack Hassert from Dungannon.

He enjoyed a very good relationship with the late Cardinal O’Fiach and with the former Apostolic Nuncio, Dr Alibrandi. Through the nuncio, Fr Faul would bypass the Irish hierarchy’s diplomatic bag and send his own reports to contacts in the Vatican.

When the conflict ended and Fr Faul retired from teaching, he was appointed parish priest of Termonmaguirk - better know as Carrickmore - and right to the end, the people came. Many were survivors, people he had saved in the terrible times; some were the children of those who had perished but whose cause he had fought, and many were just families calling to thank him.

Though he ended up a monsignor, one couldn’t help but be amused about how he was so often overlooked for ecclesiastical promotion while the mediocre of his generation became rising stars. But like every other establishment, I suppose the church too, feared his singularity and his compelling powers of conviction. He was a man alone, a moral giant.

In a lifetime of journalism, I think he was the most remarkable human being that it was my good fortune to come across.

Sunday Business Post

By Ian Kehoe
25 June 2006

The GAA is to undertake a major overhaul of its management structure with the appointment of a number of top-level executives over the coming months.

The association, which has more than 900,000 members, has created two high-ranking positions that will take overall responsibility for the GAA’s finances and for the organisation and development of Gaelic games across the country.

The move, which is designed to beef up the GAA’s management team, is one of the most significant shake-ups in GAA staffing structures.

A director of games will be appointed with overall responsibility for developing hurling and football. The position will also play a central role in organising the GAA’s main competitions, including the All-Ireland Championships.

The second position, director of finance, will develop and implement an overall financial strategy for the association and will also oversee it’s ticketing operations.

The new staff members will report directly to the GAA’s director general, Liam Mulvihill, and will oversee two of the most important areas within the association.

It is understood that a number of senior GAA staff members intend to apply for the jobs, which are more senior than any other GAA staff role with the exception of the director general.

The creation of the jobs was first recommended in 2002 by the GAA’s Strategic Review Committee, which was chaired by successful Ulster businessman and former GAA president Peter Quinn.

Sunday Business Post

By Susan Mitchell
25 June 2006

Government spending on health is one of the lowest of any developed country, in spite of massive increases in health expenditure since the late 1990s.

Total spending on health accounted for 7.1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Ireland in 2004, below the 8.9 per cent average across developed countries.

This is according to a report to be released this week by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Only Mexico, Poland, the Slovak Republic and South Korea ranked lower than Ireland in the survey of 30 countries.

The number of acute care hospital beds in Ireland is also well below average. In 2004 Ireland had 2.9 acute beds per 1,000 population, below the OECD average of 4.1 beds per 1,000 population.

Between 1997 and 2002 public health spending in Ireland rose by 125 per cent. Health spending per capita in Ireland grew by an average of 9.1 per cent per year between 1999 and 2004 - one of the fastest growth rates of all OECD countries.

However, the strong growth in the Irish economy over the same period has meant that the proportion of GDP spent on health has increased by only one percentage point over the period.

The expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP is similar to what it was in 1992. Despite this, Tanaiste and Minister for Health Mary Harney has rejected criticism that the health spend is insufficient.

Elizabeth Docteur, deputy head of the OECD’s health division, said: ‘‘Ireland has one of the highest per capita GDPs in the OECD, but the country’s per capita spending on health is only average.”