SAOIRSE32

BN.ie

13/12/2006 - 11:16:53

The IRA was not involved in yesterday’s brutal killing of top drug baron Martin Hyland, the Taoiseach insisted today.

Even though the crime boss was allegedly linked to the Provisionals, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said there was nothing to suggest that the terrorist organisation was linked to the hit.

His assessment, delivered to the Dáil today, came as the Sinn Féin leadership held crucial talks with the North’s chief constable Sir Hugh Orde in a bid to break the party’s deadlock over policing and justice.

Hyland, 39, was shot dead as he slept in a bed at his niece’s home in Dublin yesterday morning.

It was the biggest gangland killing in the Republic for over 10 years and raised fears of all-out bloodshed between rival gangs in the capital.

Any IRA involvement in Hyland’s murder would have had a devastating impact on the Republican leadership of Gerry Adams, who met Mr Orde at Stormont today.

Speaking about security briefings he received on the murder, Mr Ahern told the Dáil: “I’ve seen nothing that may suggest that the Provisional IRA was involved.”

An innocent bystander - 20-year-old apprentice plumber Anthony Campbell - was shot dead before the attack on Hyland.

Raising the double murder in the Dáil, Opposition leader Enda Kenny claimed that innocent people were being assassinated in broad daylight in Dublin.

Mr Kenny told TDs: “The Government was well-warned by Opposition parties that not enough was being done to meet this scourge head-on.

“We have evidence of people driving on the M50 motorway with flak-jackets, with machine gun fire across lanes. Innocent people are being gunned down, being assassinated in broad daylight. Taoiseach, it is time for the Government to get serious about an issue that is very serious.”

Mr Kenny also claimed that shipments of drugs can be ordered by mobile phone by inmates in prisons.

Mr Ahern said that the success of the Garda’s Operation Oak - which aimed to crush Hyland’s criminal activities - was the reason he was killed by gunmen believed to be former associates.

“There is no doubt that as a result of Garda operations, the net was tightening around Martin Hyland and he was losing grip of his criminal activities. Many of his associates have been arrested - 43 of them - and 24 have already been charged with serious offences.

“The Garda gave me the figures from Oak. They have seized 30kg of heroin, 35kg of cocaine, 1,500kg of cannabis, stolen vehicles, handguns, AK47s, sawn-off shotguns, rifles, ammunition, cash.”

Hyland, who was one of the country’s biggest drug dealers, was hit six times in the head and body as he slept in an upstairs bedroom in a relative’s house.

Campbell is believed to have been shot once.

It is understood Hyland had been warned by gardaí that his life was under threat and took steps to escape attack by moving from house to house over recent weeks.

BN.ie

13/12/2006 - 07:00:25

The most spectacular meteor shower of the year will be visible in the Irish skies tonight.

Astronomers are gathering around the country to watch fragments of an asteroid slamming into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Observers looking to the heavens can expect to see bright streaks in the sky, one roughly every 20 to 30 seconds, according to Astronomy Ireland.

The ‘shooting stars’ occur when pea-sized fragments of a 5km-wide asteroid collide with the atmosphere at 35 km per second, burning up at heights of 100km.

“This is the best meteor shower of the year, with two or three blazing across the skies each minute; a spectacular sight,” said David Moore, Chairman, Astronomy Ireland.

Watches have been organised in Dublin, Carlow, Clare, Cork, Dundalk, Clonmel, Waterford and Wexford with telescopes for the public.

Belfast Telegraph

By Deborah McAleese and Lisa Smyth
Wednesday 13, December 2006 - 08:57

The hospital where Ulster hunger striker Oswald Brown was taken following a High Court judgement was today seeking legal advice into the matter.

Brown, who today entered day 53 of his hunger strike in protest at a rape conviction, was rushed to Belfast City Hospital from Magilligan Prison yesterday evening after the High Court granted hospital staff permission to feed him through a drip.

A spokeswoman for the hospital this morning said Brown was in a stable condition and he would be reviewed during the day.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Deeny said that it is “lawful and proper” that Brown should be given intravenous nutrition after hearing that there had been a “significant deterioration” in his condition.

However, it is understood that the City Hospital will today examine their legal position regarding whether it is legal to actively intervene and force Brown to undergo treatment.

Meanwhile, Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six has offered to help Brown in his battle to have his rape conviction re-examined.

In a letter of support to Brown, the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (Mojo), set up by Mr Hill, offered him legal expertise and access to top forensic experts - providing he comes off the strike.

Brown was convicted of raping a student in 2001.

He claims he is innocent and, although he is due to complete his prison sentence within days, he has vowed to starve himself to death unless his case is reopened.

The Miscarriages of Justice Organisation wrote to Brown as soon as it heard about his case, urging him to come off his hunger strike.

The letter says: “If you are innocent, we will help you in any way we can.

“There are a million and one questions I would like to ask you about your case. However, before we help you, you will first of all have to help yourself by getting stronger and fitter and taking this fight to them.

“Although there is no magic wand, we can guarantee help with legal experts and top forensic scientists.”

John McManus, co-founder of Mojo, told the Belfast Telegraph that Brown would have to come off his hunger strike if he really wanted to clear his name.

“We can only help him if he agrees to help himself. If he wants to clear his name, he is going to have to get stronger both physically and mentally. The only way to do this is through the legal channels,” he said. Mr McManus said that Tommy Campbell was also keen to meet Brown.

Mr Campbell was cleared two years ago of murdering six people in Glasgow after serving 20 years behind bars for the crime.

Like Brown, Mr Campbell went on hunger strike while in prison to protest against his conviction.

Belfast Telegraph

By Brian Rowan
Wednesday 13, December 2006 - 09:04

The so-called hard men of loyalism do not stand in the way of an Ian Paisley-Martin McGuinness government.

That was the message delivered by the UDA’s political wing - the Ulster Political Research Group - in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph.

UPRG spokesman Davy Nicholl told this newspaper: “The UDA does have concerns with St Andrews and would reject it on the basis of the constitutional tests” - a reference to its north-south aspects. ” There’s no rejection of power sharing.

“We won’t be voting for Sinn Fein,” but he said they accepted the ” democratic right” of the nationalist-republican community to do so.

“It is for Ian Paisley with the democratic mandate that he has to determine the course of action he has to take to move the unionist people out of conflict,” the loyalist spokesman said.

Four members of the UPRG spoke to this newspaper.

On the arms question - decommissioning - Mr Nicholl said the UDA had made clear this issue would be addressed “in the fullness of time”.

The organisation was talking to General John de Chastelain’s Commission, but there was no suggestion of any imminent arms move.

Republican dissidents posed “a significant armed threat”, and according to the loyalists that threat could grow.

“We believe that when Martin McGuinness takes the oath (supporting policing), he will have breached the green book of the Provisional Army Council and there is a likelihood that others will swing to the dissident elements,” Mr Nicholl said.

He also claimed the dissidents were “actively targeting” in his community, and there were concerns that they could carry out an attack - or some “stunt” - “to draw loyalists in”.

The political spokesman for the UDA further claimed that it had knowledge that both the British and Irish Governments had “back channel contacts” with the dissident groups.

“What that will bring them to, we don’t know,” Mr Nicholl added.

——————-

They are talking and watching, but they are not decommissioning …

By Brian Rowan

It was the UDA that wanted to talk. Well, not quite the UDA, but its political wing - the Ulster Political Research Group.

It’s the new way in this part of the loyalist world. Yes, there is still a paramilitary leadership in place - the inner council and its “brigadiers “, but things are different now.

This organisation - after all of the falling out and the feuding with Johnny Adair and John White and Jim Gray and the Shoukris and Alan McClean - has been easing its way back into the peace process.

It has met with the British and Irish governments, has been given some money to develop “conflict transformation initiatives” and has been trying to keep its paramilitary nose clean.

That will take a rather large handkerchief - and probably more than one.

Are things perfect? No they are not - far from it, but they are getting better, or, more accurately, the leadership is trying to make things better.

That leadership has taken a step back and pushed its political spokesmen forward.

I met four of them yesterday - Davy Nicholl from Londonderry, William ” Twister” McQuiston from west Belfast, Colin Halliday from Dromore who is closely associated with the UDA leader Jackie McDonald, and Sammy Duddy from north Belfast.

The faces aren’t new, but the role is becoming more significant, because the paramilitaries are allowing that to happen.

These people are now the talking heads of loyalism - or this part of loyalism that fits under the umbrella of the UDA and the UPRG.

It is an indication that things are becoming more political - that the ” war” end of things is over, or nearly over.

And, it is in this changing context, that the inner council has begun to fade into the background and has left the stage, or more of the stage, to those who spoke yesterday.

“That is not to say that from time to time that they (the UDA) will not issue important directives,” Davy Nicholl explains - but on the political stuff others will now do the talking.

Yesterday they discussed a whole range of issues - power sharing, the St Andrews Agreement, decommissioning, or more accurately the reasons for non-decommissioning, and the continuing threat posed by a range of republican dissident groups.

The loyalists believe that threat could grow as republicans move ever closer to endorsing policing - a process which has taken Gerry Adams and a senior party delegation into talks today with Sir Hugh Orde, his deputy Paul Leighton and the assistant chief constable Peter Sheridan, who has control of Special Branch and who is the author of five principles aimed at defining the new PSNI-MI5 working relationship on national security issues.

“We believe that when Martin McGuinness takes the oath (supporting policing) that he will have breached the green book of the Provisional Army Council, and there is a likelihood that others will swing to the dissident elements,” Davy Nicholl of the UPRG told this newspaper.

The loyalists believe the dissidents already pose “a significant armed threat” - that they are actively targeting inside the loyalist community, and that they could try something, some “stunt”, to ” draw in” organisations such as the UDA.

You wonder if all of this is a context being created by loyalists to defend the organisation’s position on decommissioning, or, as mentioned earlier, non-decommissioning.

They will tell you that they are speaking to General John de Chastelain’s Commission, but it is clear that conversation is not about an imminent arms move.

“Are they prepared to make the journey?” Davy Nicholl asks - meaning are the dissident republican groups ready for peace and decommissioning.

“Clearly they are not,” is the answer he gives to his own question.

And all of this takes you to the position that the UDA will deal with the arms question “in the fullness of time” - whatever that means.

Clearly it means not now and not in the near future.

The organisation certainly doesn’t feel threatened by the developing politics - or that part of the developing politics which could have Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness in the same Executive.

Yes, there are parts of the St Andrews Agreement that the UDA and its political wing don’t like - the north-south bits and the Irish Language Act, but there is “no concern about the power-sharing aspect”.

And that means the loyalist hard men are not standing in the way of a power-sharing deal involving the DUP and Sinn Fein.

There is a confidence about these men.

No sense of nervousness about the future; no complaints that they are being left out or left behind, but more a belief that they are being encouraged to be involved in what is now developing.

They want to develop within their own communities these “conflict transformation initiatives” - develop them across Northern Ireland, and that will mean looking for more money from the government to add to the £135,000 recently allocated for these types of projects.

The loyalists are keeping an eye to what’s happening in the bigger political picture, of course they are, but they aren’t waiting for anyone else to give them directions or tell them what to do - not any more.

“We will be rowing our own boat,” William McQuiston said. “We will make the decisions about our future. Nobody’s writing our script.”

The loyalists, it seems, are ready to think and talk for themselves - on every issue and all issues.

It’s all part of what is changing. They are saying some of the right things, but they need to do more of the right things.

BBC

A Sinn Fein delegation led by party president Gerry Adams has met the head of Northern Ireland’s police.

The leader of Sinn Fein has been meeting the PSNI chief

The meeting with Sir Hugh Orde came as republicans face growing pressure to support the police as part of the deal to restore devolution.

Mr Adams described the meeting as “good” but said he could not yet call a special convention on policing.

The chief constable also said the meeting “had been good” and described the conversation as “testing”.

Mr Adams said he would have called a meeting of the Sinn Fein ard comhairle (party executive) to discuss the policing issue “long ago, had I the basis to do so”.

“We need to resolve the whole matter of the transfer of powers on policing and justice in a do-able, definitive timeframe to achieve that,” he said.

“We need to get the MI5 security service out of policing. We need to deal with all these other issues which we dealt with at this morning’s meeting.”

MI5 is due to take over the lead role in intelligence involving national security in Northern Ireland by the end of 2007.

Sir Huge said they had discussed routine policing and how the past had affected current policing.

“I think it was a testing conversation and I think that is a good thing,” he said.

“I don’t want nice conversations. I want to be pushed. I need to push my organisation.

“We have a job to do, which is to convince all communities that we are capable of protecting them and these conversations help that.”

The meeting will take place at Stormont

Mr Adams was accompanied at the meeting by assembly members Gerry Kelly and Caitriona Ruane and fellow MP Michelle Gildernew.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said the chief constable had always indicated he was prepared to talk to anyone willing or able to make a positive contribution to policing.

Sinn Fein is facing demands from other political parties in Northern Ireland as well as the British, Irish and US governments to fully endorse the PSNI.

Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party has insisted without such a move from Gerry Adams’ party there will be no power sharing at Stormont next March.

BBC

The man accused of murdering 29 people in the Omagh bombing has claimed police were on a witch hunt to “cover up their own inadequacies”.

A court artist’s drawing of Sean Gerard Hoey

Sean Hoey from Jonesborough, County Armagh, denies a total of 58 charges.

Hoey, 37, said if his DNA was on any evidence it was either there innocently or “planted” by police “or some other agency the police are using”.

The claims were made during police interviews which have been read out at his trial.

Earlier, the trial heard that an investigation into how bomb timers, linked to the Omagh trial, were lost up to eight years ago, only began a couple of weeks ago.

The lost timers had been found at a number of attacks in 1998 and were lost as early as 1998.

The Forensic Science Service in Northern Ireland was responsible for tracking the timer power units.

Jim Speers,was questioned about the bomb timer units

In court, its acting operations director, Jim Speers, was questioned about whether their disappearance had ever been investigated.

Initially, he seemed to indicate that an investigation was under way, but he said he had not spoken to anyone about it.

However, during questioning by the defence, Mr Speers paused and asked the judge if he could consult the prosecution lawyers.

Mr Justice Weir looked surprised and told him to answer the questions.

He then revealed that he himself had asked for the review - and that he had only done so a couple of weeks ago - that would have been after the issue of the missing timers had been raised in the trial.

More details of why accreditation was suspended at forensic laboratories in Northern Ireland was also revealed.

The accreditation service had a number of concerns including administrative errors and they discovered equipment had not been properly checked.

A subsequent review by a consultancy firm found dozens of what it described as significant “non-conformities” or mistakes.

However, Mr Speers said that none of the errors had a risk “of an unsafe conviction or a miscarriage of justice”.

The trial will resume on Thursday when the prosecution is expected to complete its case.