SAOIRSE32

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A Northern Ireland journalist was gunned down in the street for exposing the drug dealing activities of a loyalist paramilitary gang, an inquest has heard.

By:Press Association
TUESDAY 19/12/2006 18:07:11

Martin O`Hagan, 51, a reporter with the Sunday World, was shot three times as he walked hand-in-hand home from a local pub in Lurgan, County Armagh, with his wife.

Over five years later the killers have not been charged, although a senior police officer told the inquest in Armagh that he was satisfied eight people interviewed following the murder were responsible.

Coroner John Leckey said the bravery of journalists seeking to expose criminals must be recognised.

He said he was satisfied with the police theory the murder of Mr O`Hagan was “related to investigative journalism in relation to drug dealing by the Loyalist Volunteer Force in the Mid Ulster area.”

Branding the LVF a sinister organisation he said a number of newsagents in the area, fearful for their own safety, had stopped selling the Sunday paper after being threatened.

Mr Leckey said: “There were widespread threats not only against journalists like Mr O`Hagan who was seeking to expose these criminals but also against those who distributed the newspaper which contains his articles.”

He noted Mr O`Hagan was the first journalist to be murdered in such circumstances in Northern Ireland but he said it was something which happened worldwide and pointed to the recent murder of a Russian investigative reporter.

He said Mr O`Hagan and others were “bravely seeking to expose criminals and sometimes with dreadful prices paid.
“Their bravery needs to be recognised,” said Mr Leckey.

The murdered journalist`s wife Marie said they were walking home through Lurgan after visiting a local pub when she noticed a car slowing beside them.

She said her husband pushed her into a hedge and she heard a number of shots.

She turned and his last words to her as he slumped to the ground were: “Marie, get an ambulance.”

She said she ran to her nearby house and got one of her children to make the call and returned to her husband.

“I ran back and Martin was lying on his back. I knelt down to speak to him, he seemed unconscious. I continued talking to Martin but got no response.”

He was declared dead by an ambulance crew which quickly arrived at the scene.

Mrs O`Hagan told the inquest she didn`t know exactly what her husband had been working on before his death but was convinced it was something in connection with his work as a journalist.

She told the inquest that in the early 1990s her husband had been forced to move to his newspaper`s Dublin office because of threats made against him in Northern Ireland.

She had remained in Lurgan and he had returned to her after the IRA and loyalist ceasefires were announced.

Chief Inspector Charles Patterson told the inquest that Mr O`Hagan`s killers walked the streets freely despite him being certain who was responsible.

He said eight men had been arrested and questioned in the weeks after the murder and he was confident they were behind the killing.

“These people are associated with the LVF in the Lurgan area. Unfortunately despite extensive investigations I don`t have the evidence to proceed against these persons.”

The coroner appealed for anyone with information to pass it to police and Mr Patterson said he was prepared to take any information, however trivial it might be.

He said the inquiry into the murder remained alive but admitted it was not actively being worked on.

However he said the case would be internally reviewed by the PSNI in the New Year and the O`Hagan family would be informed.

The unsolved case had not been passed to the Historic Inquiries Team - set up to re-examine many hundreds of unsolved murders - because the team`s terms of reference limited it to covering murders during the Troubles from 1968 to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Martin O`Hagan`s boss, Jim McDowell, Northern editor of the Sunday World, called for the review of the case to be held urgently.

He said: “It should be thorough and done with vigour and rigour.”

He said it was an exceptional case, the killing of a journalist trying to protect the freedom of speech - five and a quarter years on no one had been convicted and that was appalling.

He said: “If the case has hit a brick wall bring in fresh faces, open a fresh file and let`s get Martin O`Hagan`s killers where they belong - behind bars.”

He likened the killing to something which happened in the United States. “A drive-by drugs related murder like something off the streets of Chicago or New York.”

He added: “I have to believe we will see them in court because if these people get away with this, where do the rest of us stand?”

He said the police had eight people in custody for questioning including two brothers and he wanted the review team to question them again.”

He said if a review didn`t work he would be asking the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde, to make an exception of the O`Hagan case and refer it to the Historic Investigations Team.

“The police know who did it but they don`t have the evidence, I know who did it.”

He said the paper had come close to identifying those responsible but had pulled back in case it prejudiced any future case.

National Union of Journalists official Ronan Kelly called for the murder case to be resolved to remove the continuing threat to Mr O`Hagan`s journalistic colleagues.

He said: “The NUJ has called on the chief constable to call in assistance from an outside police force to bring this to a head.

“I believe there should be assistance from outside - if a case like this is not solved then enough has not been done.”

An Phoblacht

Fifty years ago this week the IRA began its Border Campaign which was to last from December 1956 to February 1962. Here, MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA writes on the background to the campaign and its first year.

By Mícheál MacDonncha
14 December 2006

Operation Harvest — 50 years on

Photo: Lisnaskea Barracks after an IRA attack, December 1956

“This is the age old struggle of the Irish people versus British aggression. This is the same cause for which generations of our people have suffered and died. In this grave hour, all Irish men and women, at home and abroad, must sink their differences, political or religious, and rally behind the banner of national liberation.”
With these words the Irish Republican Army announced the start of its Resistance Campaign on 12 December 1956. Armed attacks were carried out across the Six Counties. It was the beginning of a renewed IRA effort to challenge British crown forces and it was to be sustained for five years, but never with the intensity of that first year.
The origins of the campaign are to be found in the reorganisation of the IRA after the Second World War. Almost extinct after mass internment and prison executions of Volunteers, North and South, the IRA was reorganised in the late 1940s. It adopted a policy of non-confrontation towards the Garda Síochána and 26-County Army, such conflict having cost it dearly during the war years. All efforts were now focussed on preparing for an armed campaign in the Six Counties.
Throughout the early 1950s preparations were made to arm and train Volunteers for the campaign ahead. The IRA emerged from obscurity to a startled public in June 1951 when they raided Ebrington Barracks in Derry and captured a cache of arms and ammunition. The raid coincided with a visit to the Six Counties by members of the English royal family. Republicans in Belfast were raided and arrested for organising protests against the visit.
In July 1953 a three-man IRA unit raided an officer training corps depot in Felsted, Essex in the south of England and got away with another cache of arms. Detected by local police they were arrested and jailed, among them two future Chiefs of the Staff of the IRA – Cathal Goulding of Dublin and Seán Mac Stiofáin of London who, with Manus Canning of Derry, received long prison sentences.
The raid on Gough Barracks in Armagh in June 1954 was more successful and a large consignment of weapons was captured. The Movement’s monthly paper, The United Irishman, said that what gave rise to “feelings of delight” about the Gough raid was “not the capture of some guns, though that is important, not to make the British Army look foolish, not merely a spectacular operation, but to emphasise the fact that the British Army of Occupation is still in Ireland, that it holds Irish territory by force of arms and that it must be cleared out.”
That message had reached a section of Irish youth during the ‘50s who had grown used to the empty anti-Partition rhetoric of politicians in the 26 Counties but who were themselves sincere in their belief in Irish unity and freedom. When an IRA arms raid on Omagh Barracks in County Tyrone in November 1954 went wrong, eight Volunteers were arrested and it emerged that five of them were from Dublin and three from Cork.
The following May 1955 Sinn Féin fielded 12 candidates in the Westminster election and two of the Omagh prisoners were elected – Dubliners Tom Mitchell in Mid-Ulster and Phil Clarke in Fermanagh-South Tyrone. The British Parliament unseated Mitchell because he was a convicted prisoner. A by-election was held in August and Mitchell won again. The farce continued when an Election Petition Court unseated the republican yet again. The intervention of a second nationalist candidate in the subsequent by-election allowed the Unionist to win.
A background of daring arms raids, election victories and British travesties of democracy seemed favourable for the promised beginning of the IRA’s campaign. But the situation was complicated by the activities of the group Saor Uladh, which carried out its own operations. It attracted some defectors from the IRA itself and made more difficult the work of planning for the opening of the campaign. Nonetheless members of Saor Uladh were recognised for their bravery, including Connie Green, who was killed in an attack on Roslea barracks in County Fermanagh in November 1955.
The strategy of the IRA was based on plans drawn up by Kerry republican Seán Cronin and known as Operation Harvest “a general directive for a Guerrilla Campaign”. The document outlined plans for units in the Six Counties, supported by flying columns, whose mission would be to cut communications, destroy enemy vehicles, hit enemy strategic strong points and “strike at their supplies and their administration”. It listed a range of targets and spoke of its aim to liberate areas within the Six Counties and link them up. This document was captured after the arrest of two republicans in County Cavan in January 1957 and was read out in court at their trial. While the IRA subsequently described the document as “an earlier outline on which a general plan of campaign was to be based” the name became forever associated with the IRA ‘56-62 campaign.
The guerrilla tactics were very much inspired by the IRA flying columns of the Black and Tan war period, as described by Tom Barry, the most successful of those flying column commanders. Barry himself had advocated an IRA campaign in the North during the 1930s but did not win sufficient support for it within the organisation. Now in the ‘50s Barry actually trained Volunteers in Cork on request from the IRA and encouraged their renewed efforts.
And so in the early hours of 12 December 1956 the IRA opened its first concerted armed attacks on the British military occupation in the Six Counties since the 1920s. Around 20 targets were hit, including British air and radar installations, military posts, government buildings, roads, bridges and customs posts. The IRA’s proclamation appeared throughout the Six Counties and declared:
“Spearheaded by Ireland’s freedom fighters, our people in the Six Counties have carried the fight to the enemy. They are the direct victims of British Imperialism and they are also the backbone of the national revolutionary resurgence…The whole of Ireland – its resources, wealth, culture, history and tradition – is the common inheritance of all our people regardless of religious belief. The division of this country by Britain, and its subjection to British political control in the North, and to British economic domination in the South, must now be ended forever. It is up to this generation of Irish men and women to resolve for all time our unity, independence and freedom from foreign domination. The alternative, if the present situation continues, is our extinction as a nation…”
The proclamation warned that the British would try to foster division “by fanning the flames of bigotry and sectarianism - twin enemies of Irish republicanism”.
On 16 December Sinn Féin issued a call that was read at public meetings around the country and that urged people to “assist in every way they can the Resistance Movement in the Six Counties”. They said that “constitutional methods alone against armed occupation, civil injustice and victimisation could not possibly be made effective” and urged support for Sinn Féin policy - “the establishment of an All-Ireland Parliament, unfettered by any outside power”.
The political background and motivation of the campaign was clear to all. Across the political spectrum politicians had been denouncing Partition for three decades, but little had been done to end it. There was an initial outpouring of support for the campaign and public respect for the first republicans to lose their lives.
The attack in which those lives were lost took place on New Year’s Day 1957 when the North Fermanagh Resistance Column, also known as the Pearse Column, attacked the RUC barracks at Brookeborough, County Fermanagh. Using an open truck on which a machine-gun was mounted, the IRA column entered the town. Their mines failed to explode and they were raked with fire from the barracks. Seán Sabhat of Limerick, who was manning the machine-gun, and Fergal O’Hanlon of Monaghan, were mortally wounded. Also on the raid were the late Daithi Ó Conaill and Seán Garland, both of whom would become prominent republicans in later years.
The deaths of Sabhat and O’Hanlon were the first IRA casualties of the campaign. Massive crowds participated in their funerals. Seán Sabhat’s funeral passed through Dublin where thousands gathered to pay their respects and an estimated 50,000 attended in Limerick. While public sympathy was being manifested in this way the Unionist government at Stormont, the British government at Westminster and the 26-County government in Dublin were already active in seeking to suppress the IRA campaign.
Stormont imposed internment without trial in December 1956 within days of the start of the IRA campaign. There were extensive raids and arrests with the RUC and B-Specials taking a leading role. In January 1957 the Unionist government imposed a ban on Sinn Féin. This ban was not lifted until 1974.
Pressure from London was brought to bear on the Fine Gael/Labour Government led by John A. Costello. A few days after the campaign began the British Ambassador had handed a note of protest to the Irish government. Clann na Poblachta TD Jack McQuillan urged Costello to stop “using military and Gardaí as instruments of British policy”. The British Prime Minister Anthony Eden urged stiffer measures by Dublin.
As the campaign proceeded these measures would be forthcoming. After the Brookeborough attack 13 members of the IRA column were arrested and sentenced to six months imprisonment in Mountjoy. There were further arrests in the 26 Counties during January 1957. However, the more severe repression was yet to come as Costello felt somewhat restrained by the level of public sympathy for the IRA.
In the meantime Sinn Féin decided it would contest the 26-County General Election of March 1957, maintaining its abstentionist position of refusing to take seats in Leinster House. Four TDs were elected – Eanachán O hAnluain, brother of Fergal, in Monaghan, prisoner candidates John Joe McGirl in Sligo-Leitrim and Ruairi Ó Brádaigh in Longford-Westmeath and veteran republican John Joe Rice in South Kerry. The Sinn Féin manifesto set out the state of Ireland that republicans were trying to transform:
“England’s stranglehold on the industrial North-East is unbroken; the Gaeltacht is dwindling year after year; a quarter of a million of our youth and bloom lost in emigration over the last five years alone; 95,000 unemployed in the 26 Counties and 40,000 in the Six Counties. Ireland literally lies ‘broken and bleeding’ while we are burdened with taxation to maintain two states and three Governments.”
The General Election saw the return to power of Fianna Fáil with Eamon de Valera becoming Taoiseach for his final term. He did not delay long in using his majority to crack down on the Resistance Campaign. In July the Fianna Fáil government invoked the powers of the Offences Against the State Act to impose internment without trial. Among the first interned were almost all the members of the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle who were arrested at Ard Oifig, then in Wicklow Street, Dublin.
By the end of 1957 there were 125 internees in the Curragh Camp in County Kildare and more than 250 in Crumlin Road Prison, Belfast, as well as sentenced prisoners in Mountjoy, Crumlin Road and English prisons. Welfare of prisoners and their families again became a major concern for republicans.
Despite repression, IRA attacks continued throughout 1957. The year ended with the tragedy at Edentubber on the Louth/Armagh border when five Republicans were killed in a premature explosion on 11 November 1957. They were Oliver Craven (Down), George Keegan (Wexford), Paddy Parle (Wexford), Paul Smith (Armagh) and Michael Watters (Louth).
In assessing the IRA campaign that began in December 1956 it should be put in both an international and a national context.
The international context was important. The start of the IRA campaign coincided with the 1956 insurgency in Hungary against Russian domination. Irish Republicans were quick to point out the hypocrisy of those who praised the armed revolt of the Hungarians but condemned the Irish resistance fighters. During the ‘50s the British were ruthlessly suppressing anti-colonial revolts in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus. Their colonial empire was crumbling but their conceit that they were still a supreme military power remained. Suez burst that bubble. Operation Harvest occurred in the wake of the British humiliation in Egypt. In collusion with the governments of France and Israel the British invaded Egypt in order to seize the Suez Canal which had been nationalised by Egyptian President Nasser. Fierce resistance from the Egyptians and disapproval from the US government led to a climb-down by the British. Their days as a world power were over.
But their Irish colony remained and the IRA campaign did not come anywhere near attaining its military objective of forcing British withdrawal. But it placed the issue of Partition and the nature of the repressive sectarian Six-County state back on the political agenda. In a world of struggles for national self-determination it showed that the Irish struggle remained unfinished business. The lull which followed the end of the campaign in 1962 proved illusory and six years later the nationalists and republicans of the Six Counties rose up, never to retreat again.
Operation Harvest which began 50 years ago this week has been neglected by historians. Much writing on the period has treated the campaign as a precursor to the split in the IRA and Sinn Féin in 1969 and 1970. But it deserves closer attention than that. The campaign occurred in an Ireland stunted by conservatism North and South and blighted with economic stagnation and gross inequality leading to massive unemployment and emigration. It showed that in spite of – or perhaps because of – the state to which Ireland had been reduced there were still young Irish men and women willing to risk their lives to achieve a truly free nation. The men and women of that Republican generation deserve recognition and gratitude.

Irish Times

19/12/2006 18:14

Negotiations are taking place at Stormont tonight in a bid to break the deadlock between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists over policing.

Sinn Féin policing spokesman Gerry Kelly and DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson were involved in the talks with the Northern Ireland Office as both parties tried to close the gap between them.

A Stormont source saod: “The talks that are taking place involve senior personnel in both parties. There is no face-to-face dialogue.

“It would appear the British government has bought into suggestions that there could be a meeting of Sinn Féin’s ard chomhairle called by Gerry Adams either before or over Christmas.

“The question is whether the DUP and Sinn Féin can reach agreement on which party moves first on support for the police or a date for the devolution of policing and justice powers.”

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Prime Minister Tony Blair have identified Sinn Féin support for the PSNI and a commitment from the DUP to share power as the twin pillars of their plan to revive power sharing in Northern Ireland by next March.

DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley has already indicated his willingness to share power with Sinn Féin provided Gerry Adams and his party clearly demonstrate support for the police, the courts and the rule of law.

Sinn Féin is the only one of the four parties who would qualify for posts in a Stormont power sharing government which refuses to publicly support the PSNI or encourage its voters to cooperate with police investigations.

If Mr Adams’s party is to change its policy towards the PSNI, he will first have to call a meeting of his national executive and secure two thirds backing for a special party conference on the issue.

However Mr Adams and Mr Kelly, who have both received police warnings that they are being targeted by dissident republicans, have insisted Sinn Féin needs a date from the DUP for the devolution of policing and justice from Westminster to Stormont before they can set in motion a change of policy.

They also want agreement from the DUP on the type of Government department that will handle justice and policing powers and assurances that MI5 will have no future role in policing.

Irish Independent

Tom Brady
20 December 2006

SENIOR garda officers are to be given powers to give evidence in court about the background and lifestyle of major crime figures in a bid to stop the rash of successful bail applications.

Details from the gardai about the likelihood of a gangland suspect to commit further crime if granted bail will also be granted evidential status.

And legislation introduced after the Omagh bomb atrocity in August 1998 is to be widened from terrorist-only crimes to include drugs and firearms offences to allow the courts to draw inferences from an accused’s failure to answer reasonable questions while being interviewed by gardai.

These are some of the measures expected to emerge from an immediate review of criminal legislation by Tanaiste and Justice Minister Michael McDowell and his top advisers.

The legal reform programme was approved by the Government at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, which also gave the go-ahead to a series of other changes outlined by Mr McDowell.

The Tanaiste said later that he intended to place a substantial reform package before the Dail when it resumes in January.

He promised that all aspects of criminal law would be examined - as well as US anti-racketeering laws, which could be introduced here - including provisions dealing with threats, intimidation and use of the proceeds of crime.

He said new legislation on assets acquired through the profits of crime would be studied in conjunction with existing laws governing the Criminal Assets Bureau.

The aim of the legislative package, he added, was to strengthen the law against the threat which the gun and drug culture posed to our way of life.

The Tanaiste told the gang bosses and drug barons: “The resources of democracy will never be exhausted and will be used in increasing strength against those who breach the law.”

After last week’s series of attacks on the judiciary for failing to implement the bail law changes introduced after a referendum in 1996 or the 10-year minimum mandatory sentence for possession of drugs worth more than €13,000, the Tanaiste adopted a more conciliatory tone yesterday.

He had no doubt that the judiciary would be as concerned as anyone with difficulties arising from the operation of the bail laws.

The law changes were aimed at ensuring that the gardai were in a position to give the full facts about a suspect’s history, his means of support and lifestyle and his propensity to commit crime if allowed out on bail.

An extra 29 staff are being allocated to the office of the DPP to speed up the preparation of the books for evidence for criminal trials while the DPP’s powers of appeal against unduly lenient court decisions are also being studied.

The package sanctioned by the Government yesterday includes increasing the strength of the garda force to 15,000; extending the retirement age for gardai, sergeants and inspectors from 57 to 60 and an increase in the targeted strength of the reserve force from 900 to 1,500.

Advertising will begin tomorrow for 29 crime and policing analysts and 31 IT technicians to support the gardai, while the go-ahead for the purchase of the new digital radio system will be given by the Department of Finance in the coming days.

Response

But the Greens’ justice spokesman Ciaran Cuffe described the measures as a damp squib and said all that had been offered were a few recycled stories and the promise of a legislative package, instead of a strong, effective response.

Fine Gael’s justice spokesman Jim O’Keeffe accused Mr McDowell of doing a u-turn on resources.

He accused the Tanaiste of stating at the weekend that resources were not an issue but was now allocating extra personnel to the force.

He said Mr McDowell had also failed to come up with any immediate plans to strengthen the bail laws and remained unconvinced that the promised legislative package in January would deliver the necessary changes.

Fine Gael and Labour have jointly proposed the setting up of an independent garda authority.

BN.ie

20/12/2006 - 10:40:42

The Dublin Port Tunnel has been officially opened by the Taoiseach today after taking five and a half years to construct at a cost of €751m.

The 4.5km tunnel is designed to relieve congestion in the city centre by taking thousands of trucks from Dublin Port to the M50 motorway ever day.

It will be toll-free for trucks and buses, but other vehicles will have to pay between €3 and €12 to use it.

The tunnel plans were approved after a public inquiry in 1999 and it was originally expected to cost €450m and open in 2005.

However, the project has been dogged by delays and controversy.

Early in the scheme, critics argued that the tunnel would not be high enough to take large trucks, while the structure was also hit by major leaks and more than 200 households are seeking compensation for damage caused to their homes during the construction phase.

Despite being designed to ease congestion, there are fears that the tunnel will actually create more gridlock by putting thousands of extra trucks on the M50 every day.

Truckers want roads around Dublin Port to remain open to heavy goods vehicles for a number of months until the M50 is upgraded to accommodate the extra traffic.

BBC

Police have met representatives of young people’s website Bebo to discuss how to tackle sectarian taunts online.

After the murder of 15-year-old Michael McIlveen in Ballymena in May, threats were posted on the social networking site against a number of teenagers.

Teachers and pupils from the town were also at the meeting where they explored ways of curbing sectarianism online.

Superintendent Terry Shevlin said the meeting with Bebo’s head of social responsibility was “extremely useful”.

“The internet brings the world into our living rooms and provides a great educational tool for everyone.

“However, unfortunately sometimes the internet can be a place which opens the door to risk.”

The meeting was attended by representatives from Ballymena’s post-primary schools and Dr Rachel O’Connor of Bebo.

Dr O’Connor is an expert on internet safety who was appointed by Bebo earlier this year.

Mr Shevlin said the “multi-agency approach” had raised some useful issues.

“We welcome the opportunity to talk to anyone that will reduce the level of risk to anyone within our society,” he added.

Threatening posts and sectarian taunts began appearing on Bebo shortly after Catholic teenager Michael McIlveen was killed.

Bebo is one of a growing number of social networking websites which allows young people to build personal pages, with profiles and pictures, and communicate with friends.

The company has safety tips on its website and emphasises personal and parental responsibility.

BBC

Two charges against the man accused of the Omagh bombing have effectively been dropped after prosecution lawyers accepted there was no case to answer.

Sean Hoey still faces Omagh charges

The charges were connected to a car bombing and an explosives find just weeks before the 1998 Omagh atrocity in which 29 people were killed.

Sean Hoey, 37, of Jonesborough, County Armagh, still faces 56 charges.

Mr Justice Weir will make a ruling on Thursday on a defence application for the case to be thrown out.

Sean Hoey had been charged with causing an explosion in the middle of Banbridge on 1 August 1998 - exactly two weeks before the Omagh bombing.

The prosecution had been expected to present voice analysis evidence to try to link the south Armagh electrician to the Banbridge attack.

But none has been introduced in the trial and on Tuesday, Crown lawyers invited the court to find there was no case to answer as relates to that specific charge.

Not supported

They also accepted that there was not the evidence to support a separate charge of conspiracy to murder.

That was connected to an explosives find at Blackwatertown Road outside Armagh a month earlier.

While officially these are decisions for Mr Justice Weir, it effectively means two charges have been withdrawn.

However, the accused still faces 56 other charges including 29 counts of murder at Omagh.

The judge has been listening to a defence application for the case to be thrown out, and the Crown’s response to it.

These arguments have now been completed, and Mr Justice Weir will make a ruling on Thursday.

There have now been 50 days of evidence at the trial.

SAOIRSE - RSF News

In this issue:

1. Seán Sabhat commemoration, Sunday, January 7, 2007, Limerick
2. POW picket at British Embassy in Dublin
3. Maghaberry POW protest takes place in Derry city
4. RUC attacked in Derry City
5. 1,300 British soldiers guilty of crimes in Six Counties
6. British army retain powers of search, arrest and seizure under new bill
7. Unionist emails show DUP view process as a way of smashing Provos
8. Legal action threatened over ’surveillance’ find
9. Hain hands out offices in Stormont
10. Trade unions call on people not to pay water charges]
11. Wheelock inquest will hear of blood-stained clothes
12. Cowpark group picket council over public land sale
13. Irish-American politicians block presentation to Margaret Thatcher
14. New detention facility at Guantanamo Bay

BBC

Loyalist Michael Stone’s planned incursion on a crucial meeting of Stormont politicians was “performance art”, his defence lawyer has claimed.

Loyalist Michael Stone is restrained at the doors of Parliament Buildings

He did not intend to endanger anyone’s life and, Stone alleges, the explosive devices were not viable, the High Court in Belfast was told on Tuesday.

Stone, 51, was applying for bail on charges of attempting to murder Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and two security guards on November 24.

The bail application was adjourned.

Stone’s defence lawyer Arthur Harvey, QC, said he had received instructions from Stone that the incident, which caused chaos at Stormont and led to the evacuation of Parliament Buildings, was not intended to endanger the life of anyone.

“It was, in fact, a piece of performance art replicating a terrorist attack,” said Mr Harvey.

“My instructions are that these were not viable explosive devices and were improvised from the most basic household items, including a cardboard holder for a kitchen roll, candle wax and powder from fireworks freely available in shops.”

He applied for an adjournment to allow time for forensic evidence to substantiate the claims made by Stone.

Stone, whose licence for the Milltown murders has been revoked, is also charged with possessing home-made explosives and a real or imitation gun with intent.

The bail application was conducted via video link from Maghaberry Prison and the only word Stone spoke was when he answered “yes” after the Registrar asked him to confirm his name.

BBC

Davy Hyland said Sinn Fein needed more discussions on policing

Sinn Fein MLA Davy Hyland has said he is surprised and saddened at being de-selected as a candidate for the forthcoming Assembly election.

Mr Hyland, who represents Newry and Armagh, said he was now considering whether to stand as an independent.

He said he had disagreements on local issues with Sinn Fein and accused them of moving too quickly on policing.

“It’s difficult for us to get our heads round some of the things being requested of us,” he said.

“Meetings with Hugh Orde in Stormont still seem maybe a step too far for many people.”

Mr Hyland said more discussion was needed on the issue.

“My experience and my family’s experience of policing in the north hasn’t been a very good one, like many other republicans,” he said.

Last week, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams met PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde against a backdrop of growing pressure on republicans to support the police as part of the deal to restore devolution.

Mr Adams described the meeting held at Stormont 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”.

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.

The DUP has insisted without such a move from Gerry Adams’ party there will be no power-sharing at Stormont next March.