SAOIRSE32

Breaking News.ie
28/07/2008

The Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment in an appeal brought by a Co Cork chef, arrested as part of the Garda investigation into IRA money-laundering following the 2004 Northern Bank robbery, against his conviction for IRA membership.

In March 2007 Don Bullman (aged 33), a chef and father of two, Leghanamore, Wilton, Co Cork, was jailed for four years at the Special Criminal Court after he was found guilty of being a member of an unlawful organisation, namely the IRA, on February 16, 2005.

Bullman was found in possession of a washing-powder box containing €94,250 after his arrest outside Heuston Station in Dublin, following a Garda surveillance operation.

He denied the charge and has appealed against both the conviction and the sentence.

Today the Court of Criminal Appeal of Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan presiding sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice Michael Hanna reserved judgment.

The court will give its decision when the courts resume after the Summer break in October.

By Roisin McManus
Andersonstown News
Belfast Media.com
**Via Newshound

The grief-stricken mother of a young West Belfast man, who died two years ago after sustaining serious injuries in a brutal assault in Lisburn almost three years earlier, is questioning why no-one has ever been charged in connection with the attack.

On September 20, 2003 Ciarán Conlon was attacked at Ballyskeagh racetrack in Lisburn. His mother, Louise Quinn, believes that the attack was sectarian.

During the vicious assault, Ciarán was struck on the head with an iron bar. After the attack he began having epileptic seizures. The 23-year-old, who suffered from heart disease, died on July 30, 2006 after suffering an epileptic fit, which led to his heart seizing.

Louise, a mother of five, witnessed the vicious attack on her son and gave the name and address of the attacker to the PSNI. However, to this day no-one has been charged in connection with the attack.

Ciarán’s mother says that she is extremely angry that there has been no progress in the case. She says she now intends to write to the Chief Constable Hugh Orde to outline her concerns.

“I want the PSNI to tell me whether the case has been closed or not,” said Louise.

“To me this seems to be going nowhere,” she added.

As Ciarán’s second anniversary nears, his mother Louise said that she is extremely angry that the case has not progressed.

No more tears

“I am going to write to Hugh Orde, I am going to ask him to answer my questions. I thought I had no more tears left, but the more I think about the bruising on his body after the beating the more angry I get,” she said.

The local mother said that she needs answers.

“If the case is closed they should tell me it’s closed, if the guy who attacked Ciarán has left the country then they should tell me. I just want to know,” she added.

Louise said she will not give up in her quest for justice.

“I feel that I am a failure to Ciarán,” a failure to my own child,” said Louise. “While there is breath in my body I will keep on with this, sure what else can I do?” she added.

A spokesperson for the PSNI said: “Detectives are pursuing a definite line of enquiry and are committed to bringing the person responsible for this crime before the courts. We would urge anyone with information relating to the assault to contact them at Lisburn on 0845600 8000. Alternatively information can be passed to Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.”

Henry McDonald
Guardian
28 July 2008

· Landmine was aimed at killing police officers
· Security fears at level of 1998, year of Omagh bomb

It was a huge landmine with a substantial amount of homemade explosive that lacked one critical element - a plastic explosive booster such as Semtex.

The device, used by insurgent groups across the world from Helmand province in Afghanistan to southern Iraq, was designed to kill two police officers in Co Fermanagh who had been lured into the area. But the men survived because a commercial detonator only partly triggered the mine. Had it been set off by something as effective as Semtex, both officers would have been killed, security sources say.

The use of the landmine on June 14 and its location were highly significant: Rosslea in Co Fermanagh has been the scene of several republican attacks over the past 40 years.

In 1989 the Provisional IRA almost destroyed a British army base near the border village using a van bomb, two heavy machine guns, half a dozen assault rifles and a flamethrower. Two soldiers from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers died in the initial attack. Throughout the Troubles the Pira’s East Tyrone brigade targeted police and troops based in and around the same area.

The latest effort to kill members of the security forces in Rosslea was the first republican landmine attack since the Pira’s ceasefire 14 years ago and marked an escalation in the dissident campaign to derail the political settlement between unionism and republicanism at Stormont.

Aside from trying to ambush mobile police patrols, the dissidents are also targeting Catholic recruits to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Last November the Real IRA shot and wounded Jim Doherty, a Catholic recruit to the PSNI who originally came from the republican Bogside area of Derry. He was fired on while he was taking his son to school. Less than a week later the same organisation attempted to shoot another Catholic policeman outside Dungannon police station in Co Tyrone.

According to senior PSNI sources, the dissidents have continued to target Catholic recruits to try to intimidate people from the nationalist community joining the police. A number of officers have been forced to relocate elsewhere because intelligence reports showed that their movements and those of their families were being monitored.

The chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, Stormont minister Jeffrey Donaldson and Irish security officials all agree that the threat from dissident factions is back to the level of the summer of 1998 - the year of the Omagh bomb atrocity, which killed 29 people.

Dissidents have also widened their target to include prison officers. The local branch of the Prison Officers’ Association said last week that a number of members are living under death threats.

Finlay Spratt, the POA’s chairman in Northern Ireland, said: “We have had threats against our members right up to last week. There were three officers who were targeted. Obviously they were given a choice to move home or at least secure their homes better. These dissidents are targeting prison officers, there is no question about that. These threats apply to all members, both Protestant and Catholic.”

All this has prompted the security service - MI5 - to intensify the secret electronic war against the dissidents.

MI5 is currently devoting much of its hi-tech spying resources on only 80 republican activists.

The threat to power-sharing and the new policing regime is so severe that 60% more time is spent eavesdropping on republican terror groups than on all the phone taps and secret technical operations against suspected al-Qaida cells in the UK. The director general of MI5, Jonathan Evans - a veteran of anti-terrorist operations in Northern Ireland - said earlier this year that at least 2,000 suspected Islamist terrorists were being watched. The security service said a hard core of around 500 people were suspected of involvement in at least 80 separate terror plots.

MI5 has a large regional headquarters in Holywood on the eastern outskirts of Belfast. Up to 400 intelligence agents, many of them linguists, work at the centre, which focuses mainly on decoding and eavesdropping on telephone and email traffic from suspected Islamists. A smaller number work with the PSNI in countering republican groups.

In addition, MI6 has been busy trying to thwart dissident republican arms networks abroad. Earlier this year MI6 officers claimed they had broken up a potential arms route from Lithuania, which led to the arrest of Michael Campbell, whose brother Liam has served two prison sentences for Real IRA activities. The 36-year-old was arrested in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, last January. He stands accused of attempting to procure arms and explosives for the Real IRA.

Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland secretary, has insisted that once the final piece of the devolution jigsaw is put in place - the transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to the Stormont assembly - it will have a debilitating effect politically on the dissident forces.

“I don’t think it is by chance that we’re seeing more dissident violence than we have at any time over the last four to five years,” he said. “They think their time is running out and they’re right, their time is running out because they don’t belong in the new Northern Ireland.”

Even the most sceptical unionists say it is only a question of when local political leaders take control of the PSNI and the judiciary in Northern Ireland. This would open the way for a Sinn Féin minister overseeing policing or the courts system.

In turn this opens up the prospect of the armed dissident republican groups being directly at war for the first time in history with mainstream republicans administrating security policy in Northern Ireland.

Belfast Telegraph
Monday, 28 July 2008

A 33-year-old Cork man will today appeal his conviction and four year sentence for membership of the IRA.

Don Bullman, a chef from Fernwood Crescent in Wilton, was arrested at Heuston Station in Dublin by police investigating money-laundering following the 2004 Northern Bank robbery.

The court heard he had a Daz washing powder box containing more than €94,000 with him at the time.

He will mount his challenge at the Court of Criminal Appeal

Belfast Telegraph
Monday, 28 July 2008

**This article also appeared on the 20th

Loyalist lifer Trevor McKeown could be called to the public inquiry into the murder of Catholic lawyer Rosemary Nelson.

Four years ago he claimed rogue RUC officers directed him to the spot where Rosemary Nelson parked her car and urged him to shoot her there — less than two years before she was eventually killed by a loyalist car bomb.

McKeown says two officers asked him to kill the human rights lawyer while he was being quizzed over the murder of 18-year-old Bernadette Martin — an allegation they strenusously denied.

He said: “I would be willing to speak at the inquiry as I have nothing to hide. I am very worried about my security in giving evidence.

“These officers wanted me to shoot Nelson. They made that clear. I didn’t agree with them that she should be killed and just said nothing.

“When I was arrested a detective said to me: ‘You shouldn’t have killed that 18-year-old girl, but Rosemary Nelson instead’. He said it would be easy for me or other loyalists to shoot her.

“Another detective was sitting in the room and just sat there as if he agreed while the first detective was telling me he wanted Rosemary Nelson dead. That was made clear to me.”

Exactly 20 months after the alleged incident in July 1997, Mrs Nelson died from horrific injuries suffered when the LVF planted a booby-trap bomb under her car in Lurgan. The Red Hand Defenders — a cover-name for the LVF in mid-Ulster — admitted responsibility.

Since her death there have been persistent allegations of security force collusion in the murder, which is now the subject of an inquiry headed by retired judge Sir Michael Morland.

Ironically, McKeown’s trial for murdering Bernadette Martin started the day mother-of-three Mrs Nelson was murdered on March 15, 1999.

Two English police officers have already interviewed Trevor McKeown inside Maghaberry Prison about his claims that an RUC officer urged him to murder the Catholic solicitor.

The police team investigating Mrs Nelson’s case later found that the officers identified had been questioned years before as part of an internal inquiry into Mrs Nelson’s allegations that RUC officers were threatening her while interviewing her clients.

But no evidence was found to uphold the complaints, which the policemen denied.

As the inquiry opened at Craigavon Civic Centre in recent months counsel to the inquiry Rory Phillips QC raised Trevor McKeown’s allegations and hinted they may be raised later in the case.

He said: “There was, for example, some years after the murder, an allegation made by a man described as a convicted loyalist killer that he had been incited by police officers to murder Rosemary Nelson.

“Now, at present it is not clear to what extent we will be able to explore this matter in the evidence, and I, therefore, propose to say very little more about it at this stage, save to say this: this was a matter again investigated by the murder investigation team; the allegations were denied and no charges were brought as a result.

“However, it was with these sorts of allegations of criminal conduct in mind and as one of a series of measures designed to encourage witnesses to be open in their evidence to the inquiry and to ensure that the inquiry received the fullest disclosure and co-operation from those with material of relevance, that the inquiry, during the course of 2005, sought from the then Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, a limited evidential undertaking.”

The undertaking declares that no one giving evidence shall have it used against them later in any criminal proceedings.

Diarmaid Fleming
BBC NI Dublin correspondent
BBC
28 July 2008

A suspected bugging device has been found at a house in Coalisland.

This bugging device was found in Sinn Féin offices in 2004

It is believed that Sean O’Farrell, an IRA member shot by the SAS in 1992, may have had some connection with the house.

He was one of four men killed at St Patrick’s Church in Clonoe by the SAS after their IRA unit had attacked Coalisland Police Station.

Builders working at the house on Monday found a 60cm box-like object with batteries in a roof space.

It is believed the device had been there since the early 1990s.

Local Sinn Fein MLA Michelle O’Neill told the BBC she was aware of the find.

A PSNI spokesman said police had received no reports of a listening device being found, and said that while police did not comment on operational matters, if anyone had any specific information or property, then this should be made available to the police for immediate investigation.

Belfast Telegraph
Letters - Opinion
Monday, 28 July 2008

The squabbling between Sinn Fein and the DUP over the Maze/Long Kesh project and the internal wrangling within the DUP has already proved something of an international embarrassment.

For not only is the North still lacking a world-class sporting arena, backed by the three main sporting organisations, the potential to create more than 6,000 jobs through the development of the Maze is being lost.

This is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss in the current economic climate.

However, the proposals for the development of elite sports facilities promised under Direct Rule have also hit a brick wall as their development is tied up in a similar decision-making process.

The point of developing these sites is to give athletes from the North access to the same high standard of training facilities as their counterparts elsewhere in Europe.

It was intended to ensure Northern Ireland both benefits from, and contributes to, a legacy relating to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London.

The way things are going with the Executive the only legacy left to our sporting champions is second rate facilities which are, quite frankly, an embarrassment and leaves us with little credibility.

Pat Ramsey MLA
SDLP (Foyle)

News Letter

REPRESENTATIVES of victims group, FAIR, have received threatening phone calls during a visit to the United States, it can be revealed.

The group are currently in America in a campaign to promote victims solidarity and raise awareness about ground-breaking legal action against Libya.

FAIR are blaming republicans in Northern Ireland for the threats.

FAIR’s director, Willie Frazer has received a number of calls during the trip.

One such call was received during a reconciliation conference in New York and was brought to the attention of the FBI.

FAIR maintain a New York Judge was so alaemed by the nature of the message that he has demanded immediate action.

The victims group are currently on their way to Washington to meet a number of Congressmen and Senators in order to maintain pressure on the American administration to ensure they force the Libyans to settle outstanding cases.

FAIR accuses Libya of sponsoring IRA violence during the Troubles.

A spokesperson for FAIR said: “It is situations like these, where death threats are involved, that highlights the necessity and makes us become even more determined to lobby and advocate for the rights of victims both in Northern Ireland and on an international level.”

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor
Irish Times
28 July 2008

THE SDLP has accused Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams of attempting to bring down the Northern Assembly by Christmas while manoeuvring to ensure that neither he nor Sinn Féin bears responsibility for such a collapse.

SDLP deputy leader Dr Alasdair McDonnell made his allegation yesterday after a week of recrimination over whether Sinn Féin or the DUP was at fault for the failure of the Northern Executive to meet for over a month - with no meetings so far scheduled for the rest of the summer.

Earlier last week Sinn Féin and DUP junior ministers Gerry Kelly and Jeffrey Donaldson denied that there was a crisis in the Executive because of the standoff between the DUP and Sinn Féin over a range of issues including policing and justice, the Irish language, the Maze stadium and a replacement for the 11-plus primary to secondary school transfer test.

Separate trips by Mr Adams and DUP leader Peter Robinson to London last week to meet British prime minister Gordon Brown nonetheless indicated problems in the powersharing administration.

On Thursday Mr Adams issued a statement chiefly blaming the DUP for the deadlock while implicitly accusing First Minister Peter Robinson of a failure of leadership. Mr Adams warned of an impending crisis if outstanding matters were not resolved.

This triggered an angry two-pronged response from Mr Robinson and DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds that points to a significant souring of relations between the Sinn Féin and DUP leaderships since the benign period when the Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness were in charge at Stormont.

Mr Robinson, who described Mr Adams as the “block to progress”, said he was prepared to break into his summer holiday to facilitate a meeting of the Northern Executive. Such meetings can only be held with the agreement of Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness.

Sinn Féin has argued, however, that it is pointless to hold an Executive meeting when the outstanding matters such as justice and policing and the Irish language remain unresolved. The DUP and Sinn Féin have been engaged in talks on these matters but so far little or no progress is reported.

Mr Robinson said the DUP would “not be rolling over” for Mr Adams or any republican. “Sinn Féin just doesn’t seem to get it. Progress is made and agreements are reached when both sides are content. Adams seems to think that it is the role of everyone to move to his position. That just will not happen,” he added.

Mr Dodds said Sinn Féin and Mr Adams were engaging in “pathetic” and “childish” behaviour because they were not getting their way. Mr Dodds said Mr Robinson had cleared more than 30 papers for consideration at the Executive. Sinn Féin, in blaming the DUP for the impasse, was engaging in a “deliberate and calculated attempt to deceive people”.

The SDLP’s deputy leader Dr McDonnell entered the dispute yesterday by accusing Mr Adams of starting a “blame game ahead of a Sinn Féin inspired crisis at the heart of government”.

“No one is being fooled by Adams’s strategy which would see the Assembly down by Christmas and everyone can see how he is trying to ensure his party, who must take the lion’s share of the responsibility, do not bear the brunt of the blame,” he said.

Dr McDonnell said that Sinn Féin and Mr Adams had been “bullied and boxed in” by the DUP. “The blame game is well and truly under way and while Adams and the DUP fight it out it is the ordinary man and woman on the street who are suffering most,” he added.

“The ordinary people of the North are getting fed up with Sinn Féin’s ineffective, inefficient and incompetent way of government,” said Dr McDonnell.

4ni.co.uk
28 July 2008

There’s a clearer view of Omagh’s sorrow and suffering today thanks to the erection of a specially commissioned sculpture made of glass and Tyrone crystal to remember the victims of the Omagh bombing a decade ago.

It is be due to be unveiled next month, on August 15, in a tenth anniversary memorial service in honour of the 29 people killed by the ‘Real IRA’ bomb in the Co Tyrone town, which also destroyed two unborn babies.

The sculpture - which was commissioned by Omagh District Council - was designed by talented local artist Sean Hillen.

Michael Gallagher, (pictured) who lost his son Aidan in the 1998 bombing, has already given the memorial his seal of approval.

Mr Gallagher, who is chairman of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, added that members will hold a separate memorial service two days after the council service, on August 17.

“It’s important that we have a memorial that’s unique and impressive, and one that will stand the test of time,” he said.

“Our hope is that this will meet all of these requirements.”

He added: “It has been a long time getting here and if it works the way it was intended I think it will be a good memorial.”

A high profile civil action is continuing against those accused of plotting the Omagh bomb attack.

The relatives of those who died in the dissident republican attack in 1998 have issued a case against five men they claim are responsible.

This follows the court acquittal in December last of south Armagh man Sean Hoey when the judge was scathing about police evidence in the state trial.

The civil action is unprecedented and covers many new angles. For the first time, the Irish District Court was transformed into a British court setting for a special hearing.

The action was the first time a case has been taken against alleged terrorists through the courts and the first time evidence has been heard in a court in the Republic of Ireland for a case in the North.

BBC

The head of a prisons scrutiny body has said he resigned earlier this year because of “irreconcilable differences” with the Northern Ireland Office (NIO).

Prisoner Ombudsman Brian Coulter’s final annual report said his decision related to “the key principle of independence”.

He adds it was wrongly reported he resigned due to a row with the NIO.

But he has said it was true he became disenchanted at the failure to secure appropriate powers for his office.

In the report, Mr Coulter said: “In particular, my views on the lines of accountability and independence for the prisoner ombudsman were largely disregarded in the draft legislation to be incorporated in the Ministry of Justice-sponsored Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill.

“My exchanges on these issues with the Northern Ireland Office, and especially with the Prison Service, though robust, were professional and polite and no row ever took place.”

He said the office of prisoner ombudsman “should be empowered in the same way as for other statutory ombudsmen”.

“This is the only way of avoiding duplication of effort arising from the involvement of several ombudsmen.”

Mr Coulter also said lessons should be learned from his office’s investigations into deaths in custody and the associated concern about the impact of drugs abuse in prisons.

He was appointed as the first prisoner ombudsman for Northern Ireland in May 2005 and will leave office at the end of August.

A successor to Mr Coulter, who announced his resignation in January, is expected to be announced shortly.

BBC

A glass obelisk has been installed on the site of the Omagh bomb.

An artist’s impression of the memorial garden

The monument - part of a new Garden of Light - will be unveiled on the tenth anniversary of the atrocity next month (15 August).

It consists of seven glass sheets laminated together, each weighing a tonne.

They were lifted into place in the County Tyrone town under the watchful eye of the artist who who designed it, Sean Hillen, on Sunday.

At times this has been a controversial process. The victims’ families were absent when the design was unveiled.

And an independent team of facilitators was brought in to resolve a row over what words would be used to accompany the memorial.

Work is continuing to complete the Garden of Light.

GEORGE JACKSON
Irish Times
28 July 2008

ONE OF Northern Ireland’s most iconic landmarks, the Free Derry Wall in the Bogside area of Derry, underwent a dramatic facelift at the weekend when local residents, together with a group of spray-can artists from Switzerland, painted their personal messages on the wall.

New mural on Free Derry Wall, created by a group of spray-can artists from Switzerland and local residents. The wall was painted over by a local arts project to give contributors a blank canvas to work with.New mural on Free Derry Wall, created by a group of spray-can artists from Switzerland and local residents. The wall was painted over by a local arts project to give contributors a blank canvas to work with. (Photograph: Trevor McBride)

To facilitate the event members of the local Bluebell Arts Project painted over images already on the wall to give contributors a blank canvas to work with.

“It was a tremendous success,” said organiser Jim Collins. “It followed widespread community consultation, and because the wall has been used for almost 40 years in terms of highlighting community issues - such as painting it pink last year for the Foyle Gay Pride week - this year the message from the community was that they wanted to put their messages on the wall in art form.

“We had over 100 contributors in the event, which was supported by Derry City Council and by the Northern Ireland Arts Council. In fact it was a massive success.

“The contributions related to regeneration issues, environmental issues and to people’s dreams and aspirations for the Bogside. In the past, consultation processes involved widespread questionnaires and surveys so we decided to use the wall as a blank questionnaire which people could fill in in a creative way.

“We even had a group of Swiss spray-can artists who took part. They were here in the Bogside on holiday and they were bowled over at the idea,” he said.

Investigators are chasing every penny derived from criminal activity to strip the group of its wealth

John Mooney
Sunday Times
27 July 2008

———————————————————————
When photographs of John Noonan helping Gerry Adams shoulder the coffin of a famous IRA volunteer through the streets of Belfast appeared in newspapers last February, Sinn Fein reacted in horror. Noonan was a former adjutant officer of the Provisional’s Dublin brigade and had stood for Sinn Fein in the European elections of 1984. Adam’s former comrade had also served a prison sentence for possession of firearms in the 1970s, which further enhanced his republican credentials.

But that was then. By the time the Sinn Fein leader realised that Noonan was standing behind him at the funeral of Brendan Hughes, a founder member of the Provisional IRA when it broke away from the Official IRA in 1970, the cameras had already recorded the moment for posterity.

Adams, peacemaker and politician, didn’t need to be photographed with a man who was the subject of an in-depth investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), the elite garda unit established to seize money derived from criminal activity. Noonan was one of the few people who knew where the IRA had invested the funds it had robbed and extorted throughout the Troubles.

With the Provisional IRA’s killing machine dismantled, the focus has switched to turning off the republican movement’s money machine. Noonan, like other former republicans being targeted by the CAB, has become a liability and an embarrassment to Sinn Fein.

Since 2004, the CAB and its British equivalent, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), have mounted a succession of fiscal investigations into the IRA which are intended to strip the terrorist organisation and its key members of their wealth.

It was Michael McDowell, the former justice minister, who made it clear that the agency’s remit was to chase down the IRA’s finances and its godfathers. McDowell was looking for instant results but the intelligence services, including MI5 and Garda special branch, had a long-term strategy: they wanted to ensure republicans would never again have access to the type of funds that would allow them to rearm.

THE strategy of stripping militant republicans of their wealth was first used after the Real IRA bombed Omagh in 1998, killing 29 people and unborn twin girls. As part of the Irish government’s offensive against the dissidents, the CAB launched an inquiry into Liam Campbell, the Real IRA’s director of operations for Ulster.

Campbell, a smuggler, was later issued with a tax demand for €500,000. Other dissidents were also targeted and forced to make substantial settlements, albeit in secret. The bureau’s operation, which was later adapted to counter the Provos, had a crippling effect on the struggling dissident paramilitary group and was instrumental in its collapse.

Dealing with the Provisional IRA, however, has proved to be more complicated. Over the years the movement has invested millions in front companies and offshore accounts. A report by the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in 2002 estimated that the Provisional IRA’s annual running costs were €2.8m and that its annual fundraising capacity was between €9.25m and €14m. If the IRA was a company, it would have been reporting profits of about €11m a year.

So where’s the money?

John Horan, an expert on money laundering and a former member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said the IRA has invested heavily in bars, clubs, taxi firms, shops and hotels. The terrorist group also operates bureau-de-changes in France and Britain which are used to launder money. IRA Inc, as it is known, also maintains extensive investments in offshore properties and investment schemes.

“In the 1970s, the IRA was a ramshackle group, but that changed over 30 years of war,” said Horan. “What made them particularly successful at managing money was the fact that they bought in expertise. The IRA realised that it could use professional people who supported their cause but were unwilling to take up arms. So they hired investment brokers and accountants. “This ensured that their financial controls were very good. They also learned how to launder money and invest it wisely. You could say they kept a tight control on their finances. If anyone dipped into them, they were usually found on a dark roadway in south Armagh,” he added.

To date, the CAB and SOCA have seized assets and cash worth more than €50m from scores of republican targets. Among them is Patrick Leneghan who reached a €5m out-of-court tax settlement with the CAB last year. That settlement was for non-payment of taxes, not for the proceeds of crime.

The CAB also settled an ¤8m claim with Thomas McFeely, a key player in the €500m extension of The Square shopping centre in Tallaght, Dublin. McFeely served 12 years of a 26-year sentence in the Maze prison for robbing a post office and shooting and wounding an RUC officer during the siege of a house in Co Derry.

Thomas “Slab” Murphy, the IRA’s former chief of staff, is another prime target. Murphy is an iconic figure for many hard-line republicans and a hate figure for unionists, who accuse him of masterminding scores of bomb attacks. He was issued with a tax demand for €5m by the bureau in 2006 after his farm on the Louth-Armagh border was searched by gardai.

That raid followed an operation by the British security services which seized

properties worth €17.3m in the greater Manchester area. Murphy has tried to negotiate a settlement with the bureau but, so far, the two sides have failed to reach an agreement. Other suspects, including prominent businessmen, are being pursued by the bureau through the courts for millions in unpaid taxes.

The IRA no longer requires the money it has amassed for purchasing weapons.

“It has found itself in a position where money is being generated through the front companies it established during the Troubles but it doesn’t need the money,” said one senior garda.

The security source added: “Its finance department has a huge headache, if you can call it that, because it can’t use this money without attracting attention”

The problems which large amounts of cash attract is best illustrated by the ¤38.6m that the IRA stole from the Northern Bank in December 2004. Though it was initially suspected that the raid was organised to reward its members and set them up for retirement, that assessment has since changed. The security services now believe the robbery was sanctioned by the IRA’s army council in order to send a message to the British government after the breakdown of peace negotiations the previous summer. “The IRA wanted to show the British that it was capable of pulling off a major operation right under their noses but it rebounded on them. They knew they couldn’t bomb a target but they did the next best thing, which was to clean out a bank in Belfast, known to be the most security conscious city in Europe. The heist was meant to be an ‘up yours’ to the British, a financial Canary Wharf, without an explosion,” said a garda source. “But look what happened. Some of those involved in the operation couldn’t help but take the money and try to launder it, which caused all sorts of headaches for the leadership,” the source added.

Almost two months after the raid, gardai recovered nearly €3m in cash from various places in Co Cork. About £2.3m was found in a green wheelie bin in a back garden. The force has since accounted for close to €5m of the missing cash but the whereabouts of the remaining cash is unknown, although special branch suspect it has been destroyed. “That particular escapade taught the IRA that having too much money can be just as dangerous as having too little,” added the source.

According to intelligence experts, this realisation partly explains why the IRA leadership has allowed some members to steal from its coffers, and to take control of its money laundering operations. “The problem the movement faces is what to do with a business empire that is producing hot money.”

That problem won’t last forever given the rate at which the bureau is continuing to seize money from republicans, whose finances cannot be accounted for, or who have been linked the IRA. The CAB operation, which is led by John O’Mahony, the bureau’s chief officer, will continue indefinitely and could result in the seizure of a further ¤50m from IRA suspects. “The bureau will continue to target the IRA for as long as is necessary. This operation will only stop when there’s nothing left to seize. It’s an open-ended investigation which has no end in sight,” said a source close to the inquiry. As the CAB continues to issue tax demands from business figures associated with the Provos, many of them will be forced to sell their money-producing assets to meet those bills.

SINN FEIN is believed to be ambivalent about the government’s attempts to seize republican finances. But as a political party that continues to deny having links with the IRA there is embarrassment at being continually associated with republicans such as Murphy.

“Sinn Fein are too street smart to allow hot money from the IRA to enter their accounts,” said Horan. “The party is trying to be whiter than white. They don’t want money from the IRA to contaminate their finances,” he added.

This view is shared by garda special branch and the CAB. “If you were to investigate the source of Sinn Fein’s funds, you might as well be examining those of the Labour party,” remarked one anti-terrorist garda officer in Garda Headquarters.

Dessie Ellis, a Sinn Fein councillor from Dublin northwest who served a sentence for terrorist-related crimes, said Sinn Fein fully supported the rule of law and was opposed to money laundering.

“Sinn Fein can account for every penny it receives and spends. We are not rich. People in Sinn Fein have nothing to hide anymore,” said Ellis.

That opinion is supported by Christy Burke, another Sinn Fein councillor from Dublin. He said Sinn Fein accepted the CAB had a job to do and believes strongly that Sinn Fein must be seen to be beyond reproach on financial issues.

“I am an old-timer but Sinn Fein is now a young and vibrant party. We are in a power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland, we have members sitting in the Dail and in the European

Parliament. We have to lead by example.” He added: “It’s up to CAB to investigate whomever they like. If they find people who have questions to answer, they have questions to answer. I certainly won’t be losing any sleep over them.”

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
Guardian
Monday July 28, 2008

The security services are picking up more suspicious activity from Northern Ireland’s dissident republicans than from any other radical group in the UK, the Guardian has learned.

Up to 60% of all the security services’ electronic intercepts - phonetaps and other covert technical operations - have come from dissidents, despite the threat posed by hundreds of suspected Islamist extremists on the mainland.

MI5 is directing its attention to a hardcore of republicans, fearing they are determined to destabilise the peace process.

Sir Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, has separately confirmed that the dissident threat is the highest since he took office.

With fears escalating over the intent of republicans opposed to powersharing in the province, security sources have told the Guardian that:

· 80 hardcore dissidents may be plotting terrorist attacks.

· The Real IRA and Continuity IRA’s short- term goal is to kill a Catholic police officer in the hope of deterring young Catholics and nationalists from joining the PSNI.

· Dissidents’ targets have also recently extended to prison officers.

· Police numbers are so stretched that officers with anti-terrorist experience are being transferred from Greater Belfast - once the crucible of the Troubles - to rural areas.

Orde agreed the threat from the anti-peace process republicans was real despite the arrest of dozens of dissidents. “It is as high as it has been in my time in the service,” he told the Guardian. “Significant efforts are ongoing to tackle the threat. The aim where possible, is to arrest those involved, charge them and bring them to court and to date over 30 people have been arrested this year.” Support within republican communities for the PSNI was helping in the anti-terror drive, he added.

Irish security sources confirmed the intelligence war was concentrated on counties Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh.

One senior Dublin official said: “Their prime targets are Catholic officers who they regard as vulnerable and politically more important in terms of their armed campaign.”

He pointed to a relatively unreported landmine attack aimed at killing PSNI officers at Rosslea in Co Fermanagh, near the Irish border, last month as evidence that the dissident threat was the highest since the Omagh atrocity 10 years ago.

The Dublin security official pointed out that the June 14 attempt was the first landmine attack since the Provisional IRA’s first ceasefire 14 years ago.

Although officially police have the lead in security policy in the province, MI5 has taken over surveillance operations against dissident republicans. Due to policing reforms the number of special branch anti-terrorist officers has dropped over the last five years. In some areas, such as West Belfast, the number of experienced special branch officers has halved.

Jeffrey Donaldson, a junior Stormont junior minister said he believed the threat from the anti-peace process republicans was extremely high.

Donaldson, who also represents Lagan Valley at Westminster and had two cousins in the police killed during the Troubles, confirmed that the Real IRA and Continuity IRA’s target net had widened to include prison officers.

“It’s in the nature of terrorism that they will kill anyone but I understand that their principal targets are Catholic members of the security forces …” the DUP MP said. He said he had been told that a number of Catholic prison officers had been moved out of their homes recently after intelligence indicated they were being targeted for assassination.