SAOIRSE32

Breaking News.ie
03/10/2008

Sinn Féin’s former director of publicity Danny Morrison has demanded that the reasons why his conviction in 1991 for the false imprisonment of an IRA informer is being quashed should be given in open court.

The Public Prosecution Service in the North is not contesting the appeal - but the reasons for this are contained in a sealed letter.

The North’s Lord Chief Justice, Brian Kerr, today said that he would read the document but Mr Morrison has claimed that that was not good enough and he wants to know why he wrongfully spent six years in jail.

BBC
03 Oct 2008

A 16-year-old boy who was shot in both legs in a house in Coleraine is lucky to be alive, the PSNI have said.

Two masked and armed men forced their way into a house in the Crescent area of the town at about 2230 BST on Thursday and shot him in the legs.

The teenager is in a serious but stable condition in hospital in Belfast.

PSNI Inspector Una Duffin said the 16-year-old was attacked in front of his girlfriend in a “vicious and violent manner”.

“This young man is a boy in the eyes of the law, and being subjected to this in a family home in a residential area in Coleraine is traumatic for the entire community.

“The young boy’s family have had a very angry and strong reaction to what has happened, and they have all been traumatised by it,” she said.

BBC
03 Oct 2008

A witness in the trial of five people charged with the murder of Michael McIlveen has been accused of hating one of the defendants “like poison”.

He was also accused of being prepared “to put the boot into him”.

Christopher Graham, 19, had given evidence at Antrim Crown Court on Wednesday.

He told the jury that one of the accused, Christopher Francis Kerr, 22, was part of the crowd that allegedly beat and kicked the Catholic schoolboy.

During a cross-examination by Mr Laurence McCrudden, it was put to Mr Graham that there was “bad blood” between the pair, particularly as Mr Kerr “was guilty of treachery for changing his allegiance from Catholic youth at the top of the town and Protestant youth at the bottom of the town”.

The witness denied this, but Mr McCrudden then put it to him that he had told police in his statements that Mr Kerr had threatened to damage his property prior to the attack.

Mr McCrudden added: “It’s your evidence that Christopher Kerr threatened to come up and wreck your hut.

“That must be something that stuck out in your mind. That would be a reason for you to resent and hate Kerr like poison.”

Mr Graham replied that he had been made aware of the threat but that each time he saw the defendant they spoke to each other adding: “I didn’t hate him.”

The court also heard that there had been pre-arranged fights, organised via the internet and mobile phones, between Protestant and Catholic youths in Ballymena in the months leading up to Michael McIlveen’s murder in May 2006.

It is alleged some of them took place in a car park on Springwell Street and in Cameron’s car park, close to the alleyway where the attack on the teenager took place.

Mr McCrudden told the jury that a samurai sword had been found by police in a hedge in the alleyway.

The weapon was shown to the witness and he confirmed it belonged to a friend, but maintained under questioning that he had not seen the sword that night.

He also stated he had not run after the crowd with any other weapon after the assault stating: “I didn’t go into the back of the alleyway after that, that night.”

Mr Graham has also previously told the court that he saw Mervyn Wilson Moon, 20, standing in the alleyway before the assault on Mr McIlveen.

Mr Moon has already pleaded guilty to murder and will be sentenced at the end of the trial.

But during a cross examination by Richard Weir, QC, who is defending 19-year-old Jeff Colin Lewis, the witness confirmed that in two police interviews he had never put Mr Moon there and accepted that he could have been mistaken in this part of his evidence to the court.

Mr Weir put it to him: “You’ve created an impression that he was definitely there.

“Was that not an attempt to say to the jury, I know he was there and putting him there when you had doubts about it yourself?

“If you had doubts about it why didn’t you say. Were you telling a lie about the matter?”

The witness replied: “No.”

Along with Mr Kerr and Mr Lewis, three others deny murdering Michael McIlveen.

They are Aaron Cavana Wallace, 20, 18-year-old Christopher Andrew McLeister, and a juvenile who can not be named because of his age.

Another teenager, Paul Edward David Henson, 18, from Condiere Avenue, Connor in Ballymena is charged with criminal damage and affray.

The case continues.

By Bernie Mullen
Derry Journal
03 October 2008

A veteran Sinn Fein member of Strabane District Council has died unexpectedly this evening.
Charlie McHugh was one of the longest serving members of the council, having been first elected in 1985.

It is understood Councillor McHugh died at his home in Castlederg.
Former colleagues are currently at his home comforting family members.

Party members in West Tyrone will be devastated at the tragic news, coming so soon after the loss of another veteran councillor, Ivan Barr, some months ago following a short illness.

Councillors McHugh and Barr were the first Sinn Fein members to take seats on Strabane Council and worked closely together.

Both had also served as council chairmen.

Councillor McHugh had helped carry the coffin of his late colleague at his funeral. Party colleagues will now be preparing for his funeral.

Councillor McHugh had just spoken to the ‘Derry Journal’ on Wednesday, issuing a statement condemning an attack on an ambulance worker in Castlederg by drunk youths last weekend.

He was consistently re-elected over the past 23 years to serve the Derg ward on Strabane District Council.

International Herald Tribune
The Associated Press
03 October 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland: The crisis in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government deepened Thursday as Protestant leaders defeated plans for an all-Ireland summit.

Catholic and Protestant rivals atop Northern Ireland’s 17-month-old government have failed to meet for the past 3 1/2 months in a worsening dispute over whether to form a new Justice Department in the British territory. Catholics insist this must happen now, but most Protestants say the public wouldn’t trust their increasingly shaky coalition to handle law and order.

Sinn Fein, the major Catholic-backed party, has been blocking Cabinet meetings since June in a failed effort to pressure the Protestant side into moving ahead with a Justice Department. The Catholic side wants control of the police and courts to pass from Britain to local hands. Britain supports the goal but says it can’t force the Protestants to budge.

The major British Protestant party, the Democratic Unionists, responded Thursday by refusing to authorize a planned summit Friday between the governments of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It was to have taken place in the Northern Ireland city of Armagh, the ecclesiastical capital of the island for Catholics and Protestants alike.

Catholics prize cross-border cooperation — which, like power-sharing itself, was an important plank of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord — because they think it will promote Ireland’s eventual unification.

The two sides accused each other of causing the deadlock.

Democratic Unionist deputy leader Nigel Dodds said Sinn Fein was to blame because it blocked another planned Cabinet meeting Thursday, and the Cabinet could not agree on policy papers that the planned summit required.

“Such behavior is the sole reason why no meeting will occur,” said Dodds, who is also Northern Ireland’s finance minister.

The senior power-sharing minister, Democratic Unionist leader Peter Robinson, later accused the government’s senior Sinn Fein figure, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, of breaking his oath of office because he was thwarting the work of power-sharing.

Robinson’s accusation fueled a growing expectation that the Democratic Unionists soon will seek to sue McGuinness in Belfast court in hopes of winning a judicial order compelling Sinn Fein to convene a Cabinet meeting.

Sinn Fein insisted that the Democratic Unionists could have used emergency powers to authorize all the required paperwork for Friday’s aborted summit. That happened last week, when both sides attended a similar summit in Scotland involving British regional governments.

The two smaller, moderate parties in Northern Ireland’s four-party government said Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists were jeopardizing the well-being of the province.

“The situation is absurd,” said lawmaker Tom Elliott of the Ulster Unionists, which used to represent most Protestant opinion but lost support because of its early backing for power-sharing with Catholics. “At a time when the electorate deserves some sure-footed government to deal with an economic crisis, they are getting precious little government at all.”

Margaret Ritchie, the sole Cabinet minister from a moderate Catholic party called the SDLP, said the deadlock was blocking her plans to get emergency welfare payments to poor and elderly households struggling to pay their heating bills. Ritchie said she hoped to overcome the Cabinet’s inability to function by using emergency powers.

“I am not going to get involved in assigning blame for the executive deadlock. It simply needs to meet,” Ritchie said with exasperation.

Derry Journal
03 October 2008

A BBC documentary detailing the historic October 5, 1968, titled ‘The Day the Troubles Began’, will be aired on Monday night.

The programme looks at what happened in Derry that day from a range of different perspectives.

It describes local events within the context of protests and demonstrations around the world and looks at how social and other changes affected some of those involved.

The documentary, also describes how Stormont reacted to the events unfolding on the streets of Northern Ireland and police reaction to the demonstration in Derry.

Beginning at 9.00pm, it includes contributions from American civil rights activists, including the Rev Jesse Jackson and Alain Geismar, who was involved in the French demonstrations of 1968.

It makes extensive use of archive recordings and includes previously unseen amateur film footage of events in Derry.

Those taking part reflect on their involvement in the emerging civil rights movement and the legacies of that period for life in contemporary Northern Ireland.

Local contributors who give their views on the reasons why the civil rights movement started here and its aims include Finbar O’Doherty, who was a member of the Derry Housing Association, Eamon Melaugh, who belonged to the Derry Labour Party, and civil rights activist, Eamonn McCann.

The programme also features contributions from Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, William Houston, who worked for Londonderry Corporation and retired RUC officer, Jim McMullan.

The documentary is on BBC1.

:::u.tv:::
01 Oct 2008

A man has appeared in court charged in connection with the kidnap and false imprisonment of a British Army officer.

Captain Robert Nairac was abducted from a pub in south Armagh 30 years ago.

The Army intelligence officer, 29, originally from Gloucestershire, was taken near the Three Steps Inn, Dromintee.

His body was never found.

In court on Wednesday, Kevin Crilly, 57, from Foughill Road in Jonesborough, south Armagh, was remanded on bail to reappear in court again at the end of October.

He was charged with kidnap and false imprisonment in May.

By William Graham Political Correspondent
Irish News
**Via Newshound
01/10/08

AN assembly debate yesterday on housing in the Markets area of Belfast turned into a bitter clash between SDLP minister Margaret Ritchie and Sinn Fein’s Alex Maskey over the murder of Robert McCartney.

During one exchange the minister told Mr Maskey – who is due to meet Ms Ritchie on the matter next month – that all she will see when he walks into her office “is the image of Robert McCartney holding his two young sons”.

At one point Mr Maskey warned the minister to “be very careful and choose her words” as his lawyers would be scrutinising her comments.

The bitter exchange arose after Mr Maskey and Sinn Fein’s Caral Ni Chuilin tabled a motion “calling on the minister to fulfil the commitments given by her department to the local community in relation to the environmental schemes in the Markets area”.

The motion was eventually defeated by 50 votes to 28.

Mr Maskey rose to his feet on a point of order after the minister said that when she saw the proposer of the motion in the context of the Markets she thought of one thing only – “and that is the events surrounding the cruel murder of Robert McCartney”.

Mr Maskey said it was very regrettable that the minister wanted to introduce the tragic murder and accused her of seeking to distract attention from the £2 million environmental scheme in the Markets.

“If the minister is in any way trying to align me with what was a brutal murder, which I have repeatedly condemned, then she will be listening to my lawyers in very quick time.

“I am advising the minister to be very careful and choose her words because my lawyers will be looking and scrutinising Hansard.

“This minister will not run off at the mouth at my expense,’’ Mr Maskey said.

In reply Ms Ritchie said: “I think of Mr Maskey’s remarks in the immediate aftermath of that event, and his stance in relation to the violence that greets the police when following up their investigations in the Markets area.

“And more than that I think of Robert’s partner and his two sons now exiled in England and of his brave sisters who have been forced from their homes, yet still denied justice.

“I think of the so-called republicans who saw nothing that night.”

She then said: “When he walks through the door of my room next month all I will see is the image of Robert McCartney holding his two young sons.”

Ms Ni Chuilin said wanted to put it on record her “disgust at the minister’s remarks”.

“This is completely out of order,” she said.

Sunday Journal.ie
**Via Newshound
28 September 2008

Sinn Féin Foyle MLA Raymond McCartney has called for the DUP to end their internal debates over the future of the Long Kesh site and urged the Culture Minister Gregory Campbell to get on with delivering on the sites potential and the creation thousands of much needed jobs.

Raymond McCartney said: “Minister Campbell must be decisive and move the Long Kesh project forward. For too long internal DUP splits and divisions have been allowed to stall this project. In short the DUP have conspired to make a complete mess of the entire proposal.

“The DUP needs to show vision for the future. The debate around the Long Kesh site has been going on for well over 10 years now. The inquisition is now over; it is time to act.

“There is huge economic uncertainty and serious pressure on the construction industry. Yet, we have at our disposal and opportunity to create thousands of jobs. And, while this would only be one part of a complete economic package it would send out the strongest signal that DUP Ministers are committed to progress and can put their own petty infighting to one side.

“We need to develop this provision for sport and recognise that the three main governing bodies of sport have already reached a consensus and that there is an urgent need for progress. As DUP junior Minister Jeffery Donaldson has already pointed out there is a real danger that opportunities related to the London 2012 Olympics will also be lost.

“The Minister has stated that he is prepared to act decisively on matters and make a statement regarding the development over the next number of weeks. The previous DUP Minister Edwin Poots made exactly the same claim this time last year. The time to act is now.”