SAOIRSE32

The Real IRA first entered the annals of terrorist atrocities when dissidents set off a 500lb bomb in the centre of Omagh in August 1998, killing 29 people.

Duncan Gardham
Telegraph.co.uk
23 Oct 2011

The group had been formed a few months earlier by Michael McKevitt, a former quartermaster with the Provisional IRA, and his common law wife, Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, sister of the hunger-striker Bobby Sands, upset at the involvement of the “Provos” in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Officially calling themselves Olgaigh na hEireann [Soldiers of Ireland] the group announced their arrival with a roadblock in Jonesborough, County Armagh where they told drivers: “We’re from the IRA. The real IRA.”

After the Omagh bombing, the group was forced into a ceasefire, but they remerged with a bombing campaign that started in January 2000 and swiftly moved to the mainland, with bombs at Hammersmith Bridge, Ealing Broadway underground station and the BBC.

On September 21 they fired a rocket propelled grenade at the MI6 headquarters on the Thames, apparently in the belief that it was the home of MI5, security sources told the Daily Telegraph.

The campaign continued until March the following year when McKevitt was arrested in the Republic of Ireland along with Liam Campbell, RIRA’s director of operations, who was jailed for eight years.

Campbell is the brother of Michael Campbell who was found guilty in the Lithuanian sting operation, and is challenging his extradition to Lithuania in connection with his alleged role in the plot.

In July 2001, Slavakian police arrested three members of RIRA in a rural town after MI5 launched the first of its sting operations against the group, pretending to be Iraqi government officials willing to sell them arms.

The organisation launched a handful of attacks over the following years and in March 2009 claimed responsibility for the shooting of two soldiers who were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan at the Massereene Barracks in Antrim as attacks in Northern Ireland escalated.

But in June 2006, Paul McCaugherty was arrested after trying to buy explosives, detonators, AK 47s, sniper riffles and pistols from an undercover agent called “Ali” during meetings across Europe including Amsterdam and Istanbul.

McCaugherty was said to have handed over bundles of euros in a specially adapted bag and to have claimed that they had made the bomb used in Omagh, but they had given it to others who had “screwed it up”. He was sentenced to 20 years in jail last October.

MI5 was also attacking the organisation’s source of funding, leading to the conviction of Michael Campbell in the Netherlands in 2003 and Aiden Grew, alleged to be a member of RIRA, in Armagh in 2005 for cigarette smuggling.

In January 2008, they fell for the largest and most ambitious MI5 sting operation, based in Lithuania.

Security analysts say the Real IRA has the intent, personnel and knowledge to launch a sustained campaign in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain but they have been held back by an ageing arsenal that dates back to the days when Colonel Gaddafi was sending Semtex plastic explosive from Libya in the 1980s.

Operation Uncritical helped prevent them buying the weapons they needed.

Independent.ie
Sunday October 23 2011

HELEN Lucy Burke released the controversial ‘Norris tape’ for broadcast in the last days of the campaign to “give voters something to think about” before they elect a new President on Thursday.

RTE radio’s Liveline played a recording last Friday of David Norris’s interview with the journalist in 2002, in which the senator shared his views on sex between older and younger men.

David Norris

Ms Burke said yesterday she found the tape recently but only released it in the last days of the campaign for “impact.” She said “it would give people something to think about when they went to the polls. It might incite people to vote against Norris or for Norris.” This weekend Mr Norris said there was “absolutely nothing new” in the tape and said it had already been “comprehensively dealt with”.

The journalist reprised the senator’s comments on Liveline in May, as she thought they made him unsuitable to be President. Mr Norris claimed his campaign had been sabotaged and called on Ms Burke to release the tape. Ms Burke released the recording “in its entirety” with just six days to the presidential election, and with Norris trailing in opinion polls. She said: “It was only after some time that I managed to find that tape. By then a whole lot of water had flowed under bridges and people didn’t seem to care whatsoever about what Norris said.”

Joe Duffy played about eight minutes of the tape on Friday but Ms Burke said there was “a lot more” on it. Ms Burke said there were “no political forces” involved in her decision to release the recording: “I didn’t speak to one single politician about it nor did one single politician attempt to contact me. Which is rather lax of them, come to think of it,” she said. In the excerpt played by Duffy, Norris said he couldn’t understand how anyone could find children attractive.

He went on to say: “But in terms of classic paedophilia as practised by the Greeks, where it is an older man introducing a younger man or boy to adult life, I think there can be something to be said for that. “Again, this is not something that appealed to me, although when I was younger it would most certainly have appealed to me in the sense that I would have greatly relished the prospect of an older, attractive, mature man taking me under his wing, loving me, introducing me to sexual realities, treating me with affection and teaching me about life.”

Derry Journal
Sunday 23 October 2011

The Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) Derry has called on police ombudsman Al Hutchinson to resign immediately. The calls have been echoed by Sinn Fein and the SDLP.

It follows a BBC Spotlight programme which detailed errors in several investigations by the Ombudsman’s office, the independence of which was also called into question. One of those investigations was the 1988 ‘Good Samaritan’ Creggan bombing. Eugene (Sean) Dalton, Sheila Lewis and Gerard Curran were all killed as a result of an IRA bomb. It had been left in a Kildrum Gardens flat and attempts were made to lure the army to it, the neighbours were killed when they checked on their friend. The initial findings of a 2008 Ombudsman report revealed the RUC knew of the bomb and failed to take the necessary steps to protect the public. In May 2010 the Ombudsman’s office met with the PFC and the families and, in contradiction to investigators findings, informed them the complaint was not being upheld.

Paul O’Connor, Project Leader of the PFC said: “This report wasn’t changed to protect the name of any agent it was altered to protect the image of the RUC and those who made the decision not to intervene, MI5. Ultimately that is who allowed those people to die and that is who is being protected. Terrible harm has been done to victims families such as the Daltons by the shocking revelation that Ombudsman reports were vetted by the PSNI. Al Hutchinson’s description of legacy cases as ‘toxic’ has added insult to injury. This crisis will continue until he steps aside. Mr. Hutchinson should go now and make way for others to rebuild policing in Northern Ireland.”

Belfast Telegraph
Friday, 21 October 2011

Loyalist supergrass Robert Stewart revealed he has been taking anti-psychotic drugs to keep him calm - but denied hearing “voices” that told him to implicate people in crimes.

The 37-year-old witness said he is now looking forward to “a good sleep” once he completes his evidence in a marathon Belfast Crown Court trial.

Trial judge Mr Justice Gillen said it looked as if “the end is in sight” for the evidence of the self-confessed terrorist who, along with his brother Ian, has implicated 14 others in a catalogue of UVF crimes.

The judge, sitting without a jury, told Stewart he should “look forward” to ending his evidence, possibly by mid-week.

Stewart quickly replied he was looking forward to “a good sleep, my lord”.

Earlier yesterday Stewart admitted to the court that he has no answer to discrepancies in parts of his evidence in what he had initially told police and then the court.

The admission came as defence SC (State’s Counsel) Philip Magee quizzed Stewart about his state of mind, and what he had told police and the court.

“The truth of the matter is,” said Mr Magee. “You can’t remember what the truth is.”

Mr Magee continued to press Stewart, asking if his mind was telling him to put people forward as offenders who had never been mentioned before.

“Do you hear a voice … put people in?” continued Mr Magee.

Denying the suggestion, Stewart maintained that “it was just an error”.

However, Mr Magee repeated the question. He added: “Do you give people walk on and walk off parts, and that’s the truth of it?”

“That’s incorrect,” said Stewart.

Although he denied “hearing voices”, Stewart later admitted to defence barrister Mark Barlow that when he named one of his clients, David Smart, he had done so because there was “just something in my mind told me that he was there”.

The case continues on Monday.

Republican Michael Campbell was yesterday jailed after trying to buy an arsenal in the Baltics to wage terror in Britain. Kim Sengupta lifts the lid on the MI5 operation that brought him down

Kim Sengupta
Independent.co.uk
Saturday, 22 October 2011

“You imagine us getting over to England, if you had 10 of them and 10 clocks in a holdall. You imagine, with a six-hour timer we could be over to London and back. Just tick, tick, tick, tick… Gone. Leave it anywhere.”

Michael Campbell was setting out his plans for carrying the Real IRA’s bombing campaign to the heart of the enemy in the British mainland.

Campbell in court yesterday

The senior member of the dissident republican organisation – whose brother Liam Campbell was found liable in a civil court case of responsibility for the Omagh bombing – was celebrating a coup which would bring grenades, Kalashnikovs and snipers’ rifles, into their arsenal for a devastating offensive and open up a channel for lethal supplies in the future.

But the 39-year-old had been caught in a MI5 sting. Yesterday he was convicted in Lithuania of attempted smuggling, attempting to aid a terrorist organisation and illegal possession of weapons – and jailed for 12 years. The security forces regard the conviction as a milestone in the continuing battle against splinter groups waging sporadic terrorist campaigns.

Campbell was taken to Lithuania by an MI5 agent. The arms dealers carrying out negotiations worked for the intelligence service. The operation, law agencies claim, prevented attacks which could have led to dozens of deaths. Others back in Ireland are wanted over the alleged plot. Lithuanian authorities are seeking the extradition of Liam Campbell, described as the former Quartermaster-General of the Real IRA who, along with its leader Michael McKevitt, was held to be behind the Omagh atrocity in a case brought by some of the bereaved families of 29 people who died in the August 1998 bombing. A warrant has also been issued against Brendan McGuigan, another senior alleged member of the group, who travelled to Lithuania with Michael Campbell.

The mission was one of the most complex and longest carried out by the Security Services against Irish paramilitaries. It saw the unprecedented appearance of an MI5 spy, Robert Michael Jardine, in the witness box in open court. The Lithuanian judicial system did not allow for the the protection of a screen, the usual practice in the UK. Campbell’s defence team repeatedly charged that Jardine was an agent provocateur who had lured an unsuspecting Campbell at the behest of MI5 to incarceration in a foreign land.

MI5 and Lithuania deny entrapment. The Real IRA, they maintain, instigated the purchase of arms and saw Jardine as a useful conduit; the Campbell brothers and McGuigan were seasoned terrorists and it is risible to portray them as innocents led astray.

Mr Jardine voluntarily decided to give evidence and must now start a new life with a false identity. “He will have to live the rest of his life looking over his shoulders,” said one security official. “He is not overtly political. He did what he did to prevent loss of lives. The trial would not have proceeded without his evidence. He was given the choice whether to give evidence and he chose to do so.”

In 2002 Mr Jardine, who is in his mid-40s and of an English background, smuggled cigarettes to boost his legitimate earnings. In that role he met Kevin Tumelty, who was involved in dissident Republican circles. This also brought him to the attention of MI5, investigating terrorist funding. An approach took place and Mr Jardine agreed to help.

Tumelty died but in July 2004 an associate of his, who had struck up a friendship with Mr Jardine, asked him if his contacts could supply weapons. The MI5 agent handed over a price list for items, written, for “authenticity”, in the Cyrillic alphabet. He also introduced his contact, named Tomas, a member of the Lithuanian intelligence service. The deal appeared to stall but in 2006 Mr Jardine was approached by Campbell and met other Real IRA members.

The paramilitaries had suspicions. Mr Jardine was told: “We know MI5 are coming for us. You better not be one of them.”

A particularly menacing incident made Mr Jardine think his double life had been exposed. He was told he would be taken to meet Real IRA leaders, but entering the back of a transit van he found it covered in plastic with a shovel on the floor – the props of a traitor’s last journey. The traitor would dig his own grave then be shot. The plastic covering was to avoid forensic evidence. “This was an act of cold-blooded courage, that is not a cliche, it’s a fact,” said an official familiar with the mission. “I wouldn’t have blamed him if he pulled out.”

The fact that Mr Jardine had not panicked and attempted to escape raised his credibility with the Real IRA. Doubts were assuaged.

In August 2007, Campbell, calling himself “Freddie”, and another Real IRA operative, “Shaun”, travelled to Lithuania to stay with Tomas. Mr Jardine had insisted negotiations should take place between the two parties directly, to try to avoid subsequent accusations of entrapment.

Three days later the two visitors were introduced to another “arms dealer”, who they named “Rambo”. The three men went to the woods to practice with weapons including rocket-propelled grenades.

Satisfied, they left a deposit of €5,000. The Real IRA men seemed to think they were getting a bargain. In a whispered conversation, secretly recorded, Campbell struggles to hide his excitement: “Look at it this way, for one of them and one of them you have a bomb… for a fucking hundred quid!”

The two men returned to Ireland. Next month Campbell met Rambo in Marbella to work out future transactions. As well as having the weapons, the Lithuanian was told, the Irish wanted training on how to use them.

On 21 January 2008, Campbell travelled to Vilnius with his wife. The following day Rambo took the Real IRA man to a garage to show the arms cache available. It is there, in grainy video footage and crackling audio recording, that Campbell, according to prosecutors, incriminated himself. Examining detonators and timers for bombs, he muses, pointing, “See them there now… they would be good for under a car.” Rambo: “For what?”Campbell: “Booby trapping a car… anchored to a wheel and then the car goes around… Bang!”

The Barrett sniper’s rifle was of particular interest to Campbell and he was set to pay €1,000 (£869) for one to be shipped over. Rambo asked if something so potent would be used for merely hunting “roe deer” or “wild boar”. Campbell said, “No, no we will be shooting from across the border.” Rambo asked: “Who will be the targets?” Campbell said: “Brits.”

But Rambo still had to pin down exactly who Campbell represented. “I don’t need any matters with criminals. It is very important to me,” Rambo said. Campbell tried to reassure him: “Criminals do not need that type of training.” He needed the gun, he said, for his “enemies”. He was asked for his identity or, at least, to give the name of his organisation to the man who would deliver the Barratt. Campbell said he belonged to the “IRA”.

Campbell was tackled by soldiers from Lithuanian special forces as he left the garage. In court he insisted that Mr Jardine was the man driving the arms purchase. He himself was “just joking” when he talked about using the weapons against British targets, planting bombs in London. “To make something so big out of a joke was really unfair.”

Secret lives the informants

Robert Michael Jardine may have been denied the protection of a screen as he gave evidence in a Lithuanian court house, but even that would not have hidden his face from the memories of the men who will feel he betrayed them. He will have a new name, new documentation, a new home, and, in so far as is possible, a new appearance.

There may be people out to get him, but they are fewer in number, resources and organisational capability than those charged with his protection. The Real IRA is a splinter group with no more than a couple of hundred members. They lack the intelligence networks and the contacts the Provisional IRA once had, and they are not active in England.

In the past, IRA informants were recruited locally. When exposed they tended to disappear, placed secretly in England or Scotland.

One such, Martin McGartland, was recruited by the Royal Ulster Constabulary but his cover was blown in 1991 and he was abducted by the IRA. He escaped execution by jumping from a third-floor window. He was eventually given £100,000 and resettled in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear. In 1997, he was caught speeding and his identity inadvertently exposed by Northumbria Police. Two years later he was shot six times, but recovered from the injuries. He was relocated immediately, protected by 12 armed officers and given an armoured car.

CONOR LALLY, Crime Correspondent
Irish Times
21 Oct 2011

THE WIDOW of Det Garda Jerry McCabe, who was shot dead by the Provisional IRA during a botched armed robbery in 1996, has said Martin McGuinness’s “loyalty to a secret illegal army” is “incompatible with the office of president of Ireland”.

Anne McCabe said the Sinn Féin presidential candidate had visited Kevin Walsh, later convicted for his role in Det Garda McCabe’s killing, when he was on the run after the June 1996 shooting in Adare, Co Limerick.

She said in a statement that the visit by Mr McGuinness had taken place in a safe house in Co Cavan.

Mrs McCabe added that Mr McGuinness had not urged Walsh to give himself up and had not informed gardaí where the wanted man was.

She believed Mr McGuinness had acted in this way out of loyalty to the Provisional IRA, a “sinister” group that had once counted Mr McGuinness among its leaders and that “he regards as the legitimate government” of Ireland.

“This loyalty to a secret illegal army presumably was more important to Mr McGuinness than helping the Garda Síochána to solve a vicious murder. It is a loyalty that we believe is incompatible with the office of president of Ireland.”

She also believed Mr McGuinness knew the current whereabouts of Paul Damery and Gerry Roche, who are still wanted in relation to her husband’s killing.

In the statement released to the Limerick Leader, she expressed her support for the families of other gardaí, prison officers and soldiers who had been killed by the Provisional IRA and had recently spoken out.

Last week David Kelly, whose father Pte Patrick Kelly was shot dead by the IRA during a joint Garda and Army operation to rescue businessman Don Tidey in 1983, confronted Mr McGuinness in Athlone.

He said the Sinn Féin politician was a “liar” for saying he did not know the identity of the IRA members who killed his father, who was shot dead along with Garda Gary Sheehan in Derrada Wood, Ballinamore, Co Leitrim.

Mr McGuinness denied he was lying about the matter, had been in the IRA at the time or was a member of its army council.

Yesterday Mr McGuinness denied he had visited Kevin Walsh when he was on the run, describing it as a “mischievous claim” that the McCabe family had been led to believe.

He also denied knowing the whereabouts of those still wanted in relation to the killing.

“The killing of Garda McCabe was unjustifiable,” he said.

“I have condemned it unreservedly. A grave wrong was done to the McCabe family and the IRA have acknowledged that and apologised for it. I have never and would never stand over attacks on members of the Defence Forces or the gardaí.”

He later said he had no recollection of an interview he had done in 1985 with Hot Press magazine in which he said the gardaí were a legitimate target for the Provisional IRA members in the 1983 incident when Pte Kelly and Garda Sheehan were killed.

He reportedly said: “IRA volunteers felt they were going to be shot dead and were defending themselves against armed gardaí and soldiers.”

The interview was conducted with Michael O’Higgins, who is now a leading barrister.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said Mrs McCabe had showed “enormous courage” after having gone through a “horrendous ordeal”. He said people deserved to know the truth about the killing in 1996 and urged anybody with information to supply it to the Garda.

Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell said any person who wanted to be the Republic’s first citizen had a duty to assist gardaí.

RÓISÍN INGLE
Irish Times
22 Oct 2011

‘I’ve been done; call a priest’: Judge Rory Conaghan’s last words after being shot by the IRA in 1974 came back to haunt his daughter when she heard that Martin McGuinness was running for the presidency

IT WAS PARTLY “synchronicity” that prompted Mary Conaghan to approach The Irish Times to speak publicly for the first time about the murder of her father, Judge Rory Conaghan, by the IRA in Belfast in 1974.

On September 16th, the 37th anniversary of her father’s murder, she was listening to the car radio when the news was announced that Martin McGuinness would be a candidate for the presidency. She was struck by the coincidence, but her main motivation for speaking out, she says, is McGuinness’s repeated assertion during the campaign that the media are guilty of “stirring up” the feelings of victims.

“The media don’t need to stir up our feelings,” says Conaghan, who lives in Dublin, where she works part-time as a bereavement counsellor. “The victim’s feelings are there all the time. It may all be in the past for the perpetrators, but this is our present. Our feelings never go away. I want to speak for my father, to honour his memory. He was a good man. A man who lived for the rule of law and for justice, and a man who could have contributed so much more to Northern Ireland had his life not been cut short at the age of 54.”

In a soft voice she recounts the events of the morning her father, a Catholic, was killed. She was 17 and in her final year at school. “We had just finished breakfast, and the normal routine was that I would go upstairs, get ready for school and leave straight away. While I was upstairs the doorbell rang and then I heard this almighty bang, which I thought was a bomb. I ran downstairs screaming ‘watch your eyes’ and I saw my father lying on the floor.”

Shortly after 8.30am her father had heard the doorbell and gone to the door. When he opened it a man in a postman’s uniform took a gun from his postbag and fired a shot.

“As the gun came out my father shouted at the top of his voice, ‘I’ve been done; call a priest,’ ” Conaghan says.

Rory Conaghan’s youngest daughter, Deirdre, then nine years old, was standing beside him and witnessed the murder.

“My mother heard his last words,” says Mary Conaghan. “I remember holding my father in my arms, saying, ‘Daddy, please don’t die,’ while my mother went to find a priest. Our lives were shattered that day.”

Five minutes earlier, in another part of Belfast, the magistrate Martin McBirney had been shot dead. Conaghan and her sister both contributed to a report into the case carried out by the PSNI’s historical inquiries team, a specialist unit reporting on unsolved cases from the Troubles. The report, completed earlier this year, stated that both murders were a joint operation organised at a high level in the IRA.

In a statement shortly after the attacks the Irish Republican Publicity Bureau in Dublin said the men had been killed for being “willing agents of a most corrupt, rotten and evil judicial system”. In fact, according to the report, both Conaghan and McBirney were viewed as “moderate and humane” members of the judiciary. In 1971 Conaghan had awarded damages to 16 men whom the security forces had subject to sensory deprivation while they were interned, and he had once jailed Ian Paisley. The report says his “reputation for fairness spread among ex-internees, who at the time were exclusively Catholic”. It also refers to speculation that the IRA planned the murders because it was fearful that the Maze would close and internment would end. A Sunday Times article after the murders suggested that they were killed because liberal Catholic judges and magistrates were “more dangerous to the IRA cause than Protestant bigots”.

Conaghan believes that her father had been warned in various ways that he was a target, but “he would never have given in to terrorists”. When she tells people that he was murdered by the IRA, their immediate assumption is that she is Protestant. “When I tell them, ‘No, I am actually from the Catholic tradition,’ the next thing they say is: ‘Was your Daddy English?’

“I suppose I’d like the perspective to be aired that the war was not just waged by the IRA on the British and Protestants but on Catholics or anyone who got in the way of their project.”

Last June a Belfast woman, Ann Travers, the sister of Mary Travers, who was killed in an IRA gun attack in 1984, spoke out in protest against the appointment of Mary McArdle, the woman convicted of her sister’s murder, as a Sinn Féin ministerial adviser at Stormont. In an act of solidarity, Conaghan has since met Travers.

“There is this idea that the victims shouldn’t speak,” says Conaghan. “It’s sort of a moral blackmail that if you speak you are against peace, and that could not be further from the truth. I fully endorse the peace process, but victims are part of that peace. Many people have had to cope with people getting out of jail early; others are living with the physical and psychological trauma of what has happened to them. People get credit for giving up violence and for sharing power with their most hated enemies, but the people caught in the middle, who didn’t want any violence in the first place, they don’t get any credit.”

She describes the “moral dilemma” for her in McGuinness standing for president. “This is somebody who possibly knows who killed my father, and he is also someone who thinks that the murder of my father was okay, that he was a legitimate target. I was delighted to meet Mary McAleese recently; that’s how it should be when you meet your President. That is not how it would be with McGuinness.”

She is unsure how her questions and those of other victims looking for truth can be answered, but she feels strongly that they should still be allowed to ask them. “There is this duplicity the whole time with Sinn Féin and the IRA. They want everyone else to be accountable, but they don’t want to be accountable themselves. They don’t, for example, give information to the historical inquiries team. If somebody was caught and tried for my father’s murder, they would be let out under the Belfast Agreement. I could live with that. What I am most interested in is the truth.”

Conaghan’s mother died two years ago, without knowing who had planned the murder of her husband. Their daughters are still trying to find out what happened. “My sister and I are just two of a great number of people with no answers. I keep being told that it’s in the past, and there is all this talk of moving on, but for things to move on you need people to take responsibility and to have remorse.”

Conaghan believes that if she or her sister or mother had been murdered, her father “would never have stopped asking questions . . . I also know he’d be pressing for peace. I wouldn’t wish the kind of suffering we as a family went through on anybody. You literally take a shattered life and spend the rest of your life reconstructing a new one. You learn to live with it, but it never goes away.”

BBC Ireland Correspondent Mark Simpson explains the background to the MI5 weapons sting against the Real IRA.

Mark Simpson
BBC
21 Oct 2011
**Video onsite

It was codenamed Operation Uncritical and it involved MI5 agents travelling from England to Ireland, to Poland to Spain, and eventually to a field in the Lithuanian countryside.

It was there that Irishman Michael Campbell, 39, from County Louth, was caught red-handed trying to buy guns for the Real IRA.

The key to the MI5 sting was a middle-aged London businessman, Robert Jardine. He was involved in importing and exporting goods, including furniture and contact lenses.

He also had a secret sideline in cigarette-smuggling. This is where the Real IRA came in.

They knew Jardine, and Jardine knew them.
Continue reading the main story

Arms plot timeline

July 2004 - Real IRA start pursuing weapons in eastern Europe.
October 2005 - A weapons shopping list is drawn up.
January 2006 - A revised weapons list is produced.
August 2007 - Michael Campbell goes to Lithuania. Test-fired arms and left 5,000 euros deposit.
October 2007 - Campbell meets an arms dealer nicknamed Rambo in Marbella. Rambo is actually a secret agent.
January 2008 - Campbell returns to Lithuania to inspect weapons he has purchased. Arrested by police.
August 2009 - Campbell goes on trial in Vilnius District Court.
October 2011 - Verdict.

Bubble-wrap

In 2004, when the Real IRA began discussing importing weapons from eastern Europe, they knew that Jardine could help. What they did not realise was that he was an agent working for MI5 at the time.

Nonetheless, they were suspicious. At one stage they tested him.

They brought him to meet one of their leaders in south Armagh and put him in the back of a van, the inside of which was covered in bubble-wrap.

On the floor of the van was a spade.

They were clearly trying to scare Jardine into thinking he was about to dig his own grave. However, he kept his nerve, acted as normal and convinced the Real IRA that he could be trusted.

In October 2005 they gave him a shopping list of weapons which they wanted. Three months later, Jardine was given another handwritten list.

The wish-list included sniper rifles, rocket launchers, RPG-7 rockets, hand-grenades and Semtex explosives.

The handwritten weapons list given to Jardine

By this stage, Jardine had already gone to Poland and Lithuania to put them in touch with a weapons contact, known simply as Tomas.

He too was acting for the intelligence services and played along with the sting.

It seemed that a deal was about to be done, but the Real IRA suddenly went cold on the idea.

It was not until the summer of 2007 that their interest stirred again. Michael Campbell, and an associate known as Shaun, were sent to Lithuania to look at the weapons on offer.

They stayed at a country lodge and Tomas showed them the weaponry.

The next day, the main arms-dealer arrived. The two Irishmen nicknamed him Rambo. They failed to spot that he too was a role-player involved in the MI5 sting.

Having spent two days looking at the arms and explosives available, Campbell and Shaun were secretly recorded talking about bombs.

Campbell said: “You imagine us getting over to England, if you’d ten of them and ten clocks in a holdall. You imagine, with a six hour timer, we could be over to London and back.”

Shaun’s reply was mainly inaudible, but he was heard saying “two or three”.

Campbell added: “Just tick tick tick tick, gone. Leave it anywhere.”

After inspecting and firing weapons they left a 5,000 euros deposit.

Secret recordings

Two months later they met Rambo again, this time in Marbella on the southern Spanish coast.

The following January, Campbell went back to Lithuania to see the weapons he had bought.

During a secretly recorded exchange, he was asked why he needed them.

Campbell said: “We will be shooting from across borders. The border.”

Rambo replied: “And who will be targets?”

Campbell simply said: “Brits.”

He was later asked about which organisation he represented and replied the “IRA”.
The handwritten weapons list given to Jardine The handwritten weapons list given to Jardine

Shortly afterwards, Campbell was arrested.

The episode shows that groups like the Real IRA are following the terror textbook of the Provisional IRA. They are trying to buy weapons from abroad for use in Northern Ireland and, if possible, London.

Libya was the main supply route for the Provisionals in the 1980s; the dissidents have been concentrating on Europe with much less success.

The Real IRA split from the mainstream IRA after its ceasefire in 1997. The dissidents brought with them some weapons and explosives, but not enough to sustain a long campaign of violence.

They have been trying a number of international suppliers, however, the Lithuanian route now appears to be closed.

Crucial to the success of the MI5 sting was the London businessman Robert Jardine.

He now has a new life and new identity, far away from home.

There is little doubt that if the Real IRA found him, they would kill him.

By Anne Madden
Belfast Telegraph
Saturday, 22 October 2011

Dissident republicans have been blamed for a pipe-bomb attack on a retired female police officer’s home which has been described as “an attempt to murder”.

The viable device, which was placed at the entrance to the woman’s house in the village of Laurencetown, Co Down, on Thursday, has been widely condemned by police chiefs and politicians.

District Commander, Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson, described it as “an abhorrent attack on a lady who has spent a large part of her life serving her community”.

It is understood she had only recently left the PSNI.

A police spokeswoman said last night the incident is being linked to dissident republicans.

The bomb was found in the Banbridge Road area of the village. Army bomb disposal experts examined it and carried out a controlled explosion.

The security alert caused major disruption and a number of residents were moved from their homes during the operation.

Mr Robinson said: “We are extremely fortunate that this device was located and made safe before someone was killed.

“This was an attempt to murder a police officer and the people behind this have shown a complete disregard for the entire community in Laurencetown.

“Had this device exploded anyone unfortunate enough to be passing by could have been seriously injured or worse.”

Belfast Telegraph
Friday, 21 October 2011

Dissident republicans have besieged the first public meeting of Derry District Policing Partnership in almost a year.

Members and supporters of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement threw firecrackers at the dozens of PSNI officers forming a ring of steel round Derry City Council’s offices yesterday.

The meeting was to discuss the issue of pedestrian and cyclist safety around schools, with several head teachers present.

Police surrounded the council offices from yesterday morning amid fears that protests and disruptions during previous meetings on the west bank of the city would be repeated.

Around 25 republican protesters gathered at the rear entrance of the Strand Road building carrying placards. Police officers blocked the gated entrance as dissidents tried to get into the building.

A council official arrived from behind the police line and told the protesters that the room where the DPP public meeting was being held was “full to capacity”, and cited health and safety as the reason no-one else was being admitted.

This was met with a chorus of whistles and a torrent of abuse from the dissident protesters before chants of “SS RUC” broke out.

One man was arrested and escorted from the scene, but police confirmed he was “de-arrested” a short time later.

The group then walked to the front of the building, which had earlier been closed off, and threw numerous firecrackers over the railings close to where officers were standing.

A large 32 County Sovereignty banner was also unfurled, before the protesters made several more unsuccessful attempts to gain access via other entrances at the council offices.

Despite the events outside, the meeting went ahead as scheduled.

It was the first time the DPP has met in the west bank of Derry since November 2010, when a meeting at the Guildhall broke up in disarray as dissidents drowned out proceedings with anti-police chants and whistle- blowing.

The chairman of the DPP, SDLP councillor Thomas Conway, said he would have no difficulty in meeting with the dissident protesters, confirming that correspondence and even meetings between the DPP and dissident groupings had taken place in the past.

He added: “We have had a history in the past of people coming into meetings and causing a lot of disruption. As chair I have a huge duty to ensure the health and safety of those at the meetings.

“We will continue to have our meetings as normal. I would happily have a meeting in the cityside next week.”

Belfast Telegraph
Friday, 21 October 2011

A brother of one of the men blamed for the Omagh bomb atrocity has been jailed for 12 years for trying to buy weapons and explosives in Lithuania.

Irishman Michael Campbell was arrested in an undercover operation in the Baltic state of Lithuania after handing over cash to buy a sniper rifle, detonators and timers for the Real IRA. The 39-year-old was convicted by Judge Arunas Kisielus after a two-year trial in the city of Vilnius.

He was arrested in January 2008 following the operation involving the British, Irish and Lithuanian intelligence agencies, which believe the explosives would have been used to mount a terror campaign in Northern Ireland and on the British mainland.

Prosecutors are still seeking the extradition of his brother Liam Campbell and Brendan McGuigan from the Irish Republic.

Liam Campbell is seeking to go before the Supreme Court in London to challenge a civil court ruling which held him liable for the 1998 Omagh bomb, which killed 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins.

Campbell was arrested after a six-year sting orchestrated by MI5.

Video and intercepted communications showed he paid 6,000 euros (£5,200) for high-grade explosives, grenade launchers, detonators, AK-47s and a special assassin’s rifle, to Lithuanian agents posing as arms dealers. He was charged with supporting the splinter group by attempting to smuggle firearms, ammunition, and explosive devices from Lithuania to Ireland.

Campbell - from the Upper Faughart area near Dundalk, Co Louth in the Irish Republic, close to the border with Northern Ireland - maintained his innocence and claimed he was the victim of entrapment.

Irmantas Mikelionis, chief prosecutor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Investigations Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, said the explosives could have been used for bombing in London. “If we failed to stop Mr Campbell, we would put in danger the lives of innocent people,” he said.

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson, said Campbell’s conviction was another example of what can come from the high levels of co-operation between countries over terrorism. “I have no doubt that this will have dealt a blow to RIRA but we are not complacent and we remain determined to do all that we can to bear down on those who are the enemies of the whole community throughout the United Kingdom.”

Special Branch collusion in Pat Finucane’s murder signalled the beginning of the end for the RUC, writes Alan Simpson

Alan Simpson
Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday, 19 October 2011

When my phone rang at home on a damp and dismal Sunday evening in February 1989, I was not in the least surprised. At that time, I was the detective superintendent responsible for investigating all crime in north Belfast and was constantly subject to call-out, especially for a murder.

But I was shocked when Belfast Control told me that Pat Finucane had been shot dead at his home at Fortwilliam Drive. I knew the killing would be political dynamite, if sectarian. Little did I realise that, 22 years later, it would still be making headlines.

At that stage in my police service I had attended many murders, too many perhaps for my own well-being. But when I viewed the sight of Pat Finucane lying face-upwards on his kitchen floor, I witnessed evidence of pure, unadulterated hatred the likes of which I had seen few times before.

The gunmen had entered the house and fired two rounds into the body to bring him down. The principal assassin then stood over him pumping bullet after bullet into his face at close range leaving his skin a mass of powder burns.

More than 700 killings had taken place in north Belfast during the Troubles and, at the time, I had an overview of 14 other active murder investigations.

I brought together what personnel I could and set up a major incident room at Antrim Road police station. My investigation ran for about six weeks and, although we realised from an early stage that the murder was principally the work of the UFF, there was a dearth of intelligence from any of the other agencies concerning the murder.

The Finucane family were very hostile towards me and my team and, initially, I put this down to an anti-RUC attitude, bearing in mind that allegations of collusion by the security forces with loyalist terrorists were at their height. I soon realised that they did, indeed, suspect some form of state involvement in the crime. As the months progressed, I reluctantly began to come round to their viewpoint.

The first sign of dirty work afoot came when Special Branch, which I normally met daily, began to avoid me. Secondly, John Stevens, in the province investigating allegations of collusion, took on the case.

Using information supplied by RUC Detective Sergeant Johnston Brown, he brought the principal killer, Ken Barrett, to justice after a lengthy sting operation in England where Barrett was in hiding after he had been exposed as a Special Branch informant.

Leaving aside the actual killing, the most underhand tactic imaginable was used by Special Branch, when one of its operatives accompanied Johnston Brown as he debriefed Barrett in a car on a lonely country road during which he made his initial admission to having killed Finucane. The conversation was secretly recorded and Special Branch took the tape.

Many months later, Johnston Brown let it be known to John Stevens that he actually had Barrett on tape confessing to the murder and that the recording was in the possession of Special Branch. Stevens contacted Special Branch and requested the tape, and received one which had been contrived to exclude Barrett’s confession.

Brown was a master detective and quickly proved that the tape had, indeed, been contrived.

In due course, Stevens produced his report and concluded that there had been a conspiracy between Special Branch, the Force Research Unit and the UFF in the murder of Finucane.

Although this exonerated my initial instincts on the murder of Finucane, I had no sense of satisfaction as it proved that some police officers had lost their way and sacrificed the vital principle that the police must always retain the moral precedence over criminals.

Also, metaphorically, the coffin in which to bury the RUC had already been constructed and work on the lid was well-advanced. The collusion in the murder of Finucane was another giant nail with which to firmly close it.

There is little doubt that the main questions the Finucane family want answered is how far up the ladder did the collusion go.

David Cameron’s decision not to hold a public inquiry can be interpreted in several ways - the first, for the Finucane family, undoubtedly being that he is protecting those on high.

More objective people may take his decision at face-value and agree that the comprehensive inquiry by John Stevens and a review by an eminent lawyer should be sufficient. Others may take the view that there is an element of all of this in his decision. I know Cameron’s announcement will have caused great consternation among republicans.

But they should bear in mind that the southern security forces, too, may have dabbled in a little collusion with the IRA.

No one will convince me that the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen, Superintendent Bob Buchanan, Lord Justice and Lady Gibson, the Hanna family (in mistake for Lord Justice Eoin Higgins) and Tom Oliver were not the result of highly-accurate intelligence available only to a few.

By Lesley-Anne Henry
Belfast Telegraph
Thursday, 20 October 2011

A senior loyalist is expected to take part in the unveiling of a new portrait of republican icon James Connolly in Belfast City Hall.

UDA leader Jackie McDonald has confirmed he will make an address at the event being held in the Sinn Fein mayor’s parlour next Friday.

Jackie McDonald

Sinn Fein Culture Minister Caral Ni Chuilin is also due to speak at the unveiling, which has been organised by Siptu, the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union.

“Working with the Prison to Peace group, I have been engaging with all the republican groups anyway,” Mr McDonald, a Siptu activist, said.

“For too long working-class loyalists have been forgotten about or demonised. Myself and a number of colleagues thought it was time we got our message across and how we feel about the things that have happened to us and our community over the years.

“This is a good opportunity to make our voices heard. I will be talking about the poor and disadvantaged and the need to get jobs for our young people and about the need to give them ambition in life.”

The artwork commemorates the 100th anniversary of the arrival of James Connolly in Belfast to organise dockers and mill workers and was painted by Belfast artist Frank Quigley.

Connolly was executed by firing squad for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin.

The portrait is to be erected in Mayor Niall O’Donnghaile’s office in Belfast City Hall. In June the mayor caused controversy by removing portraits of the Royal family.

Profile

James Connolly was born in Edinburgh in 1868. He joined the British Army but deserted in 1889. In 1896 he moved to Dublin to organise the Dublin Socialist Society. Later he founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party. In the 1916 Easter Rising, his Irish Citizen Army fought beside the Irish Volunteers. He was executed on May 12, 1916.

BBC
19 Oct 2011

A controversial painting banned from the Ulster Museum more than three decades ago is being displayed for the first time in Northern Ireland.

Conrad Atkinson’s ‘Silver Liberties’ commemorates the victims of Bloody Sunday.

In 1978, staff at the museum refused to display the work.

The painting is part of an exhibition at Belfast’s Golden Thread Gallery curated by the politician and publisher Mairtin O Muilleoir.

He thinks that it is highly significant that the piece can now be displayed in the city.

“It’s a milestone in the city’s move towards peace; we are working to right a wrong,” he said.

“It’s a piece of art which is against violence.”

‘Silver Liberties: A Souvenir of a Wonderful Anniversary Year,’ is made up of four panels, three in the colours of the Irish flag. The fourth panel is black.

The first panel includes photos of the 13 people killed on Bloody Sunday and a blood-stained banner carried on the day of the march.

It made headlines in 1978 when porters at the Ulster Museum refused to hang the painting.

The museum’s trustees supported their action at the time.

Since then, the painting has been housed in Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

‘Cultural paramilitaries’

Cumbrian artist Conrad Atkinson’s work has been displayed in galleries across the globe, including Tate Britain in London and the Victoria and Albert museum.

He said that ‘Silver Liberties’ was initially commissioned by Nicholas Serota, now the director of the Tate, to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of the Queen.

Mr Atkinson said he decided to do “something kind of unusual”.

“I wanted to tell the English about the situation in Northern Ireland, and how civil liberties were being eroded in Great Britain as a whole.

“The painting’s real home is in London in a sense,” he explains.

He said he was not surprised by what happened in 1978, but still felt the museum’s trustees of the time were “cultural paramilitaries”.

Mr Atkinson said that his feelings about Bloody Sunday motivated the work, but that it also had a wider focus.

“I thought about Picasso’s Guernica when I was making it,” he said.

“Contrary to what people think, the dead body in the fourth panel is not an IRA man or a loyalist paramilitary.”

Instead, the picture is of a man called Liddle Towers, who died in 1976 from injuries received at the hands of the police in Co Durham.

‘Peace rather than politics’

Martin O Muilleoir counters suggestions that the exhibition contains art from only one political persepctive.

“People need to come and look at it,” he said.

“We told the story through my story of growing up. It’s from my perspective.

“I hope they’ll appreciate it as a show about peace rather than politics.”

The exhibition, called ‘Tears in Rain,’ also includes work by the well-known artists Rita Duffy, Robert Ballagh and F.E. McWilliam.

It runs at the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast until 3 December.

:::u.tv:::
18 Oct 2011

**Video onsite

First Minister Peter Robinson led the tributes to outgoing Irish President Mary McAleese, as she attended her last official engagement in Northern Ireland.

A farewell dinner at Hillsborough castle was held on Tuesday evening in honour of Mrs McAleese, who has now entered the final weeks of her presidency.

It was hosted by the Secretary of State and attended by guests from all communities, who showed their fondness for the Belfast woman who became the Republic’s head of state.

“That the Secretary of State for NI is hosting a farewell event for the President of Ireland is surely itself a testimony to the changed times that are now our shared context,” she said.

“So much that is good has been achieved in recent years.

“The cost has been high - too high for those who are bereaved but it has now created a momentum that the episodic spasms of resistance to peace simply cannot hope to stop.”

Paying tribute, Mr Robinson said the crowning moment of her term in office came when she welcomed the Queen to Dublin earlier this year.

It was the first official trip by a British monarch to the Republic and represented a milestone in the troubled history of Britain and Ireland, showing how far the peace process has come.

The DUP leader said: “The part that will stand out in the minds of most people in Northern Ireland, indeed in United Kingdom as a whole, will be her Majesty’s visit on the invitation of the President to the Irish Republic.

“I think many people will look at that as her crowning achievement of her term of office.”

The election of Mary McAleese in 1997, before the Good Friday Agreement had even been brokered, was groundbreaking - she was the first president from north of the border.

It was originally viewed with scepticism from unionists, but she threw open the doors of Aras an Uachtaráin to protestants from across Northern Ireland, including the Orange Order.

She was also poorly received at first by the Irish media, who were unimpressed by her Ardoyne roots, but 14 years on many of those reservations have been overcome.

“The newspapers were quite hostile,” Irish News columnist Brian Feeney told UTV.

“But she got a huge vote and she got a huge vote and she has demonstrated that she can be a president for all the people of Ireland.

“She had her own agenda and she said that was to build bridges.”

UDA leader Jackie McDonald said that the door of the presidential residence was opened to him when many doors in Northern Ireland remained closed.

He said: “Mary’s theme has always been building bridges and that’s exactly what she did.”

Mary McAleese’s populist touch showed as approval ratings soared to 80%, and she was re-elected unopposed for a second term in 2004.

It was towards the end of this final term that she invited the Queen to Dublin, for a visit widely viewed as a major sea-change in relations between the two countries.

Her successor will be chosen following the election on 27 October, however many feel she has left her imprint and secured her legacy as a bridge builder.

Mr Robinson, who says he had “good relationship” with the president, believes she will leave the office better than it was when she went in.

He said: “There were many misgivings in the early days but I think she grew into the role.

“I think over the period in office she started to learn and understand more of the position of the Unionist community and I think that told in the end.”

By Noel McAdam
Belfast Telegraph
Thursday, 20 October 2011

A Stormont blueprint to develop a ‘shared future’ strategy in Northern Ireland has been branded out of touch and in need of significant surgery.

MLAs scrutinising the work of the First Minister and deputy First Minister’s office heard yesterday that a consultation process on the programme for Cohesion, Sharing and Integration (CSI) has resulted in accusations that it lacked coherence and left people involved in community relations work feeling excluded.

An independent analysis of the responses from almost 300 organisations and individuals indicated that the document will require “significant surgery”, MLAs heard.

It was the first time the replies had been discussed in public — almost 10 months after the official analysis of them was sent to Peter Robinson and the then deputy Martin McGuinness.

An all-party working group set up to examine the blueprint in detail has now met three times and intends to continue its work on a weekly basis — resulting finally in a revised programme and an ‘action plan’.

Joanne Wallace, of Wallace Consulting, which conducted the analysis, said there had been a feeling in the consultation that it did not matter what people were going to say, the strategy was already written.

Chairman of the committee, Tom Elliott, suggested the responses overall were “very damning”, and “a lot more negative than positive” and asked whether the CSI document almost needs re-written.

“I think it would need significant surgery,” Ms Wallace |answered.

But a clarion call for strong leadership from Stormont in dealing with community relations and sectarianism was also contained in the responses from business organisations, voluntary groups, churches, educationalists and others.

Ms Wallace said there was a clear demand for ‘good relations’ to permeate all decisions made across Government and down to district council level.

Alliance MLA Chris Lyttle said members should be questioning the value for money of the first ministers’ office — where the responses, and analysis, have sat for 10 months — and asked why it had taken so long for them to reach the committee.

Senior first ministers’ office official Linsey Farrell said a political hiatus had kicked in ahead of the Assembly election but now the new all-party group was getting the work “up and running”.

Ulster Unionist Mike Nesbitt questioned whether, given that just 441 people attended public meetings to debate the strategy, “there is a robust evidence base on which to go forward”.

Sinn Fein’s Francie Molloy said: “The elephant in the room that we are all skipping round is the whole issue of sectarianism and I don’t think anyone has the answer as to how to deal with it.”

There was criticism that the remit of the initial document was unclear, the CSI title too all-encompassing, and the proposals were the result of political horse-trading between the two major parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein.

Other concerns voiced by MLAs included:

’’‘Shared spaces’ should involve schools, housing, and leisure facilities as well as town centres;
’’Choices to live in areas identified as almost wholly Protestant or Catholic should be respected;
’’Integrated education is being hampered by a lack of will from politicians and church leaders.

_____________________

Blueprint slammed for ‘poverty of vision’

More than 150 people, including reconciliation workers, victims of violence and civic leaders, used the pages of the Belfast Telegraph last year to sound alarm bells over Stormont’s ‘shared future’ proposals.

The front-line experts and practitioners warned the plan actually contained the potential to entrench communal division in Northern Ireland.

Their open letter was signed by IRA decommissioning witness Rev Harold Good, ex-rugby star Trevor Ringland of the One Small Step group and high-profile victims such as Alan McBride, who lost his wife Sharon and father-in-law Desmond Frizzell in the 1993 Shankill ‘fish shop’ bomb.

Their letter severely rebuked the proposals for a “poverty of vision” which “holds out only a future of sustained segregation” and argued the initial document “assumes that Northern Ireland’s conventional politically-driven identities will survive indefinitely.”

Their criticism followed a two-month consultation period on the so-called Cohesion, Sharing and Integration (CSI) initiative. But the CSI paper only emerged after a prolonged stand-off between the DUP and Sinn Fein, which at one stage saw both parties go public with separate documents.

Within a few weeks it became clear the proposals did not enjoy the support of the three, more minor, Executive parties — Alliance, Ulster Unionists and the SDLP and an independent analysis of the responses was |commissioned.

There was little progress after the May election but, finally, an all-party working group was established to try to map out a new way forward. It has so far met three times, out of the public view.

TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
20 Oct 2011

**Believing is not KNOWING Mr Myers. And stating your surmises is not telling the truth. Don’t base your columns on your unfounded ‘opinions and assertions’ and then act like you are the fountain of knowledge.

NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST Kevin Myers has told the Smithwick Tribunal he believed there were at least two IRA moles and possibly an IRA cell working within Dundalk Garda station in the 1980s.

Giving evidence yesterday, Mr Myers said at the time he wrote a newspaper column in March 2000, alleging Garda collusion with IRA assassins, he believed at least 12 killings were carried out with the aid of a single IRA mole.

He said the primary sources for the column, which ran in the “Irishman’s Diary” series in The Irish Times , were a former senior garda and a reformed “terrorist”. He based some of his understanding of events on the book Bandit Country by a former Daily Telegraph journalist Toby Harnden.

He told the tribunal he had assumed both his primary sources had been talking about the same mole, when in fact he later discovered they had been talking about separate members of the Garda, whose surnames both began with the letter C. In this he said his column had been mistaken.

He told Judge Peter Smithwick his garda source had named “Colton”, a now retired Sgt Leo Colton who was serving in Dundalk Garda station in the 1980s. Mr Myers said his terrorist source had also used the letter C. He later came to understand this indicated Det Sgt Owen Corrigan, who also served in Dundalk Garda station.

He said he now believed there were at least two gardaí working for the IRA in Dundalk, and possibly an entire cell. Under cross-examination by Jim O’Callaghan SC, for Mr Corrigan, Mr Myers said “ ‘cell’ suggests a coherence that might not have existed”. He said he knew little about Mr Corrigan and had not named him in the piece, but that others had named him. “It was a shocking allegation to have made,” he said, “but I did not make it.”

He acknowledged he was incorrect on some details in relation to some of the murders. He told Mr O’Callaghan the column was based on his opinions and assertions. He said a column was “a different factual plane” than a news article or editorial comment. “All we can do is tell the truth as sincerely and as impartially as possible,” he said.

Mr O’Callaghan asked: “Do you think that article told the truth in a fair and impartial manner?” Mr Myers said: “No, I don’t believe it did.” He said he was inspired to write the piece because “there was too many cross-Border operations going wrong without something systemically wrong”.

By Patrice Dougan
Belfast Telegraph
19 October 2011

A preliminary hearing into the murder of a former INLA hitman failed to set a date for his inquest.

Kevin McAlorum (31) was killed in a gangland-style shooting in 2004.

It was widely believed to be a revenge killing, carried out by disgruntled INLA members in retaliation for the murder of leader Gino Gallagher.

Yesterday a preliminary hearing to arrange the details of the inquest failed to set a date.

A solicitor representing the family of Mr McAlorum said their concerns over State involvement in the murder had yet to be dealt with satisfactorily.

A previous inquest was adjourned after the family raised their concerns with coroner Brian Sherrard.

The family have referred Mr McAlorum’s murder to the Police Ombudsman, as they did not feel it would be appropriate to hold an inquest until that investigation was complete.

The shocked faces of Dana and McGuinness over southern partitionism has been something to behold, writes DAVID ADAMS

David Adams
Irish Times
20 Oct 2011

WHATEVER ELSE it has been lacking, no one can argue that the presidential race has not been entertaining. It has produced more memorable televisual moments than could a raft of general election campaigns.

For tragicomic value, David Norris just edges it from Dana. Norris should have realised that his support went relatively stratospheric during the wilderness weeks only because he had withdrawn from the contest. If Norris had remained outside, he could have spent the rest of his life luxuriating in victimhood (“the best president Ireland never had, cruelly denied by narrow minds”). Instead, he re-entered, whereupon a closer inspection of the victim ensued, and sympathy vanished like snow off a ditch.

Now, the abiding public image of Norris is that of a Bertie Wooster-sounding character, either interjecting hysterically whenever he thought he was being ignored, or obfuscating frantically from behind a half-smile/half-snarl if he felt he was receiving too much attention. Dana, another late entry, would likewise have been better off staying at home. Remember her theatrics with a copy of the European constitution, talking wildly about how big a threat it poses to Ireland’s sovereignty: until Michael D pointed out, ever-so-politely, that actually the offending document has long-since been abandoned.

For me, when she brandished the Irish Constitution on another TV outing, making clear that a President Dana wouldn’t sign off on any Bill that didn’t fit with her somewhat narrow constitutional interpretations, Dana morphed from a seemingly harmless, self-imagined Joan of Arc figure into someone uncomfortably reminiscent of Sarah Palin. If she was riding higher than rock-bottom in the opinion polls, this wouldn’t seem quite so amusing. Imagine the prospect of a John Charles McQuaid think-alike in the Áras, parsing every piece of legislation for deviation from the Old Testament line.

For pure theatrics none of the candidates has come anywhere near Vincent Browne. As Martin McGuinness was trying manfully to convince Browne that the authors of a virtual library of books were all mistaken on the finer details of his IRA career, the other candidates must have been thinking they had been let off lightly. If so, they were sadly mistaken.

After mauling McGuinness, Browne turned to them and embarked on an evenly-spread bout of forensic savaging that subsequently had the odds lengthening considerably on the chances of there being a third consecutive Mary in the Áras; Sean Gallagher denying Fianna Fáil so often I was half-expecting to hear a cock crow thrice; Dana claiming she was being victimised for being a Catholic; and Norris, with wild-eyed smile/snarl stoically welded to sweat-streaked face, failing miserably to navigate his way around the considered opinion of a law professor from Tel Aviv that was entirely at odds with the legal advice he claimed to have received.

Browne set the standard for how aspirants to public office should be interrogated by a broadcast journalist. For us northerners, the presidential race has been instructive, as well as entertaining. This has been particularly true, I suspect, for our two entrants.

That neither of them need bother thinking about how to redirect their mail to the Áras hardly requires stating. This is no slight on the candidates; the same would apply to any other northerner foolish enough to enter a future presidential race. The election of Mary II can only be put down to some political aberration on the part of the southern electorate (probably due to an extreme strain of Peace Process/Celtic Tiger-induced bonhomie).

Whatever the cause, the like of it will not be repeated. It has become crystal clear during this campaign that people “down here” don’t like us northerners very much. Not in any individual sense – I’m sure lots of southerners could think of a likeable person from the North, if they tried hard enough – but in an abstract way. To the southern mind, we’re too abrasive, overly aggressive and, when it suits us, pigheadedly literal (the grating accent doesn’t help much, either). And that’s not the half of it. Ultimately, we’re seen as outsiders – if not quite foreigners – poking our noses into a polity that’s none of our business.

The shock on the faces of Dana and Martin as the harsh reality of southern partitionism sank in has been something to behold. Dana’s previous outings coincided with the tide of goodwill that swept Mary II into the Áras and, a couple of years later, herself briefly into the European parliament. Dana must feel like she’s landed on a different planet from 2004 Ireland. As for Martin (who can only be cursing himself for not being more suspicious of Gerry opting to stand in a Border county, rather than run for president), his taken-aback demeanour has, to me at least, often suggested the previously unimaginable: “Good God, these people make even the unionists seem friendly.”

So along with everything else, and contrary to some gloomy predictions, the presidential election has, in its own fashion, even helped with mutual understanding in Northern Ireland. Pity there couldn’t be one every year.

Aljazeera
20 Oct 2011

Abdul Hakim Belhaj, an NTC military chief, has confirmed that Muammar Gaddafi has died of his wounds after being captured near Sirte.

The body of the former Libyan leader was taken to a location which is being kept secret for security reasons, an NTC official said.

“Gaddafi’s body is with our unit in a car and we are taking the body to a secret place for security reasons,” Mohamed Abdel Kafi, an NTC official in the city of Misrata, told Reuters.

Earlier, Jamal abu-Shaalah, a field commander of NTC, told Al Jazeera that the toppled leader had been caught.

“He’s captured. He’s wounded in both legs … He’s been taken away by ambulance,” Abdel Majid, a senior NTC military official said.

A photograph taken on a mobile phone appeared to show Gaddafi heavily bloodied, but it was not possible to confirm the authenticity of the picture.

The news came shortly after the NTC captured Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown, after weeks of fighting.