IRA blamed for £22m Belfast bank raid (Latest)

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Guardian

Matthew Tempest
Friday January 7, 2005

The Provisional IRA was responsible for the £22m Belfast bank raid, the chief constable of Northern Ireland said today.

Hugh Orde told a Belfast press conference that the terrorist group linked to Sinn Féin, which is negotiating to share power with the Democratic Unionists, was "responsible, and all main lines of inquiry lead in that direction". The news has thrown the province's fragile peace process into disarray.

The implication is that the IRA was planning the robbery, one of the largest bank jobs in history, as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness negotiated a power-sharing deal with the Democratic Unionists.

Downing Street immediately said that the prime minister, Tony Blair, took the development "very seriously". "The PM has made it repeatedly clear over the past two years that the political institutions in Northern Ireland can only be restored if there is a complete end to all paramilitary activity by those involved, and that includes all criminal activity," a spokesman said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1385473,00.html

[emad]

1. BBC update:

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said trust and confidence in the peace process had been damaged.

"An operation of this magnitude... has obviously been planned at a stage when I was in negotiations with those that would know the leadership of the Provisional movement," he said.

However, Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness MP said Mr Orde's comments were "nothing more than politically-biased allegations".

"This is more to do with halting the process of change which Sinn Fein has been driving forward than with anything that happened at the Northern Bank," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4154657.stm

[Moderator]

2. duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1126357