Peace process in jeopardy as IRA blamed for bank robbery
Northern Ireland’s most senior police officer has said that he believes the provisional IRA were to blame for the £22 million Belfast robbery.
Chief Constable Hugh Orde said he had thought very hard about attributing the crime to the paramilitary group, but said all the intelligence pointed in that direction.
The statement has a potentially explosive effect on the peace process, with the Conservatives already calling for a parliamentary statement from the Government.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Orde, said: “On the basis of the investigative work we have done, the evidence we have collected.in my opinion the provisional IRA are responsible and all main lines of inquiry currently being undertaken are in that direction.”
Mr Orde stressed that the investigation team, which included 45 detectives, had no political bias and said that their conclusions were based entirely on leads.
He said he had not been under any pressure to attribute blame but made the announcement because it made “operational sense”.
The police are yet to make any arrests or recover any money from the raid.
Downing Street said that shortly afterwards that the Prime Minister fully backed Mr Orde’s investigation, and said he had made it repeatedly clear that the devolution in Northern Ireland could only be restored if there was a “complete end” to all paramilitary and criminal activity.
Responding, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiation Martin McGuinness said that the allegations were completely “unfounded” and that there was “not one scrap of evidence”.
He claimed the assumption that the Provisional IRA was behind the brutal crime was an attempt by ‘securocrats’ to undermine the republican movement. The Sinn Fein man said that republicans would oppose any attempt to “marginalise or criminalise” his party.
Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, David Lidington, though has written to the Northern Ireland Secretary calling for action to be taken again Sinn Fein.
Mr Liddington said that today’s comments have “grave implications” for the political process and called for a statement to be made to Parliament.
Writing to the Minister Mr Liddington claimed that the Independent Monitoring Commission has said that the IRA and Sinn Fein are “inextricably linked”, adding: “If PIRA was responsible for the bank robbery on 20 December, senior members of Sinn Fein must have known about or even authorised the crime.
“I hope that you agree with me that any political party “inextricably linked” to an active and organised criminal gang is unacceptable in government in Northern Ireland. Nor could I support the devolution of policing or criminal justice to a devolved Executive unless all parties in that Executive had committed themselves unreservedly, in both word and deed, to support rather than undermine the police and the rule of law.”
He called for an urgent review as to whether any prisoners who were released on license as part of the peace process should be returned to jail and for the Government to move to suspend the privileges and parliamentary allowances given to Sinn Fein’s MPs.
