News from Northern Ireland

[KConnor56]

Thursday, 23 January, 2003, 16:01 GMT
Parcel bomb defused at prisons HQ
A bomb has been defused at the headquarters of the Northern Ireland Prison Service. The device was discovered at Dundonald House in the Stormont estate in east Belfast on Thursday. It was concealed in a package and was designed to injure whoever opened it, said a police spokesman.
He said the bomb had the potential to cause serious injury and that detectives were keeping an open mind about who was responsible. The Army have also taken away a number of other items for forensic examination. The police described the device as "crude". A Prison Service spokesman said: "This type of indiscriminate attack - which places the lives of anyone handling such a package at risk from serious injury or worse - is to be utterly condemned."
Police have appealed for information.


More Donegal garda face arrest
======================
Henry McDonald
Sunday January 12, 2003
The Observer

More garda officers are expected to be arrested over allegations of corruption within the force in Co Donegal.

Three gardai including a sergeant were questioned by detectives yesterday as part of Assistant Commissioner Kevin Carty's investigation into the garda in Donegal.

The trio included a local official of the Garda Representative Association, the body representing rank and file police officers in the Republic.

They were questioned about allegations of the planting of a shotgun at a travellers' camp at Burnfoot, Co Donegal, in May 1998. The allegations emerged during an investigation into a gang of travellers allegedly involved in the murder of a Co. Mayo pensioner, 81-year-old Edward Fitzmaurice, who
died after thieves broke into his home in Charlestown, beat him up and tied him to a chair.

One officer - Sergeant John White - has already been charged in connection with the Carty inquiry. White is at the centre of a controversy over the Omagh bomb massacre in August 1998. He claims police in the Republic knew
that the Real IRA had stolen a White Vauxhall Cavalier car just prior to the bomb attack that killed 29 people in the Co. Tyrone town.

White alleges the Garda Special Branch failed to pass on intelligence about the stolen car to police officers north of the border. Nuala O'Loan, the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland, has described Sergeant White as a 'reliable witness'.

Sources close to the Carty inquiry said they believed more officers would be questioned about illegal activities in Donegal.



IRISH PRISONERS AID COMMITTEE
Sunday January 26, 2003

PRESS RELEASE


An Irish prisoners solidarity organisation has spoken out against the biased reporting by the British and Irish media, of the trial at the Old Bailey of three Irish remand prisoners.

Aidan Hulme, Robert Hulme, and Noel Maguire are currently
Appearing at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) in London on charges of conspiracy.

The London-based Irish Prisoners Aid Committee (IPAC) condemned the media for it's biased reporting of the trial - claiming it 'bordered on racism - and could influence the jury to find the men guilty by association and background.'

Spokesperson for IPAC Michael Holden said – “We were appalled when the television news on the first day of the trial, described one of the defendants as ‘being unable to read or write - brain dead’ and then went on to report – ‘he lived with his family on a caravan site.’

“Our understanding of the situation is quite different. The defendant suffers from dyslexia - which can cause a learning difficulty – making reading and writing difficult - but not impossible. He has written to us, so to claim he can't read or write is a DELIBERATE lie by the media.

“We have protested to ITN (Independent Television News) about the way the defendants are being portrayed. We have also asked the Irish in Britain Representation Group (IBRG) to take up their case with the Dyslexic Association of Great Britain.

“We ask supporters and sympathisers to phone ITN directly andcomplain. ITN is based in London ( Tel. No. 020-783-33000).”

E-MAIL COMMENTS FROM US OR ABROAD:
viewer_liaisonC3@itn.co.uk - Comments on ITV news programmes

LETTERS:
ITN Head Office, London
200 Gray's Inn Rd
London WC1X 8XZ



Sunday Business Post
News Features

Ex-wife of supergrass to appear as witness in McKevitt trial

By Barry O'Kelly
Dublin, Ireland, 26 January, 2003


A former wife of supergrass David Rupert is expected to testify as a defence witness in the trial of the alleged Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, according to sources close to the case.

A former employee of the American informant will also give evidence against him. Sources said the two had agreed to travel from the US to support allegations about Rupert's involvement in fraud.

It is believed that McKevitt will appeal to the Supreme Court against a decision to refuse him access to documents on the supergrass.

McKevitt (51), of Blackrock, Dundalk, is the first person to be charged with the offence of directing terrorism. He is also charged with IRA membership.

In the High Court last week, Mr Justice Iarlaith O'Neill refused
McKevitt leave to take judicial review proceedings challenging a Special Criminal Court decision to refuse him further disclosure of documents relating to Rupert.

During a hearing in October, the Special Criminal Court heard that an assistant Garda commissioner sought to "remove" embarrassing e-mails that might damage the credibility of Rupert.

Dermot Jennings, based in Garda headquarters, requested that the e-mails be removed amid concerns that they would be seized by lawyers defending the alleged RIRA leader, the court heard.

Other official documents revealed that an unnamed British security service officer appeared to have urged Jennings to lie in order to cover conflicts in Rupert's evidence, the court was told.

However, there was no indication that Jennings responded to the overture.

McKevitt's lawyer, Hugh Hartnett SC, alleged that Jennings, in seeking to have e-mails removed, had attempted to pervert the course of justice. This is denied by Jennings.

Hartnett said documents obtained on discovery appeared to show that the assistant commissioner characterised some of Rupert's claims as "lies".

McKevitt's trial on charges of directing terrorism is likely to be
decided on the basis of Rupert's credibility.

Hartnett, outlining the defence case, cited a number of British security service documents as evidence of official attempts to cover up Rupert's weakness as a witness.

He said the documents -- mostly e-mails -- would also embarrass the security services and the Gardaí.

In one e-mail sent by Rupert to his British handlers, the supergrass claims to have been told by Jennings that the Gardaí "did not care about what happened in the North, only what happened in the 26 counties".

When an MI5 official informed him about the alleged statement, Jennings emphatically denied making any such comments.

In a report obtained on discovery, the British agent is recorded as saying: "I responded that the problem was that the allegation was there in the e-mail and we now had to decide what to do about it. If the defence got hold of it and Jennings denied the report's veracity, that

would make Rupert an untrustworthy source. Jennings urged that the report be removed."




Henry McDonald
Sunday January 12, 2003
The Observer

A loyalist terrorist convicted of killing a Catholic grandmother was an agent for RUC Special Branch - a revelation which has prompted calls for an investigation by the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland.

Phillip Blaney, a member of a Loyalist Volunteer Force unit that threw a pipe-bomb at Elizabeth O'Neill's home in Portadown, admitted to detectives that he had been working as a Special Branch informer inside the hard-line terror group.

The Observer has learnt that in a statement given to police at Gough Barracks Armagh following Mrs O'Neill's murder, Blaney, 37, told officers that he was an agent spying on the LVF.

Blaney also gave the investigating team the names of the LVF men allegedly behind the murder of journalist Martin O'Hagan in 2001.

Convicted on Thursday at Belfast Crown Court over the manslaughter of 59-year-old Mrs O'Neill, Blaney was a member of the LVF's unit in Lurgan, which gunned down Martin O'Hagan.

He was part of the LVF gang that was sent out to pipe-bomb two homes of mixed-marriage couples living on the predominantly Protestant Corcrain estate in Portadown in 1999.

A pipe-bomb device was thrown by the gang through the O'Neil family's front window. When Mrs O'Neill picked it up it exploded and blew off almost all of her left hand. Flying fragments sliced through her aorta and she died in
Craigaon Area Hospital crying out her husband's name 'Joe' a few hours later.

Her son Martin, who had rushed to the scene after the explosion, is angry over the revelation that one of his mother's killers was a Special Branch agent.

'If Blaney was a Special Branch informer at the time of my mother's murder - and I believe he was - then why didn't he, or his handlers, do something to prevent it?' It is understood the O'Neill family will raise this question with Nuala O'Loan, the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland, who investigates the public's complaints.

Mr O'Neill said he was convinced he knew the identity of the two brothers who hurled the pipe-bomb into his mother's home.

'As far as I am concerned there is one down in the cells, Blaney. But there are still two of my mother's killers to go, those two brothers. This verdict, although I am thankful for it, is only the start.'

Blaney, meanwhile, will need round-the-clock protection from former LVF comrades in prison following Thursday's court case. In interrogations he named a number of LVF killers, including the men who ordered Martin O'Hagan's murder. During the trial one of the LVF leaders he named turned up
in court and shouted 'fucking tout'.

Blaney refused to go into the dock and give testimony at his own trial. The O'Neill family called yesterday on Blaney to reveal the identity of the two brothers the police believe threw the bombs into their mother's house.