Free Republic

Omagh bombing trial gets started DNA evidence links man to 1998 massacre, court is told By Jonathan McCambridge 25 September 2006 The trial of the man accused of murdering 29 people in the 1998 Omagh bomb massacre finally got under way today. Belfast Crown Court was told that DNA and fibre evidence could connect 37-year-old Sean Hoey to the no-warning Real IRA explosion and a number of other dissident republican attacks. Hoey, from Molly Rd, Jonesborough, who denies a total of 58 terrorist offences, sat in the dock in Court 12, guarded by two court officials, as the Diplock trial...

Sinn Fein accuse McDowell of 'posing' as tough on crime Sinn Féin spokesperson Aengus O Snodaigh TD today accused Minister for Justice Michael McDowell of "headline grabbing" and posing by adopting a tough stance on crime. In his statement Mr O Snodaigh supported suggestions that overcrowding at Mountjoy contributed to the death of Gary Douch in July adding: "More prisons and bigger prisons is not the answer." The Dublin south-central TD said: “After the tragic death of Gary Douch in Mountjoy Prison at the end of July, the Irish Prison Service rejected suggestions that Mountjoy was overcrowded, or that overcrowding...

IRA 'has ceased its criminality' The IRA is no longer involved in any centrally organised criminality, the British and Irish governments believe. Speaking after meeting Irish ministers, NI Secretary Peter Hain said cross-border intelligence indicated the IRA was living up to its commitments. Mr Hain said individual IRA members may still be involved in criminal activities, but that should not prevent political progress from being made. However, the DUP's Nigel Dodds said Mr Hain was "living in fantasy land". "This latest assessment from the secretary of state lacks credibility and will be treated by the vast majority of people in...

Police in Belfast tonight warned the family of Robert McCartney, the murdered father of two, of threats from “criminal elements” to have them burnt out of their homes and business. Catherine McCartney revealed she and her four sisters Paula, Gemma, Claire, Donna and Bridgeen Hagans were told of the threat tonight. “They told us that the threat to burn us out of our homes and to burn down Donna’s business came from criminal elements,” she confirmed. Police visited the homes of the McCartney sisters just days after the European Parliament backed moves to secure funding from the EU for a...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) -- The United States has demanded that the IRA disband after the guerrilla group's astonishing offer to shoot the killers of a murdered Northern Ireland Catholic man. "It's time for the IRA to go out of business," U.S. special envoy Mitchell Reiss said Wednesday. For the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland's biggest Irish nationalist party, the U.S. demand was yet another blow to its democratic credentials. Reiss told BBC radio: "It's time for Sinn Fein to be able to say explicitly, without ambiguity, without ambivalence, that criminality will not be tolerated. "You can't sign...