Continuity IRA Says Seven Suspects Arrested By MI5 Are Not Members

Henry McDonald, The Guardian's Ireland correspondent, outlines a claim by the Continuity IRA regarding the status of a number of people arrested recently by MI5.
 
  • CIRA brands men as criminals, saying they would not be allowed into the section of Maghaberry in Northern Ireland where its prisoners are held.

A flagpole bearing the letters CIRA, in a residential estate in Craigavon, Northern Ireland
A flagpole bearing the letters CIRA, in a residential estate in Craigavon, Northern Ireland Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images
                                  

The Continuity IRA – the most hardline of the republican terror groups – has distanced itself from seven suspects arrested in a major MI5-led security operation near the Irish border late last year.

CIRA said the seven men would not be allowed into that section of Maghaberry maximum security prison in Northern Ireland where its prisoners are held.

In a communique which reveals the divisions and schisms within dissident republicanism, the CIRA branded the seven as “criminals”.

The men were arrested at a house in Newry back in November and have been charged with a range of offences in a non-jury court including possessing explosives and arms, and membership of a proscribed organisation.

In the court it emerged that MI5 had bugged the house the men were caught in and recorded 65 hours of meetings. Those arrested include a pensioner as well as the man police on both sides of the Irish border believe helped build the bomb which killed 29 people at Omagh in 1998.

But the Continuity IRA, in a coded message from its prisoners inside Maghaberry, said those arrested were not members of its organisation.

“These individuals do not belong to the Continuity Irish Republican Army,” said the prisoners. “Their only goal is an MI5-led incursion, with the sole aim of destroying the republican movement. Their criminal exploits are well known in our communities so it would be very hypocritical and unethical on a point of principle to allow this masquerade to continue within this jail.
We will take every action necessary to protect our status and our movement from these criminals. We wish to make it clear these men are not republicans.

CIRA is the oldest of the three anti-ceasefire republican armed groups. It emerged following a split in Sinn Féin back in 1986 with a hardline faction breaking away to form Republican Sinn Féin. The terror group was responsible for killing Constable Stephen Carroll in 2009, the first member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland murdered by republican paramilitaries.

5 comments:

  1. 'Those arrested include a pensioner as well as the man police on both sides of the Irish border believe helped build the bomb which killed 29 people at Omagh in 1998.'

    and lets all pretend mi5 had nothing to do with omagh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Broniac repost your comment. It was lost in uploading

    ReplyDelete
  3. A former RUC special branch deputy head and retired MI5 officers are to be
    investigated over allegations they destroyed evidence in a so-called shoot to
    kill incident in County Armagh.

    Read more:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-30812148

    ReplyDelete
  4. The communique out of maghaberry comes from a splinter group alighned to a group led by des dalton.Des Dalton was expelled from rsf a number of years ago for traveling over the border to pay a brit court fine for street protest

    ReplyDelete