Be men, Sinn Fein tells killers
2005-03-06 19:36
Dublin - Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said on Sunday that the killers of a Belfast man have dragged his party and the outlawed IRA "into the dirt" and demanded that they "be men" and admit their crime.
Sinn Fein's annual conference, which ends Sunday, has been overshadowed by the January 30 slaying of Robert McCartney, who was fatally beaten and stabbed by IRA members. Nobody has been charged, even though the attack began in a crowded pub.
McCartney's sisters, who live in a hard-line Catholic district of Belfast that is a power base of the IRA, have waged an exceptional public campaign highlighting the intimidation of witnesses and the killers' careful cleanup of forensic evidence. Detectives say not a single witness has provided a statement identifying the attackers, making it impossible to bring charges.
Sinn Fein, which initially criticised police efforts to identify the killers and denied IRA involvement, have been forced to change tack because of the McCartney campaign.
Last week, Sinn Fein suspended seven members allegedly involved, following an IRA move to expel three of its members.
On Saturday, four of McCartney's sisters travelled to Dublin to sit in the front row of the Sinn Fein conference to hear Adams appeal for McCartney's killers to hand themselves in. He returned to the theme on Sunday.
Good name 'brought into the dirt'
"People who are involved in intimidation, stop it; people who have information, come forward," said Adams, whom the Irish government identifies as an IRA commander.
Adams said McCartney's killers "have brought the good name of (Irish) republicanism into the dirt".
"Those who did the deed should come forward - should be men - and should come forward and redeem themselves," he said.
However, the McCartney family said it remains unsatisfied that witnesses will come forward, given the IRA's traditional policy of killing "informers" and the Sinn Fein-IRA movement's rejection of the authority of the Northern Ireland police.
Sinn Fein has repeatedly stated its preference for witnesses to give statements to lawyers or, in a more recent suggestion, to the police-complaints authority. The Northern Ireland police say they would welcome such statements, but warn that prosecutions of McCartney's killers probably won't succeed unless witnesses are willing to appear in court.
Sinn Fein has been on the losing end of a public-relations battle since December, when the IRA allegedly robbed the Northern Bank in Belfast of a world-record £26.5m.
Although the IRA has been robbing banks for decades, the huge scale of the Northern Bank heist focused attention internationally on the IRA's continuing activities - this in an era of relative peace following Northern Ireland's Good Friday accord of 1998.
- AP