Police chief to quit if wrong about heist – ISN
January 21st, 2005
DERRY – The head of Northern Ireland’s police on Thursday vowed to resign if it turned out that he was wrong in his accusations that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was behind the theft of £26.5 million (€38 million) from a Belfast bank in December. Hugh Orde, Chief Constable of the Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI), stated publicly on 7 January that he believed that the IRA had carried out the robbery.
On Monday, the IRA proclaimed its innocence, after Sinn Féin, the political party linked to the IRA, had described the allegations as a conspiracy to undermine the peace process. While Orde’s flamboyant remarks could be viewed as publicity stunt, his assessment of the Belfast bank heist is shared by all other political parties in Northern Ireland. The Irish and British governments agree with the police chief, whose statement was followed by a series of recriminations that have destroyed any immediate chance for progress in Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Before Christmas, Dublin and London presented Northern Ireland’s parties with a deal on devolution. However, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party could not agree on the verification process of IRA weapons decommissioning. On Thursday, Orde told the Policing Board that he believed a senior IRA figure in Belfast was the mastermind behind the robbery. It remains unclear how much Sinn Féin leaders knew about the raid, which was clearly in its final planning stages while political negotiations on devolution were taking place.
Meanwhile in Dublin, Colm Murphy, so far the only person convicted in relation to the August 1998 Omagh bomb, was granted a retrial based on apparent tampering of evidence by two policemen in the Irish Republic. The Omagh bomb was carried out by the “Real” IRA, a dissident group that disagreed with the IRA’s ending of violent resistance to British rule in Northern Ireland. Twenty-nine people died in what was the single greatest loss of life in Northern Ireland’s civil conflict.
In an opinion poll published in Dublin on Thursday, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams’ approval rating was shown to have declined by nine points to 42 per cent. However, popular support for Sinn Féin remains at 11 per cent in the Republic, where the party has made substantial gains in recent years on the back of the IRA apparently committing to peace in Northern Ireland. However, as Sinn Féin becomes increasingly isolated politically, it is difficult to see how its current pariah status north and south in Ireland can be reversed. Such marginalization could empower hardliners in the IRA and carries with it the potential for splinter movements, such as the “Real” IRA, to make a power play, increasing the potential for violence on the scale of Omagh
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