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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...

Sinn Fein chief Martin McGuinness has warned the family of IRA murder victim Robert McCartney to back off.With one of the sisters threatening an electoral challenge to the party, the Mid Ulster MP claimed the campaign to bring the killers to justice could be left open to political manipulation. They could risk popular support, he told the family. Clearly rattled by the intensity of the crisis engulfing Sinn Fein, Mr McGuinness said: "The McCartneys need to be very careful. "To step over that line, which is a very important line, into the world of party political politics, can do a...

At last the light is shone on the IRA Kevin Myers (Filed: 13/03/2005) No event in Northern Ireland in recent years has distilled the abominable and corrupted reality of life under the peace process as the murder of Robert McCartney. Half beaten to death, one eye gouged out, his throat cut, and then gutted like a fish, he was left to die while his IRA killers returned to the pub from which they had flushed him, to warn the customers there of the fate awaiting them if they informed. Then making off with the cassette from the CCTV, they proceeded...

Sinn Fein has had to call off a series of St Patrick’s Day fundraising events in America this week as pressure on Gerry Adams, the party’s president, spreads across the Atlantic. The events have been downgraded to speaking engagements after Adams was advised he would not be given permission to raise money in America because the IRA has come under heavy criticism for its involvement in bank robbery, money laundering and murder. Senior Irish-American senators have now demanded that the terrorist group disband. The reversal in Sinn Fein’s fortunes is largely due to the unrelenting campaign mounted by the girlfriend...

No event in Northern Ireland in recent years has distilled the abominable and corrupted reality of life under the peace process as the murder of Robert McCartney. Half beaten to death, one eye gouged out, his throat cut, and then gutted like a fish, he was left to die while his IRA killers returned to the pub from which they had flushed him, to warn the customers there of the fate awaiting them if they informed. Then making off with the cassette from the CCTV, they proceeded to destroy all the forensic evidence associated with the killing.This was an exception...

President Bush personally ordered that Gerry Adams be frozen out of official engagements during his visit to America, furious that the Sinn Fein leader had betrayed his efforts to help to re-start the Northern Ireland peace process. Mr Bush now views Mr Adams in the same unfavourable light as he did Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, a senior presidential adviser said last night. "At the White House, Adams is now regarded with the same sort of disdain as Arafat," the adviser told The Telegraph. "The President no longer considers Mr Adams a reliable partner for peace. He doesn't want...

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...