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Date Posted: 23:46:54 02/26/05 Sat GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: IRA expels 3 Belfast members (Hartford Courant)


IRA Expels Three Belfast Members
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press Writer

February 25 2005, 6:18 PM EST

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The Irish Republican Army said Friday night it expelled three members implicated in the knife slaying of a Belfast man, a killing that has focused Catholic anger against the outlawed group.
In a lengthy statement, the IRA said it was doing everything it could to ensure that the killers of Robert McCartney, 33, were brought to justice.
The underground organization emphasized it would not tolerate any attempts to intimidate witnesses to the Jan. 30 attack on McCartney and his friend Brendan Devine, who had his throat and stomach slashed but survived.
The IRA said it already had compelled one of the expelled members to give a statement to a lawyer outlining his role in the Jan. 30 killing, a statement that may be forwarded to police. It said it had advised two others "in the strongest terms possible to come forward and take responsibility for their actions as the McCartney family have asked."
The group didn't indicate whether any action had been taken against three or four other IRA members allegedly involved in the attack, which began when a drunken IRA gang attacked Devine with a broken bottle in a pub. McCartney tried to defend Devine but was fatally stabbed in the stomach in the street outside.
The key figure in the attack is a former commander of the entire IRA in Belfast, who according to witnesses directed the attack but didn't directly wield a weapon. The statement didn't specify any details of the three members dismissed.
The IRA and its allied Sinn Fein party have suffered weeks of mounting criticism over its handling of the McCartney killing and several other scandals, including the IRA's alleged robbery of a Belfast bank and a police crackdown on extensive IRA money-laundering in the Irish Republic.
And moderate Catholic politicians criticized the statement as calculated to relieve criticism of the IRA without the group's coming clean about its full role in the killing. The Social Democratic and Labour Party, which opposes Sinn Fein and the IRA, said perhaps more than dozen IRA members were involved in the attack and elaborate work afterward to clean up forensic evidence.
"I see this as a deeply cynical exercise, as merely a tactical exercise to cut off the pressure," said SDLP deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell.
Political reaction within Northern Ireland's British Protestant majority was more scathing.
"It's an absolutely pathetic statement," said Ian Paisley Jr., policing spokesman for the Democratic Unionists, the largest party. He doubted that any statement "squeezed out of a junior IRA fall-guy by the IRA's jungle justice" would stand up in court. "It will be dismissed because it was given under duress, and nobody will go to jail," he said.
More than 50 witnesses to the killing have reported being too afraid of possible IRA retribution to make statements to police. The IRA traditionally kills anybody suspected of informing to police against its members.
Earlier Friday, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said he'd met the McCartney family, which has waged a public campaign highlighting what they called IRA threats against witnesses to the killing.
Sinn Fein initially criticized police efforts to identify McCartney's killers, but the party changed course once Catholics normally supportive of Sinn Fein expressed outrage.
Adams declared Friday it was now "the patriotic duty" of witnesses to give statements of what they saw, although not necessarily to the Northern Ireland police, which Sinn Fein still rejects.
An opinion poll published Friday indicated that support for Adams has plummeted to 31 percent, down 20 points since November, in a reflection of the widespread criticism of Sinn Fein and IRA leaders' rejection of the forces of law and order in both parts of Ireland.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press
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