Sinn Féin politicians face exposure as IRA chiefs

SENIOR Sinn Féin politicians face the prospect of being publicly outed as leading members of the IRA by the International Monitoring Commission.

Following the publication of its blunt conclusions on continuing paramilitary violence and criminal activities in the North, two of the four IMC members yesterday raised the possibility that leaders of paramilitary groups would be named and shamed.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern described the findings as extremely disturbing.

However, in a furious response, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams dismissed the report as a sham produced by a partisan body.

Former Assembly speaker John Alderdice and retired senior policeman John Grieve confirmed that the IMC is to write to members of political parties believed to be in senior positions within paramilitary groups to tell them that they intended naming them.

"There are people out there who will tell you the names of these people; the dogs in the street have the names of people who are behaving like absolute thugs and they should have a spotlight shone on them," said Mr Grieve, in a clear signal that future IMC reports may bring further embarrassment to parties with links to paramilitarism.

The IMC report, brought forward following the crisis caused by the abduction of a dissident republican in February, was damning in its conclusions on continuing paramilitary activities in the North. It listed 12 murders and hundreds of paramilitary-style shootings and assaults since January 2003 carried out by loyalists and republicans and concluded that criminal activity was continuing at a disturbingly high level.

It was at a level, said the IMC, which would cause outrage if it occurred in the South or in Britain. It said that all seven paramilitary organisations were still active.

While acknowledging that loyalist violence exceeded that carried out by republicans, the IMC's most contentious conclusion was that senior Sinn Féin members were involved with the IRA.

It immediately prompted condemnation from political parties in the South and North, including the SDLP. Despite its angry and outright dismissal of the report, Sinn Féin was last night facing the prospect of considerable pressure to sever its links with paramilitarism. The implications of the report were signalled by the cancellation of all-party talks, due to take place in London next week.