Missing man’s father rejects IRA statement

THE father of an Armagh man missing since May has rubbished IRA assertions they had nothing to do with his disappearance.

Mark O’Connor said he was “100% convinced” the Provisional IRA abducted his son and then killed him.

Accusing republicans of lying about the disappearance of his 24-year-old son, Gareth, he demanded: “I would like them to come clean and, if my son is dead, give me back his body so I can give him a Christian burial.” The missing man vanished on a Sunday while driving from his home in Armagh City to Dundalk to report to police as part of his bail conditions while awaiting trial on a charge of belonging to an illegal dissident republican group.

Mr O’Connor Snr scoffed at the latest statement from the IRA on Sunday night saying they had nothing to do with the disappearance.

“I don’t believe what the IRA is saying. I have no reason to believe it,” said Mr O’Connor. “The IRA are known to have lied for 30 years about the disappeared and they are lying again. They are following their pattern. They threatened my son on the Thursday (the police went to his house with a threat from the Provisional IRA) and my son went missing in South Armagh on the Sunday.”

He accused Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams of using the case of his son and others who had disappeared over the past 30 year as “pawns in a game of chess”.

Mr O’Connor was supported by a Catholic churchman who has been deeply involved in trying to secure the return of the bodies of the disappeared. Monsignor Denis Faul said he had no doubts the IRA was responsible for the disappearance of Mr O’Connor Jnr.

He said he knew the missing man had “a difference of opinion” with the IRA and his disappearance had been an inevitable result of that.