Unionists demand Sinn Féin exclusion from Good Friday review

UNIONISTS demanded last night the British government exclude Sinn Féin from talks to restore the Northern Ireland Assembly.

As Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable Hugh Orde met the British government to discuss an alleged breach of the IRA ceasefire, the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists and David Trimble’s Ulster Unionist insisted Sinn Féin must be removed from the review of the Good Friday Agreement at Stormont.

DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson declared: “We have asked secretary of state Paul Murphy to put them out of the process, to suspend them and to follow the precedent the government used previously with both the representative of the UDA and the IRA.

Mr Robinson was speaking after four men appeared in a magistrates court in Belfast accused of unlawfully imprisoning a man and causing grievous bodily harm to him in Belfast city centre on Friday night.

Charges of IRA membership against the four were dropped but unionists insisted the Provisionals’ alleged involvement made a strong case for Sinn Féin’s removal from the review.

However, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness criticised Mr Orde for pointing the finger at the IRA for the attempted abduction of Bobby Tohill when there had been no similar attempt to blame loyalists for violence in recent months.

Mr McGuinness said he raised with Paul Murphy the issue of the killing of young James McMahon, who was murdered outside Lisburn District Council’s offices prior to Christmas. “I asked why the chief constable of the PSNI Hugh Orde had made no statement at that time about his killing.”

Mr McGuinness said he had told Mr Murphy he was aware that senior British and Irish ministers were aware of who carried out Mr McMahon’s murder. He noted that none of those people had been arrested.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble recalled how in the talks leading up to the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin’s involvement was suspended in January 1998 after the IRA was alleged to have carried out a murder. Mr McGuinness insisted his party would not be removed.