Tohill charge linked to his refusal to make statement to police

THE dissident republican at the centre of an alleged IRA kidnap plot yesterday stormed out of a courtroom where he faced a threat-to-kill charge.

Bobby Tohill, aged 46, claimed he had been framed as he resisted attempts to keep him in the dock at Belfast Magistrates Court.

Tohill walked out but remained in custody after a detective denied his arrest was because he refused to make a statement about the suspected abduction which provoked a political crisis in Northern Ireland.

The court also heard how the former INLA prisoner gave a scathing assessment of the police investigation into his case to the ceasefire watchdogs brought in to examine whether the IRA were behind the attempted kidnapping in February.

In a devastating dossier on ongoing paramilitary activities, rushed out last month because of the furore over the Tohill case, the Independent Monitoring Commission backed Chief Constable Hugh Orde's claim that the IRA planned and carried out the attempted kidnapping.

Tohill was accused of threatening to kill a man named as Patrick Ward on March 27 and he was also charged with possessing a real or imitation gun and going into a west Belfast tower block armed with a pistol and a baton with intent to cause Mr Ward grievous bodily harm.

He made no reply when charged with the first offence and denied the other two charges.

A detective sergeant insisted he could connect him with the alleged offences.

Defence solicitor Shane O'Neill asked the sergeant if he was aware that Mr Ward had made two retraction statements.

The detective confirmed he knew of one withdrawal, as he had recorded it.

He was unaware that police had twice stopped Tohill since the alleged offences but reassured him he was not wanted for any crimes, the court was told.

Mr O'Neill then challenged the sgt as to whether "the police decision to charge Mr Tohill been related to his refusal to make a statement to the police in respect of his alleged abduction?" to which the sgt replied: "no."

The kidnapping incident dealt a massive blow to attempts to restore Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive, which was suspended 18 months earlier over an alleged IRA spy-ring inside the government.

Outraged unionists demanded tough sanctions against Sinn Féin after Mr Orde blamed the IRA for the abduction.

In response, the IMC brought forward its first report on paramilitary activity and included a section on the Tohill case in which it pointed the finger at the Provisional IRA.

In his absence, Resident Magistrate Harry McKibben remanded him in custody until May 28.