General rejects claims IRA holding weapons

GENERAL John de Chastelain was at the centre of a new row in the North last night after rejecting security force claims that the IRA is retaining weapons.

Even though the disarmament chief has been backed by gardaí, his assessment was also challenged by the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC).

The IMC, which confirmed high levels of IRA spying, money laundering and smuggling following the declaration to end its terrorist campaign last summer, said last night it had reports the provisionals still had access to a range of guns.

When the IRA carried out a final act of decommissioning last September, General de Chastelain, head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, said he was satisfied every gun under provo control had been put beyond use.

Last month, however, he was told by police in the North they had intelligence that some IRA men had retained a range of weapons, including handguns.

He then carried out his own investigation which included meetings with a provo representative who, he claimed, assured him all arms had been dumped and none hidden away.

Senior gardaí also insisted there was no intelligence suggesting any weapons had been retained.

But it was clear last night there are significantly differing views in Belfast and Dublin on the assessment of the IRA’s arms capability.

Lord Alderdice, one of the four men sitting on the IMC, declared: “We could not share the same level of confidence that he (General de Chastelain) expressed that all weapons were decommissioned.”

The IRA issued a statement denying it had gone back on the July declaration to end its campaign and dump its guns.

The offices of Mr Orde and General de Chastelain refused to comment.

But one authoritative security source in Belfast said last night: “There is something about all of this which really stinks.”

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain and Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern are having talks with all the main political parties at Hillsborough Castle, Co Down, on Monday but the row over the latest IMC report has virtually killed off any hopes London and Dublin may have had of injecting any sort of momentum into the process.

Mr Orde is due to address his policing board in Belfast today when he is likely to be challenged by the Democratic Unionists Party.

Last night, DUP leader Rev Ian Paisley claimed the IMC report demonstrated just how ingrained criminality was in the IRA’s DNA.

“Not only does the IMC report prove that Sinn Féin/ IRA have not left crime and terror behind them and are nowhere near completing the transition from illegality to exclusively peaceful and democratic means, but it also proves that the DUP are right to rule out executive devolution,” he said.