Five held after Policing Board death threats

FIVE people were being questioned yesterday by detectives investigating death threats against Catholic Policing Board members in Northern Ireland as the IRA faced demands to admit they are not involved.

Four men and a woman were detained in Strabane, Co Tyrone, where a car belonging to one local police board member was set alight earlier this week. The arrests were made as SDLP leader Mark Durkan called on the Provisional IRA to make a statement confirming Sinn Féin claims that they were not connected with the threats.

Two members of police boards have already quit, fearing for their lives.

The Real IRA has also warned Policing Board vice-chairman Denis Bradley that he will be killed.

However, Chief Constable Hugh Orde has also claimed members of the Provisionals were involved in intimidation of police board members in Cookstown.

Mr Durkan, who discussed the threats with Mr Orde yesterday, said afterwards: “If people are not convinced by Sinn Féin, it may be that people are looking at what has been said by that party in the past.

“People are looking at Mitchel McLaughlin refusing to condemn an attempt on a recruit’s life in Ballymena, they are looking at Gerry Adams’ remarks that PSNI officers should be ostracised like members of the RUC, and various councillors’ threats that DPP members better check under their cars or could have their names on posters hanging from lamp posts.

“If people have a problem with Sinn Féin’s condemnation, I think it might be more convincing if there was a clear definitive statement from the IRA itself.”

The SDLP leader also discussed with Mr Orde a series of measures designed to step up security for members of Northern Ireland's 26 district policing partnerships.

The former Northern Ireland deputy first minister said: “We were talking to the chief constable about the need for practical physical and communication measures to provide security for DPP members.

“But we did not focus solely on threats to Catholic DPP members. We made the point that other Catholics are also under threat and under attack at this time in the North from loyalists. People are being attacked and intimidated from their homes, in schools and even graveyards.

“That has to be as much a priority for police as investigations into attacks on Catholic DPP members by republicans.

“Whether it is the perverted sectarianism of loyalism or the inverted sectarianism of republicans, both these threats have to be condemned and dealt with.”