O’Loan: US should learn from North internment

THE United States government was warned that it should look to the experiences of Northern Ireland and learn that the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camp will serve as a recruiting ground for al-Qaida in the same way that internment without trial in the North led to a growth in the IRA.

In her first speech since stepping down from office on Monday, the North’s former Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan said she fears that current international anti-terror policing “will grow the very problem which it seeks to defeat”.

Meanwhile, Garda Síochána Chief Inspector Kathleen O’Toole said her office would be open to examining the role of gardaí in protecting planes that pass through Shannon Airport, alleged to be carrying terror suspects.