Sinn Fein denies threat after gang shooting

Sinn Fein today denied that a man who shot at a gang attacking his home had been forced to flee in fear of his life.

Party chairman Mitchel McLaughlin rejected the claims that Joseph McCluskey was forced to leave Derry because of a threat of reprisals from Republicans.

Mr McCloskey’s mother Bridie also alleged the threat had been widened to include her entire family and she demanded assurances from Sinn Fein’s Mid- Ulster MP Martin McGuinness that they would not be harmed.

Mr McCluskey fired a single shot from a legally held weapon on Monday night when five masked men armed with guns and sledgehammers tried to break into his house in the Catholic Shantallow estate.

Police had since arrested a man undergoing treatment for gunshot wounds to his leg in Altnagelvin Hospital in the city.

Sinn Fein did not comment on the row yesterday but today Mr McLaughlin said: ‘‘It is my authoritative information - and I have taken some trouble before I would go public on this - that there is no expulsion threat against her son, Joseph, nor was there any threat issued against the entire family as Mrs McCluskey claimed in her media interviews yesterday.’’

The attack on Mr McCloskey’s home on Drumleck Gardens appeared to have been linked to a bar brawl some days earlier.

Mr McLaughlin would not say whether the IRA was involved but said: ‘‘It is my understanding that the situation that involved the McCloskeys was something that they had to take some responsibility for creating in the first place and I believe that we can resolve this.’’