IRA exile case resolved

The IRA has backed down after a high profile Downing Street protest by a man forced to flee Derry in fear the Provisionals would murder him.

Joseph McCloskey demonstrated at his 18-month exile last month when Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams went to No 10 for talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The two men later had talks in the House of Commons along with Labour MP Harry Barns and the discussions were today being seen as a direct result of his request for Mr Adams to intercede.

The exiling was one of a range of incidents cited by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, shortly before the suspension of devolution in Northern Ireland, as proof of the IRA’s continued activity.

His return was welcomed by Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness.

The 41-year-old and his family fled the city in fear and set up home at a secret address in England in April last year after an incident outside his home when shots were fired at members of an alleged IRA punishment gang.

His mother said at the time the thwarted attack on the house followed an incident in a pub a few days earlier when Mr McCloskey allegedly got into a row with an IRA member.

She repeated called on Sinn Fein to say it was safe for her son and his family to return.

Martin McGuinness, a Sinn Fein Assembly member for Derry, said today that if Mr McCloskey was back in the city he welcomed it.

“I am very pleased, if he is here, that he no longer feels he is no longer under threat from anyone.”

He said if Mr McCloskey wanted to meet him he was quite willing to see him.

But Mr McGuinness added: “I think by this stage it is probably safe to say that if he is back on the streets of Derry and living his life with his family, then he is content and there is nothing more to say about it.”

In September Mr McCloskey’s uncle – who was with him at his Shantallow home when it was attacked by the alleged IRA gang – was shot in both legs in an attack blamed on the IRA by police.

Danny McBrearty was driving a coach load of pensioners home from a day out across the border in Co Donegal when his vehicle was stopped in the city and he was shot .

Mr McCloskey and his family were remaining silent, saying only that the exile’s case had been “resolved”.