Politicians demand statement on IRA ceasefire

Northern Ireland’s police chief was under pressure today to confirm members of the Provisional IRA were behind the abduction and serious injury of a man in Belfast.

A member of the Policing Board said if he did he wanted Secretary of State Paul Murphy to rule on the state of the IRA ceasefire.

Tensions ran high after police stopped a car last night in Castle Street in central Belfast with five men on board – one was suffering from serious injuries.

Four of the men were arrested and the injured man taken to hospital, said a police spokeswoman.

The injured man is believed to have high-level links to the dissident Real IRA and to have been targeted before by the republican movement.

No shots were fired during the arrest, but a large area of central Belfast was sealed off amid unconfirmed reports that three other men escaped police.

Policing Board member Ian Paisley Jnr of the Democratic Unionist Party called on the Chief Constable to provide a security update on events which he said be believed was “an attempted abduction and possible murder of a man in Belfast“.

Mr Paisley demanded: “Can the Chief Constable confirm if the people arrested by the police in this operation were Provisional IRA activists.”

He said if Mr Orde gave such confirmation: “I want the Secretary of State to give a ruling on the state of the IRA ceasefire.”

Police last night said they could give not details adding that they were “still at the very early stage of the investigation“.

But it appeared the Chief Constable was preparing to make a public statement about last night’s events this morning.

If the Chief Constable does say that the IRA was involved it will be the last thing the British government wants as it engages in renewed attempts to rebuild devolution in Northern Ireland by finding some form of agreement between unionists and Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin can be relied upon to say that whatever happened, it had nothing to do with them. But hard-line unionists will use events as ammunition to pressure the government to return power to Stormont – without a Sinn Féin input.