Durkan: Sinn Féin trying to 'obscure' McCartney investigation

SDLP leader Mark Durkan has claimed the Sinn Féin leadership had been heavily involved in attempts to obscure police investigations into the killing of Belfast man Robert McCartney and suspected money-laundering.

Mr Durkan said republicans had used their manipulative powers and their position in local communities in a bid to divert attention from the events of the last number of days.

“Even if we did not have all the flurry of the past few days, let’s remember there were fundamental questions there about Sinn Féin, their relationship with the IRA, about exactly what the IRA have been up to and Sinn Féin’s attitude to it,” Mr Durkan said.

“This issue of criminality is something that we have been warning about over the past number of years, that it was going to be ignored at our peril.”

Mr Durkan told RTE radio republicans had no right to talk about an Ireland of equals when they attempted to obscure the police investigations into Mr McCartney’s murder.

“This was a vicious, vicious murder and Sinn Féin and the IRA’s first instinct was to protect their own.”

Mr Durkan added there was no room in a modern democratic Ireland for people who believed they were above the law.