'Moment of truth' for SF over bank robbery

Sinn Féin faces a moment of truth after police chiefs confirmed they believe the IRA carried out the Northern Bank robbery, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said today.

Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy said yesterday there was evidence money seized during a probe into alleged IRA criminality in Cork was part of the £26.5m (€38.8m) stolen in the raid in Belfast.

Mr McDowell accused Sinn Féin leaders, who claimed they asked the IRA whether it was responsible for last December’s theft and believed its denials, of misleading the public.

“The moment of truth is now coming for those people,” he said.

“There’s clear evidence now that the IRA did the Northern Bank robbery and all the denials and all the people who said that they went back and checked out the story and that it was untrue and all the Army Council members who spoke in public and said there was no truth in it, now they are getting their comeuppance.”

Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness was among those who said the IRA told him it did not carry out the robbery.

But Mr McDowell said Commissioner Conroy has proved the IRA was responsible.

“Very serious political repercussions flow from that and that is that all criminality must end and that the lying must end and that senior Provisional politicians must stop lying to the Irish people,” he said.

Commissioner Conroy said: “I am satisfied at this stage of the investigation that we will show the money recovered during Operation Phoenix is part of the takings from the robbery of the Northern Bank in Belfast.”

During the operation in February, detectives seized cash, believed to total around £5m (€7.3m), in raids in Co Cork, including money which was being burned in the back yard of a house.

Commissioner Conroy refused to say whether the link to the Northern Bank raid had been established through forensic analysis of the notes.

“What I have seen at this stage, I am now satisfied that we will get to that position in the near future,” he said.

Although the Irish police had already hinted at their strong belief that the recovered money was linked to the bank raid, Commissioner Conroy’s comments at a cross-border cooperation seminar in Dublin yesterday were the first official confirmation of his position.

Mr McDowell also hit out at Thomas “Slab” Murphy, the alleged Chief of Staff of the IRA, who yesterday claimed he had nothing to do with properties searched in Manchester over alleged IRA links.

“His denial that he has any connection with these matters must be taken in the context that he swore on a Bible that he had nothing to do with the IRA and wasn’t a senior member of the IRA and that a Dublin jury who heard all the witnesses regarded him as a liar on that occasion,” he added.

Mr Murphy failed in a libel action against The Sunday Times in 1998 after the newspaper described him as a top Provisional.