Disarmament priest: IRA had no truck with bank robbery

A Catholic priest who witnessed the completion of IRA disarmament was tonight embroiled in a fresh political storm after he refused to accept that the Provisionals were involved in the £26m (€37m) Northern Bank robbery.

Redemptorist priest Father Alex Reid, who along with Methodist minister the Rev Harold Good witnessed weapons decommissioning by the IRA two weeks ago, also angered unionists in a television interview broadcast in Northern Ireland tonight by trying to explain why republican paramilitaries had carried out so-called punishment beatings and shootings in their areas.