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Irish Times
02 Oct 2008
The North’s First Minister, Peter Robinson, today offered Sinn Féin an open agenda for tomorrow’s scheduled meeting of the Northern Ireland Executive to lift the crisis threatening the political process.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader also said he is planning to hold talks with Taoiseach Brian Cowen and has recently met Secretary of State Shaun Woodward for talks.
His comments came after Sinn Féin said their talks with the DUP had failed to settle the dispute over the transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to Stormont.
Last night Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness said the DUP has failed to satisfy republicans that they were in favour of partnership government and would deal with policies important to nationalist voters.
But today Mr Robinson said: “The only reasons that they have publicly given for the Executive not meeting are that the agenda is in some way being constrained.
“I am removing that fig leaf. I am saying we can have an open agenda, we can deal with whatever issues, including policing and justice which can be raised at the Executive table if they wish.”
The Northern Executive has not meant since June as a result of the dispute between the two parties.
Mr McGuinness said he believed the Executive meeting planned for tomorrow was now to go ahead.
The other two parties in the coalition government – the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP – have joined the DUP in calling for a meeting to be held to deal with bread-and-butter issues while the dispute over policing is settled.
BBC
01 Oct 2008
The NI First Minister has said he is happy to have an executive meeting on Thursday with an “open agenda”.
Peter Robinson said he wanted to “remove the fig leaf” of Sinn Féin’s claim that he only wanted to discuss issues that were important to the DUP.
On Tuesday, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said the meeting was highly unlikely to take place because of delays in devolving justice powers.
The executive has not met since June because of the dispute.
“The only reasons that they have publicly given for the executive not meeting are that the agenda is in some way being constrained,” said Mr Robinson.
“I am saying we can have an open agenda, we can deal with whatever issues, including policing and justice, which can be raised at the executive table if they wish.”
Earlier, Mr McGuinness said the executive meeting had to deal with all of the issues of concern to all of the parties.
“Not least the whole issue of education and the gross interference by the DUP in the work of the education minister,” he said.
“The whole issue of the Long Kesh site, where thousands and thousands of jobs could have been provided but the DUP made a dog’s dinner of that over the course of the last 18 months.”
The two ministers are due to appear together in front of a Stormont committee on Wednesday.
BBC
02 October 2008
Investigators who were given a map in connection with the search for the body of one of the Disappeared have appealed for more information.
Gerry Evans was last seen in Monaghan in 1979
The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains is trying to find the remains of Gerry Evans, 24, from Crossmaglen.
The commission seeks to find the remains of those secretly buried during the Troubles.
Mr Evans was last seen hitch-hiking in County Monaghan in March 1979.
No-one admitted responsibility for his death.
His aunt was given a map in March claiming to identify the location of his body.
Frank Murray, of the commission, said it was critical to their efforts that anyone with new information gave it to the commission.
“These are complicated and difficult investigations and fresh information is crucial,” he said.
“For example, the commission currently has a map of a forest area close to Castleblayney which claims to know the whereabouts of the body of Gerry Evans.
“We’re currently working on that and following it up but any additional information in this case would help us to fine-tune our search and improve the chances of recovery.”
Mr Murray and fellow commissioner Sir Ken Bloomfield have reported to the British and Irish governments that the current phase of scientific investigations is due to be completed before the end of next year.
‘Final piece’
In an appeal for fresh information, they insisted that no excavations of sites would take place unless there was a good prospect of success.
Sir Ken said every possible lead was being investigated and areas, often of bogland or other difficult terrain, were being surveyed by a dedicated team.
“It is both disappointing and frustrating that this work has yet to yield positive results, but it will continue until we are satisfied that everything possible has been done to obtain information and act upon it,” he said.
Mr Murray added: “Any new information received by the commission could be the final piece in a jigsaw which helps our investigators locate the remains of a loved one.”
The IRA admitted in 1999 that it murdered and buried nine of the Disappeared – Seamus Wright, Kevin McKee, Jean McConville, Columba McVeigh, Brendan Megraw, John McClory, Brian McKinney, Danny McIlhone and Eamon Molloy – in secret locations.
The bodies of four – Eamon Molloy, Brian McKinney, John McClory and Jean McConville – have been found.
Others who vanished during the Troubles include Mr Evans, Charles Armstrong, Robert Nairac and Seamus Ruddy, who disappeared in France and whose murder was admitted by the INLA.
By Chris Thornton
Belfast Telegraph
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
The security forces bugged a house belonging to solicitor Rosemary Nelson and wanted to tap her office phone, the inquiry into her murder has learned.
The inquiry revealed RUC Special Branch were recording the “minutiae of her life” for almost three years before Mrs Nelson was murdered by a car bomb.
The inquiry, which resumed hearings this month, is expected to explore whether RUC Special Branch respected the legally privileged talks she had with her client.
The then Secretary of State Mo Mowlam approved the operation to bug the home owned by Mrs Nelson — and occupied by suspected IRA leader Colin Duffy — but there is no paper trail to show what happened to a second application to eavesdrop on her office.
The inquiry’s leading lawyer says the lack of a paper trail suggests the wiretap did not take place. However, another intelligence report gives details of a conversation Mrs Nelson had with Martin McGuinness in her office, several months before the RUC application to tap her phone.
The Committee on the Administration of Justice — Mrs Nelson served on its executive committee — indicated it was concerned about the revelations.
“We are opposed to any breach of lawyer-client confidentiality arrangements,” said CAJ director Mike Ritchie.
Special Branch was interested in Mrs Nelson because she represented republican suspects and the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition in the Drumcree dispute.
The inquiry is beginning to explore intelligence questions around Mrs Nelson’s murder in March 1999, and has noted the absence of a police file on her — in spite of a number of intelligence reports devoted to her movements and associations.
Rory Phillips QC, lead counsel for the inquiry, said that from April 1996 Special Branch began collecting intelligence “specifically relating to” Mrs Nelson.
“The volume and the detail of the reporting gives rise to a series of questions. Why was Special Branch recording information of this kind relating to Rosemary Nelson’s private life, including details of her family, friends, people who worked in her solicitor’s office?”
Given “this intense focus”, Mr Phillips said, the question arose as to whether “there was in fact a file on Rosemary Nelson in existence at the time of her murder?”
The intelligence materials suggest police were collecting intelligence on Mrs Nelson but not apparently analysing it.
Mr Phillips said there are no “reports, notes, memoranda or documents produced by E3 (Special Branch’s republican desk) containing analysis of the intelligence on Rosemary Nelson”.
The inquiry has found two bugging applications relating to Mrs Nelson.
One concerned Operation Indus, the plan to bug the house in Deeny Drive, Lurgan, then occupied by Mr Duffy and owned by Mrs Nelson. An earlier application to tap her office phone was also made by an RUC Special Branch sergeant in Lurgan.
Counterfeit versions forestall cinema release
Liam Clarke
From The Sunday Times
**Via Newshound
September 28, 0208
REPUBLICAN racketeers have produced pirate copies of movies about Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker, and Martin McGartland, the former RUC agent, weeks before they are due to be released in cinemas. They are now being sold in nationalist areas of Belfast.
The copies, which are of near perfect quality, bear the tagline, Another Fine Release by Curly J, the counterfeiter’s nickname. They are being sold for €6 each in shops, from the back of vans, and by children earning commission.
“These guys have all the new releases before they get into the cinemas,” said a source who bought copies of both films last week and presented them to The Sunday Times. “If they don’t have it they will order it and get it in a few days. Most of the people running it are IRA or ex-IRA. The same people sell you smuggled cigarettes.”
One of the pirated movies, Fifty Dead Men Walking, tells the story of McGartland, who is from west Belfast, and who infiltrated the IRA between 1987 and 1991, when his cover was blown. The IRA have twice tried to kill him, once in Twinbrook when he escaped an interrogation gang by jumping out a third-storey window, and later in the north of England where he was tracked down and shot while living under a new identity.
“From my time in the IRA I know that they have been involved in piracy for years,” said McGartland, who is played by Jim Sturgess in the movie. “They will do anything for money. I do think it’s ironic that IRA men, who called me ‘the scum of the earth’ for taking money off the British, are now cashing in on my life story.
“These filmmakers got too close to the IRA when they were making the movie and this is the thanks they get.”
Kari Skogland, the film’s director, has said she worked closely with former IRA prisoners to ensure the authenticity of the movie, and that they also provided security.
The other pirated film is Steve McQueen’s Hunger, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes and is scheduled for release in cinemas at the end of the month. It dramatises life inside the Maze prison and the events surrounding the 1981 IRA hunger strike. McQueen spoke to ex-prisoners and prison officers for his research.
Given that the film has been criticised by some as being the celebration of the martyrdom of a dead terrorist, it is ironic that its take at the Belfast box-office will be damaged by republican racketeers.
SAOIRSE32 
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