Criminal business as usual for IRA's hard men

[emad]

Times
From David Sharrock in Belfast

WHILE Ian Paisley was impressing upon Tony Blair yesterday the need for the Provisional IRA to “wear sackcloth and ashes”, an Irish court was jailing some of the terrorist’s group’s members for spying on government ministers.

Niall Bennett, 35, from Crumlin in Dublin, was convicted at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court along with Kenneth Donohoe, 26, from Tallaght. Both men were given four-year sentences.

Judge Diarmuid O’Donovan said that, although the IRA is on ceasefire, there was nothing to suggest that the men would not pursue activities with an illegal organisation in the future.

Bennett was found to have documents about a number of TDs — members of the Dail — including three former justice ministers. He is a key election worker for Aengus O Snodaigh, the Sinn Fein TD.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1382743,00.html

[bin.dare]

1. "crime" committed 2 years ago ...

from the Irish Times today:

In his plea for mitigation, Mr Finlay said that the offence was committed two years ago and since then there has been a major act of decommissioning by the Provisional IRA and "we are told that we are on the eve of a final act of decommissioning".

"Let the record tell us that Niall Binead is a man who is not engaged in paramilitarism," Mr Finlay added. "He is a strong republican and will remain a strong republican. He and his fellow republicans in Sinn Féin have ambitions to make a lasting contribution to this State."

The trial was told that the men were arrested after gardaí arrested five other men following suspicious activity around three vehicles in Corke Abbey, Bray, Co Wicklow, on October 10th, 2002.

Inside a transit van, gardaí found four men, a sledgehammer, two pick-axe handles, eight bags of ties, radios, a black balaclava, rubber gloves and a yellow fluorescent jacket with the word "Garda" labelled on it. In a Nissan car with false number plates, they found a blue flashing beacon, a Long Kesh baseball cap, a stun gun, a canister of CS gas and a roll of black tape. Binead's thumbprint was found on the roll of black tape in the Nissan, and another car involved in the incident at Bray belonged to a woman who is Donohoe's partner.