http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/...igan-republicanPSNI: Provisional IRA leadership did not sanction Kevin McGuigan murder
Head of Police Service of Northern Ireland says PIRA still exists as organisation and individual members were involved in killing of former republican prisoner.
The Provisional IRA still exists as an organisation but its leadership did not sanction the murder of former republican prisoner Kevin McGuigan, according to Northern Ireland’s chief constable.
The head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, George Hamilton, confirmed that individual PIRA members were involved in killing McGuigan.
Hamilton’s confirmation on Saturday that “some PIRA organisational infrastructure continues to exist” will pile further pressure on unionist politicians to pull out of the power-sharing devolved government with Sinn Féin.
In 2005 the PIRA announced publicly through former prisoner Séanna Walsh that it was disbanding its military structures. It was assumed that the organisation had gone out of existence – something which appeared at odds with the chief constable’s assessment.
“We assess that in common with the majority of Northern Ireland paramilitary groups from the period of the conflict, some of the PIRA structure from the 1990s remains broadly in place, although its purpose has radically changed since this period,” Hamilton said.
With the Northern Ireland executive in danger of collapse over allegations the PIRA is still active and killing people, the chief constable held a press conference at PSNI headquarters in Belfast to outline police thinking on the McGuigan murder.
The ex-IRA assassin’s family and republican sources in Belfast insist the PIRA leadership in the city gave the go-ahead to kill McGuigan. PIRA members believed McGuigan was responsible for murdering Gerard “Jock” Davison in May. They killed McGuigan 11 days ago in revenge for the Davison murder.
The PSNI chief constable insisted the PIRA’s organisational structure was there primarily for “promoting a peaceful political republican agenda”.
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However, he said: “Some current Provisional IRA and former members continue to engage in a range of criminal activity and occasional violence in the interest of personal gain or personal agendas.”
Hamilton declined to answer questions if any senior PIRA members connected to the McGuigan murder had links to Sinn Féin’s leadership. He also refused to discuss if any of individual PIRA members with knowledge of the killing once held senior command positions in the organisation.
He said: “We have no information to suggest that violence, as seen in the murder of Kevin McGuigan, was sanctioned or directed at a senior level in the republican movement.”
The chief constable rejected suggestions that the PSNI had come under political pressure in determining that the PIRA leadership did not sanction or organise the killing in the Short Strand district on 12 August.
Gregory Campbell, the Democratic Unionist MP for East Derry,has warned that “there can be no question of devolution continuing” if there is a proven link between McGuigan’s murder and any reconstituted PIRA command structure.
But Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, denied the PIRA had been behind the killing and instead chose to attack those who suggested the organisation had carried out McGuigan’s murder. Adams criticised those who had “opportunistically and cynically seized” on the murder to “undermine Sinn Féin’s mandate and the peace process”.
During the chief constable’s press conference, he attempted to link the murder to a group called Action Against Drugs, which he said not only included PIRA members but also ordinary criminals and dissident republicans opposed to the peace process. However a source close to the New IRA told the Guardian that anti-ceasefire republicans played no part in killing Kevin McGuigan.
One man with one-time close links to PIRA and Sinn Féin has been remanded in custody over the possession of a Glock automatic pistol that was discovered at a house in west Belfast during police searches connected to the McGuigan murder investigation.
