Robinson: put McGuinness evidence before court
Sunday April 27 2008
Peter Robinson has said that if there is evidence linking Martin McGuinness to the Enniskillen Remembrance Sunday bombing in 1987 that killed 11 people, it should be placed before the courts.
Responding to questions raised in a BBC documentary about the bombing, which alleged that Mr McGuinness knew about it in advance, the man who will shortly share an office at Stormont with the Derry republican said that the DUP was "well aware of his background".
Detective Chief Superintendent Norman Baxter, who investigated Enniskillen, says that prior to the bombing there were deliberations at a very senior level within the IRA's northern command.
The First Minister-designate said that it was pointless to ask if the allegations contained in the programme, made by Peter Taylor, had been known, would it have affected the DUP's decision to enter into government with Sinn Fein last year.
"Do people think the DUP did not know that Martin McGuinness was in the IRA and served on its northern command? We are well aware of his background", he said.
In the programme it was alleged that the North's Deputy First Minister was stopped by gardai three days before the bombing on the Donegal border, with three members of the IRA.
Mr Taylor said: "The subsequent intelligence assessment was that McGuinness was going to be briefed about the Remembrance Sunday attacks.
"In the hours after the bombing, my sources say that McGuinness travelled to Fermanagh to question members of the local IRA unit to find out what had gone wrong.
"McGuinness said that if he did go, it would have been in his Sinn Fein capacity".
Mr Taylor said that Mr McGuinness had denied that he had been a member of the IRA's northern command, but said: "British and Irish security sources on both sides of the border have each independently told me that Martin McGuinness, now deputy first minister, was the leading figure on northern command at the time of the attack".
Taylor also said that the atrocity prompted Gerry Adams and another senior republican to discuss declaring an IRA ceasefire to try to mitigate the political damage, but claimed that "McGuinness was against the idea".
Peter Robinson said of McGuinness's alleged role in the atrocity: "If at any stage police can get evidence, they should charge people and bring them before the courts".
- ALAN MURRAY
