McGuinness condemns killing but not killers of Jerry McCabe
Related Articles
SINN Fein’s presidential candidate Martin McGuinness has pointedly refused to condemn the killers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe.
Confronted by the Sunday Independent at the Helix in Dublin City University yesterday and asked if he would condemn the Provisional IRA gang who killed Mr McCabe in Adare, Co Limerick, on June 7, 1996, Mr McGuinness was deliberately evasive. Asked if he would condemn the killers of Mr McCabe — as distinct from the killing — he said: “Condemn his killing? I've already done that. I've already done it.”
Asked again if he would condemn Mr McCabe's killers, Mr McGuinness simply repeated himself, saying: “I've already done it. I condemned the killing of Jerry McCabe.” Asked if he was now calling Ann McCabe a liar for her statement last week in which she said that he visited Kevin Walsh in Cavan while the Provisional IRA man was on the run from the gardai, Mr McGuinness said: “Whoever told Ann McCabe that is doing her a great disservice, because it is not true and it begs the question that if somebody told Mrs McCabe (that), then why was Kevin Walsh not arrested?
“An even bigger question is if the gardai believe that, why did they never question me?” The Sinn Fein politician — who has stepped down temporarily from his position as Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister to contest the presidential election here — then accused the gardai of supplying false information to Mrs McCabe.
“Whoever told Mrs McCabe that — and she has my full sympathy — did her a disservice because there is no truth whatsoever in that and it begs the question, if this came from the gardai, why did the gardai not arrest Kevin Walsh?” he said. And in remarks that will surely compound the distress of Ann McCabe and the many grieving families of the IRA's other victims drawn from ranks of the Republic's security services, Mr McGuinness went on to assert that he fully supported both the gardai and the Defence Forces.
“I would not support anybody under any circumstances attacking the gardai or the Defence Forces, who we are depending upon at the moment to work with the gardai to apprehend those people who are daily trying to destroy the peace process,” he said. In response to further questioning by this newspaper, Mr McGuinness walked away, saying: “I think you've asked me enough.”
- RONALD QUINLAN
