On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 16:10:48 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

(that the IRA were not an international terrorist organisation)

Just that they take holidays in Spain, Colombia, the USA,
Palestine, Libya and it seems Sri Lanka and IRAQ

+++

Real IRA boss jailed for 20 years

By Kevin Smith and Stephen Cunningham
(Additional reporting by Alex Richardson)

DUBLIN, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The leader of a renegade guerrilla group
behind the bloodiest bomb attack in Northern Ireland's violent
history was jailed for 20 years on Thursday.

Real IRA boss Michael McKevitt, 53, was earlier convicted of directing
terrorism, a charge created after the 1998 Omagh bomb blast that
killed 29 people and injured hundreds.

"We have had a small victory...but we are still sitting in the
position where not one person has been charged with murder at
Omagh," said Michael Gallagher, who lost his 21-year-old son Aidan
in the blast.

McKevitt, a former quartermaster in the Irish Republican Army who
arranged a shipment of arms from Libya in the 1980s, was the first
person in the Irish Republic to be convicted of directing terrorism.

However, the recent discovery of a suspected guerrilla training camp
in a remote mountainous region has led to renewed fears of the
threat posed by republican dissidents, who are opposed to Northern
Ireland's peace process.

Dublin's non-jury Special Criminal Court stressed that McKevitt was
being punished for offences committed after the Omagh bombing, whose
fifth anniversary falls next week.

"This court must not allow itself to be seen to seek revenge for
that atrocity, and does not seek to do so," said judge Richard
Johnson.

MCKEVITT SLAMS "POLITICAL SHOW TRIAL"

McKevitt refused to attend the latter stages of his trial after
sacking his legal team in protest at what he called a "political
show trial".

But he did put in an appearance after his sentence was read out to
seek permission to appeal his conviction. His plea was refused but
he was allowed to apply for legal aid.

McKevitt, who comes from the Irish border town of Dundalk, was also
given six years for membership in an illegal organisation, the Real
IRA, to run concurrently.

He is married to the sister of the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands
who died in 1981.

The prosecution's case rested heavily on testimony by former FBI spy
David Rupert, who infiltrated the Real IRA while posing as the
group's chief fundraiser in the United States.

British and American security agencies paid Rupert, who is now
living under the FBI witness protection programme, more than $1
million to spy on Irish republican dissidents.

McKevitt's defence had tried to portray Rupert as a serial
fantasist, drawing attention to his shady business past as well as
connections to the Mafia and smugglers.

But the court ruled that Rupert, who struggled to fit his 6ft 5in
frame into the cramped witness box while giving evidence, was a
"truthful witness".

Rupert told the court how he sat in on Real IRA "council meetings"
while McKevitt and his followers planned a new wave of violence in
Britain and Northern Ireland that would "be spectacular and
overshadow Omagh".

The group sought to forge links with the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers
rebel group and were even looking into securing help from Iraq, the
court heard during the five-week trial.

ends;

--
Jim Watt http://www.gibnet.com