The Five Demands

British Army still operating in North
The charges brought in Omagh and Lisburn at the weekend – including three of ‘directing terrorism’ – on the face of it indicate a zero-tolerance approach by police.
However, more significant is the insight it gives into the PSNI’s relationship with British military intelligence.
In both cases magistrates were told that surveillance by organisations other than police forms part of the evidence against the accused.
In Omagh, where mother-of-three Sharon Rafferty made legal history as the first woman to be charged with directing terrorism, surveillance by MI5 was said to go back more than a year.
A detective told the court that conversations involving the 37-year-old and her co-accused Sean Kelly (46) had been recorded from last year until April this year.
At Lisburn Magistrates Court, where three members of the Duffy family appeared in court, police refused to divulge which agency was behind the evidence-gathering but military intelligence appears to be a strong possibility.
In 2007 when Operation Banner – the British Armt’s operation in Northern Ireland – officially ended it was indicated that the military would effectively only be deployed for bomb-disposal.
However, it appears that in the background the army is still very much involved in Northern Ireland’affairs, albeit in a more covert role.
The convictions in March of John Paul Wootton (20) and Brendan McConville (40) for the murder of police officer Stephen Carroll were based partly on information gleaned from a military tracking device.
Directing terrorism is an offence notoriously hard to prove but if convicted it can carry a hefty sentence.
UDA leader Johnny Adair, the last man to have been jailed for the offence in Northern Ireland, was sentenced to serve 16 years in 1995.
In 2003 Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt was convicted of the charge at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In te coming months defence lawyers for the accused will want to know in much greater detail what evidence actually exists against their clients.
Any disclosure will no doubt shed greater light on the clandestine world of MI5 operatives and their methodology. What is apparent following the weekend’s events is that although uniformed soldiers no longer patrol the streets the army is still active in Northern Ireland.