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Police raids target Sinn Fein

Around 200 police took part in the dawn raids
Around 200 police took part in the dawn raids

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BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The Northern Ireland peace process is in crisis after police raided the parliamentary offices of Irish republican party Sinn Fein.

Three people were arrested and documents seized in the dawn raid on Friday at the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont.

A spokesman for Sinn Fein said up to 200 police officers were involved in the operation. Police said the operation was part of an investigation into IRA activities in Belfast.

Sinn Fein is widely regarded as being the political wing of the IRA, an accusation the party denies.

Among those arrested was a former government messenger who once worked inside the Castle Buildings where the Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid and his ministers have their offices.

Later, Northern Ireland First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble called on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to expel Sinn Fein from the power-sharing assembly.

Trimble, who is to meet Blair in London next week, has already warned he will withdraw his ministers from the executive next January unless the IRA disband.

In a public message to Reid, Trimble said: "You have a duty to act. You have a responsibility to act. We expect you to act. You must act."

He also told journalists he believed the raid was related to "an IRA intelligence operation directed against the upper echelons of the government."

Sinn Fein, which has two seats in the power-sharing executive set up under the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, denounced the police operation as "highly political" and aimed at smearing the party.

In Dublin, Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, said the police operation "is sending a very negative message to republicans."

Kelly
Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly checks his party's office after the search

"The message is that the (police) and the militarists within the British establishment are still there, still working to an anti-peace process agenda and still determined to affect Sinn Fein's contribution to that," he said.

Sinn Fein demanded to know whether Reid had authorised the raid. As well as Sinn Fein's offices, searches were also carried out at offices throughout the north and west of Belfast.

Sinn Fein spokesman Conor Murphy told CNN the operation was part of an "anti-Sinn Fein and anti-Irish republican agenda" and that it was a bid to undermine the Northern Ireland peace process.

"I think what has happened here is that there has been a number of security source briefings over the last number of days which have attempted to link republicans to violent activity," he said.

"I think there is an element within the security service who have been against the Good Friday Agreement from the start, who consider that they have unfinished business with the IRA and wish to bring down the Good Friday Agreement and get back to a war situation."

Sinn Fein minister Bairbre de Brun told the UK Press Association: "One of the things we are very anxious to learn at this point is whether John Reid had a part in this, and if he signed this warrant or authorised it, it is something he needs to explain."

Reid said on Friday that he had been aware of the investigation "for a considerable time" but that he had no part in instigating it or the raids.

He told the UK Press Association: "I have not intervened, I am not interfering and I will not intervene in the investigative process or the judicial process. The police will go wherever the evidence leads.

"Anyone who breaks the law will be subject to the law, irrespective of which part of the community they come from or which political viewpoint they represent."

Responding to Sinn Fein allegations that the investigation was politically motivated, Reid said: "I am constantly accused by unionists of discouraging the police from taking action.

"I am constantly accused by republicans of encouraging the police in taking action.

"It has always been thus in Northern Ireland. Whether I am accused by the unionists of overlooking lawbreaking or accused by the republicans of pursuing lawbreakers for political purposes, neither of these is true.

"I have not intervened to encourage or discourage this investigation."

Security sources say the operation is not connected to the investigation into the theft of Special Branch intelligence files at Castlereagh police station in Belfast last March, which police have blamed on the IRA. The allegations have been denied by republicans.

The raids came on the same day three men accused of being members of the IRA went on trial in Colombia for allegedly taking part in the training of rebels. (Full story)



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