17.10.04
Sunday Life
Hotels under terror threat
17 October 2004
DISSIDENT republicans have widened their terror campaign against District Policing Partnerships - with a sinister new threat against nationalist-owned hotels.
The Continuity IRA has warned it will take action against hotels that stage district policing meetings.
The terror group - which blasted the Killyhevlin Hotel in Enniskillen, in 1996 - issued the coded warning at the start of last week, naming a number of specific hotels it claims have been used as venues for partnership meetings.
Cops are aware of the threat, and detectives called in to investigate the call suspect it was made by a representative of the group, using a public telephone box in west Belfast.
SDLP MP Eddie McGrady - who is a member of the Policing Board - said it was a "pathetic" attempt to hold back the progress that is being made on policing.
"The threat to hotels and establishments that host DPP meetings is another indication that these people cannot, and will not, accept that the vast majority of the community rejects violence," said the South Down MP.
"They have been unable to impede the progress and reform of the police service, and this is a pathetic attempt to try to cause disruption."
And he added: "While this must be treated with the utmost gravity and seriousness, these threats and attacks on hard-working members of district partnerships are an outrageous attempt by out-of-date terrorists, to try to impose their failed ideology on a community which has moved well beyond the age in which they are stuck.
"They will not succeed. The people of Northern Ireland are on the path to peace."
Hotels under terror threat
17 October 2004
DISSIDENT republicans have widened their terror campaign against District Policing Partnerships - with a sinister new threat against nationalist-owned hotels.
The Continuity IRA has warned it will take action against hotels that stage district policing meetings.
The terror group - which blasted the Killyhevlin Hotel in Enniskillen, in 1996 - issued the coded warning at the start of last week, naming a number of specific hotels it claims have been used as venues for partnership meetings.
Cops are aware of the threat, and detectives called in to investigate the call suspect it was made by a representative of the group, using a public telephone box in west Belfast.
SDLP MP Eddie McGrady - who is a member of the Policing Board - said it was a "pathetic" attempt to hold back the progress that is being made on policing.
"The threat to hotels and establishments that host DPP meetings is another indication that these people cannot, and will not, accept that the vast majority of the community rejects violence," said the South Down MP.
"They have been unable to impede the progress and reform of the police service, and this is a pathetic attempt to try to cause disruption."
And he added: "While this must be treated with the utmost gravity and seriousness, these threats and attacks on hard-working members of district partnerships are an outrageous attempt by out-of-date terrorists, to try to impose their failed ideology on a community which has moved well beyond the age in which they are stuck.
"They will not succeed. The people of Northern Ireland are on the path to peace."
