15.2.05
Daily Ireland
NO HIDING PLACE
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The Sinn Féin leadership last night threw its weight behind a campaign by the family of Robert McCartney to catch his killers.
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams urged anyone with information about the Belfast man’s death to pass it to Mr McCartney’s family or any “reputable body”.
The Sinn Féin President spoke out after persistent claims that republicans were involved in the murder of Mr McCartney.
The 33-year-old was stabbed to death after being attacked by a gang outside Magennis’s Whiskey Cafe pub in South Belfast two weeks ago.
Another man who was with the stab victim, Brendan Devine, was hospitalised after being seriously injured in the brutal knife attack.
Seven men from the Markets and Short Strand districts in Belfast were questioned by police about the incident but later released without charge.
Republicans have denied that the killer or killers were acting “as republicans” or “on behalf of republicans”. However there has been no Sinn Féin repudiation of the claims by the McCartney family that Robert was involved in a brawl which involved known republicans.
Members of Mr McCartney’s family claim that after the murder a group of men carried out a forensic clean-up at the murder scene, removed CCTV footage and warned witnesses not to co-operate with the PSNI investigation.
Mr Adams’s comments came just hours after leading party figure Gerry Kelly met with the family of the murdered man.
Mr Adams said his party was backing the McCartney family in their “quest for truth and justice”.
“There are allegations that Robert McCartney was killed by republicans. I want to make it absolutely clear that no one involved acted as a republican or on behalf of republicans,” Mr Adams said. “I repudiate this brutal killing in the strongest terms possible. No one has any right, as has been claimed, to prevent anyone from helping the McCartney family. People with reservations about assisting the PSNI should give any information they might have either to the family, a solicitor or any other authoritative or reputable person or body.”
Sinn Féin moved to back the family after allegations that a number of republicans were among the crowd that attacked Mr McCartney and that these individuals warned witnesses not to co-operate with any PSNI investigation.
The dead man’s sister Paula said getting people to come forward with information about her brother’s death was proving difficult.
“It’s a taboo subject, no one is allowed to speak about it,” she said. “It’s in the interests of the IRA to get rid of the murderers because they seem to be trying to destroy the organisation. Witnesses have told us the gang attacked Robert and Brendan with sewer rods and sticks. Obviously knives were produced and we have also been told there was a gun.”
Mr McCartney’s fiancée and mother of his two children, Bridgeen Hagans (27), says she’s shocked that so little information is forthcoming.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “I thought once someone kills someone the police got them and that was it, especially when they know who they are.”
NO HIDING PLACE
Click for larger view
The Sinn Féin leadership last night threw its weight behind a campaign by the family of Robert McCartney to catch his killers.
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams urged anyone with information about the Belfast man’s death to pass it to Mr McCartney’s family or any “reputable body”.
The Sinn Féin President spoke out after persistent claims that republicans were involved in the murder of Mr McCartney.
The 33-year-old was stabbed to death after being attacked by a gang outside Magennis’s Whiskey Cafe pub in South Belfast two weeks ago.
Another man who was with the stab victim, Brendan Devine, was hospitalised after being seriously injured in the brutal knife attack.
Seven men from the Markets and Short Strand districts in Belfast were questioned by police about the incident but later released without charge.
Republicans have denied that the killer or killers were acting “as republicans” or “on behalf of republicans”. However there has been no Sinn Féin repudiation of the claims by the McCartney family that Robert was involved in a brawl which involved known republicans.
Members of Mr McCartney’s family claim that after the murder a group of men carried out a forensic clean-up at the murder scene, removed CCTV footage and warned witnesses not to co-operate with the PSNI investigation.
Mr Adams’s comments came just hours after leading party figure Gerry Kelly met with the family of the murdered man.
Mr Adams said his party was backing the McCartney family in their “quest for truth and justice”.
“There are allegations that Robert McCartney was killed by republicans. I want to make it absolutely clear that no one involved acted as a republican or on behalf of republicans,” Mr Adams said. “I repudiate this brutal killing in the strongest terms possible. No one has any right, as has been claimed, to prevent anyone from helping the McCartney family. People with reservations about assisting the PSNI should give any information they might have either to the family, a solicitor or any other authoritative or reputable person or body.”
Sinn Féin moved to back the family after allegations that a number of republicans were among the crowd that attacked Mr McCartney and that these individuals warned witnesses not to co-operate with any PSNI investigation.
The dead man’s sister Paula said getting people to come forward with information about her brother’s death was proving difficult.
“It’s a taboo subject, no one is allowed to speak about it,” she said. “It’s in the interests of the IRA to get rid of the murderers because they seem to be trying to destroy the organisation. Witnesses have told us the gang attacked Robert and Brendan with sewer rods and sticks. Obviously knives were produced and we have also been told there was a gun.”
Mr McCartney’s fiancée and mother of his two children, Bridgeen Hagans (27), says she’s shocked that so little information is forthcoming.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “I thought once someone kills someone the police got them and that was it, especially when they know who they are.”
