Sinn Fein to Petition Court to Stay in N. Ireland Talks

In an eleventh-hour bid, Sinn Fein sought a court order here Tuesday to bar its expulsion from stalemated Northern Ireland peace talks. The maneuver climaxed a second day of filibuster and fiery rhetoric that bought time and headlines but no real solution for the political arm of the outlawed Irish Republican Army.

Britain and Ireland, co-sponsors of the talks, insist that Sinn Fein be expelled temporarily because of two killings last week in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, attributed to IRA gunmen.

But lawyers for Sinn Fein will appear in a Dublin court today to ask for an injunction, Sinn Fein Chairman Mitchel McLaughlin told reporters Tuesday night. Attempts to get the injunction Tuesday night failed.

If there is no legal intervention, expect Sinn Fein’s ouster from the talks today, probably for a month or so if there is no further IRA violence. Sinn Fein warns that it may not come back.

All parties including Sinn Fein pledged themselves to nonviolence and democratic principles as the entry ticket to talks intended to bridge bloody differences between the Protestant majority and the Roman Catholic minority in the British-ruled province. Sinn Fein was admitted last fall only after a cease-fire by the IRA.

A British indictment presented to the talks Monday accused the IRA of the murder of drug dealer Brendan Campbell and Protestant militant Bobby Dougan. Sinn Fein denies there is conclusive proof of IRA involvement and argues that, in any case, it cannot be held accountable.

“We do not seek and we do not claim to speak on behalf of the IRA. Sinn Fein is not the IRA,” party leader McLaughlin told reporters Tuesday, repeating a public party position that is rejected by both governments and other participants in the talks.

In seeking legal remedy, Sinn Fein argues that it is being denied any chance of justice because the British government was acting as both prosecutor and judge in the expulsion decision, Irish lawyers said. Moreover, the party is demanding evidence compiled by police in Northern Ireland to document IRA participation in the slayings.

Ireland, which is traditionally less hostile to Sinn Fein than the British government, accepts that the IRA was responsible for the killings, despite its avowed cease-fire.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told Parliament on Tuesday that Irish police, after studying evidence from their counterparts in Belfast, consider that the IRA “has a case to answer” in the killings.

In Northern Ireland on Tuesday, three Catholic men in their 20s accused of the Dougan murder were transferred at their request to the IRA wing of the Maze prison outside Belfast.

“This isn’t a legal situation, it’s a political process,” said Marjorie “Mo” Mowlam, Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary, anticipating the Sinn Fein challenge.

Under rules established by former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell, who is chairing the talks, no party can participate if it has links with groups that resort to violence. A small Protestant party was expelled three weeks ago after its military wing admitted killing three Catholics. If there is no new violence, the Ulster Democratic Party could be readmitted early next month.

Sinn Fein insists that it has kept the rules and deserves to be at the talks, based on its electoral mandate as the second-largest Catholic-backed party in Northern Ireland.

“There are no grounds for excluding Sinn Fein from the talks process. We have neither broken nor dishonored the Mitchell principles,” the party said Tuesday in a statement. “A peace process without Sinn Fein cannot deliver the inclusive and broadly based workable agreement which is necessary to end the cycle of conflict and violence which has resulted from British policy in Ireland.”