Report Implicates Sinn Fein in Bank Heist

A panel of international experts said Thursday that a nearly $50-million Belfast bank heist that shook Northern Ireland’s peace process had been sanctioned by senior members of the IRA-linked party Sinn Fein.

The Independent Monitoring Commission’s report agrees with the British and Irish governments, which had already blamed the outlawed Irish Republican Army for the Dec. 20 raid.

The commission, formed by London and Dublin to monitor the activities of the IRA and other outlawed Northern Ireland groups, said the Sinn Fein members also held senior positions in the IRA and had given the go-ahead for three other raids last year. It did not name the members.

“In our view, Sinn Fein must bear its share of responsibility for all of the incidents,” the report says. “Some of its senior members, who are also senior members of the Provisional IRA, were involved in sanctioning the series of robberies.”

The report recommends financial penalties against Sinn Fein, which rejected the report and questioned the commission’s independence.

“The report contains no evidence and it has even less credibility,” said Sinn Fein official Gerry Kelly, who as an IRA activist planted car bombs in London in 1973 and led a prison breakout in 1983. “The IMC slavishly regurgitates unsubstantiated allegations from within the British security system and it recommends sanctions against Sinn Fein on this basis.”

The IRA has repeatedly denied involvement in the robbery, and police have made no arrests and recovered none of the cash.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern has said that, based on briefings from his own police force and authorities in Northern Ireland and Britain, he was confident that the IRA committed the raid on Northern Bank and that senior Sinn Fein figures authorized it.

The bank raid came a week after months of painstakingly managed negotiations to revive a Roman Catholic-Protestant administration -- the core goal of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord -- fell short, chiefly because of the IRA’s refusal to permit photos of its disarmament.