IRA Called Lead Suspect in Bank Heist

An investigator Friday named the Irish Republican Army as the leading suspect in the largest bank heist in British history, an announcement that roiled Northern Ireland’s already fragile political peace process.

Nearly $50 million was stolen Dec. 20 from Belfast’s Northern Bank in a theft executed with military precision. With the money still missing, Belfast Chief Constable Hugh Orde has found his investigation embroiled in the sectarian politics dividing the British province’s loyalist Protestants and pro-independence Catholic nationalists.

“In my opinion, the Provisional IRA is responsible for this crime and all main lines of inquiry currently being undertaken are in that direction,” Orde told reporters in Belfast, the provincial capital. The IRA has denied any involvement.

The development is a serious setback for peace talks, which have been floundering despite a year of high-profile efforts by the British and Irish prime ministers to reconstitute a regional government with both unionist and nationalist representatives.

Orde urged the public to assist police and not to romanticize the theft.

“This was a violent and brutal crime. It was not some Robin Hood effort,” Orde said.

Heavily armed men burst into the homes of two senior bank executives and abducted their families, and the next day forced the executives to give them access to the highly secure area of the cash vaults.

Protestant political leaders, who have long detested the IRA and distrusted its allies in Sinn Fein, which is considered the paramilitary group’s political wing, trumpeted Orde’s findings and said it should have an immediate effect on efforts by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern to broker a power-sharing arrangement in the province.

Both leaders reacted strongly to the finding. Ahern issued a statement calling Orde’s comments “a matter of deep concern” and “corrosive of public confidence” in the peace process. Blair’s office said he took it “very seriously” and said all sides had to be law-abiding if a final settlement was to be achieved.

A Protestant leader, the Rev. Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party, demanded that Sinn Fein be ruled out from any future Northern Irish government at once.

Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness vehemently denied involvement by the IRA, saying the accusers were out to thwart progress toward a power-sharing deal. Adams told the Irish Times: “The IRA has said it wasn’t involved. I believe that to be the case.”

McGuinness said that he had talked to the IRA and that the nationalist paramilitary group, which has been committed to a cease-fire since 1997, told him that it was innocent.

Rumors of IRA involvement began circulating within hours of the crime, and police investigators have been questioning people in Catholic neighborhoods.

Some newspaper reports have speculated that the money might have been stolen to pay off fighters before Sinn Fein and the IRA go through with a final hand-over of weapons.

McGuinness said the charges were ludicrous. “I think we all need to think long and hard about who is setting this agenda, and why,” he said at a news conference. “This has more to do with halting the process of change, which Sinn Fein has been driving forward, than anything that happened at the Northern Bank.”

He vowed to resist “any attempt to marginalize or criminalize our party.”

In a surprise, Northern Bank announced that it would spend about $9 million over the next eight weeks recalling banknotes and issuing new ones of different design so that the stolen money would become worthless.