19 February 1998 Edition
Republican refutes media slur
By Mick Naughton.
A Belfast republican has refuted allegations linking him financially to drug dealers which appeared in the British Sunday Times and the Irish tabloid `Sunday World' on 15 February.
The papers claimed the man was ``booted out of the IRA'' after a ``top level inquiry''. He says he now fears for his life because of the stories.
And the man's fears are not unfounded. It was disclosed that drug dealer Brendan Campbell, shot dead last Monday evening, had a supply of South African fragmentation grenades and attacked Sinn Fein's Connolly House, where the man works, using one of these bombs.
``It's rather ironic,'' said the man, ''that only a few months ago these same papers were saying that I and other republicans were terrorising drug pushers through neighbourhood watch and community alert schemes. The real intention is that the RUC is using these papers to try to set me up for drug pushers.''
In the story last weekend the papers said the man had been thrown out of the IRA after what they termed, ``senior IRA investigators accused him of being on the payroll of a drugs dealer in Belfast''.
A Belfast republican has refuted allegations linking him financially to drug dealers which appeared in the British Sunday Times and the Irish tabloid `Sunday World' on 15 February.
The papers claimed the man was ``booted out of the IRA'' after a ``top level inquiry''. He says he now fears for his life because of the stories.
And the man's fears are not unfounded. It was disclosed that drug dealer Brendan Campbell, shot dead last Monday evening, had a supply of South African fragmentation grenades and attacked Sinn Fein's Connolly House, where the man works, using one of these bombs.
``It's rather ironic,'' said the man, ''that only a few months ago these same papers were saying that I and other republicans were terrorising drug pushers through neighbourhood watch and community alert schemes. The real intention is that the RUC is using these papers to try to set me up for drug pushers.''
In the story last weekend the papers said the man had been thrown out of the IRA after what they termed, ``senior IRA investigators accused him of being on the payroll of a drugs dealer in Belfast''.