"Irish Republican held without bail in 1998 bombing" by Douglas Dalby | New York Times April 12, 2014
DUBLIN — A dissident Irish Republican charged with 29 counts of murder in the 1998 car bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland, was ordered held without bail Friday.
Seamus Daly appeared in Dungannon Magistrates’ Court in Northern Ireland. During his appearance, a detective told the court that the police case was based on telephone and forensic evidence and witness testimony.
He said Daly, 43, who has previously been found responsible for the bombing in a landmark 2009 civil action by some of the bereaved families, had refused to answer questions while in custody but had given a prepared statement denying the charges.
Daly was arrested in the border town of Newry on Monday as he accompanied his pregnant wife to a maternity hospital, and he was formally charged Thursday.
Why do authorities always choose the worst time to arrest people?
A statement from the Police Service of Northern Ireland said he would also face two additional charges in relation to the Omagh bombing, and two charges in relation to an attempted bombing in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in April 1998.
Daly’s lawyer, Dermot Fee, said Friday that the prosecution had failed to bring forward any new evidence, and called for his client’s release. “There is nothing new and nothing fresh that hasn’t been available for a long number of years,” Fee told the court.
But Deputy District Judge Paul Conway refused an application for bail, saying there was a risk that Daly, who is originally from Ireland but now resides in Northern Ireland, might flee. He is due to appear again in court May 6.
The car bomb exploded on Lower Market Street in Omagh on a busy shopping day in August 1998, killing 29 people.
After relatives of the victims won a civil case in 2009, Daly and three others were ordered to pay about $2.6 million in damages to the families. But there has never been a criminal conviction in the case.
Then why was and is he in jail?
In 2004, a court in Ireland imprisoned him for 3½ years after he acknowledged membership of the Real Irish Republican Army, the organization behind the Omagh bombing. Daly has denied involvement in the bombing.
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I'm almost FRU with that except for this little bit:
"Beleaguered Irish police chief resigns" by Shawn Pogatchnik | Associated Press March 26, 2014
DUBLIN — Ireland’s police chief resigned Tuesday following months of criticism of how his force handled allegations of illegal wiretapping and corrupt enforcement of traffic laws.
They really are the same everywhere.
Underscoring a growing sense of public unease at police standards and behavior, government leaders announced that they would open a judge-led probe into new revelations that telephone calls at many police stations had been illegally recorded since the 1980s....
(Blog editor sitting and staring as the implications sink in)
Police secretly recorded telephone conversations in and out of many police stations for several years, a practice that ended only in November after the first wiretap scandal became public knowledge.
Isn't there some sort of crime or rights violation here?
Hours before their move, Commissioner Martin Callinan surprised the government by announcing he would quit.
Hitting the lifeboat first, 'eh?
Some government ministers had called on Callinan, 60, to apologize for calling the actions of two police corruption whistleblowers ‘‘disgusting,’’ a comment made two months ago. He did not apologize.
Irish cops are as bad as the priests.
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From the OMG department:
"Ireland’s president makes 1st UK visit" | Associated Press April 08, 2014
DUBLIN — Ireland’s head of state is making his country’s first state visit to Britain this week, a trip that has been decades in the making and provides another poignant milestone for peacemaking.
President Michael D. Higgins flew Monday to England, and will be formally received Tuesday by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle, west of London.
Higgins’s visit, which runs through Friday, will include a state banquet and stops at Prime Minister David Cameron’s office on Downing Street and to Parliament, where Higgins is to address lawmakers.
I'm sure the hungry taxpayers of London are proud to pick up the tab.
"Benefits have been overhauled as part of Prime Minister David Cameron’s bid to trim the United Kingdom’s budget deficit, and job centers where the unemployed register to seek work have been cleared to refer people to food banks for help. ‘‘It’s been extremely tough for a lot of people,” Chris Mould, the chairman of the Trussell Trust, said in an e-mailed statement."
"Benefits have been overhauled as part of Prime Minister David Cameron’s bid to trim the United Kingdom’s budget deficit, and job centers where the unemployed register to seek work have been cleared to refer people to food banks for help. ‘‘It’s been extremely tough for a lot of people,” Chris Mould, the chairman of the Trussell Trust, said in an e-mailed statement."
Hey, at least the elite of the planet aren't suffering for a meal.
The trip comes three years after the queen’s first state visit to the Republic of Ireland, which a British monarch had not visited since 1911.
The trip comes three years after the queen’s first state visit to the Republic of Ireland, which a British monarch had not visited since 1911.
I was going to provide links for the visit, but saw it was three years ago and sadly began thinking I've been doing this way too long. A decade of life has passed by in a New York minute.
The two countries maintained frosty relations for decades after Ireland’s 1919-1921 war of independence from the United Kingdom. Ireland’s 1937 constitution rejected the British monarch as its head of state and created a new office of president instead.
State visits were deemed impossible during the Irish Republican Army’s 1970-1997 campaign of bombings and shootings that sought to push Northern Ireland out of the UK and into the republic.
Much has changed since the IRA cease-fire and the Good Friday peace accord for Northern Ireland in 1998. Today a former IRA commander, Martin McGuinness, is the senior Irish Catholic in Northern Ireland’s unity government with British Protestants.
Yesterday was Good Friday.
Oddly, the IRA terrorists received much support from Boston way.
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Let's not let what I said spoil the visit:
"Queen hosts Irish president on 1st UK state visit" by Jill Lawless and Shawn Pogatchnik | Associated Press April 09, 2014
LONDON — Amid regal pomp at Queen Elizabeth II’s Windsor Castle home, the Irish president and the British monarch have begun Ireland’s first state visit to Britain with expressions of mutual affection and respect — and a shared determination to consign national hatreds to a sorrow-tinged past.
Fine, some political figureheads are getting along, great.
President Michael D. Higgins, Ireland’s head of state, was guest of honor at a royal banquet that brought together former enemies in Northern Ireland and leading politicians and celebrities of Britain and Ireland, including actors Judi Dench and Daniel Day-Lewis.
I'm glad I missed the dinner.
Gathered together on one massive 160-seat table, the guests heard the queen and Higgins pledge to lead their nations into a new era of friendship.
Higgins’s trip — on his country’s first state visit to Britain since Ireland won independence nearly a century ago — underscores how much the success of Northern Ireland peacemaking has transformed wider relations between the two longtime adversaries since the 1990s, when Irish Republican Army car bombs were still detonating in London.
Amazing how some people are fighting for their independence still. I'm thinking east Ukraine, I'm thinking Palestine, I'm thinking Kashmir, I'm think all those places the globe-kickers deny it.
It comes three years after the queen, defying threats from IRA splinter groups still seeking to wreck the peace, made her own inaugural visit to the Republic of Ireland, where a British monarch last visited in 1911, when all of Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom.
As she toasted the health of the Irish nation, Elizabeth said she had loved her Irish visit and found it ‘‘even more pleasing since then that we, the Irish and British, are becoming good and dependable neighbors and better friends, finally shedding our inhibitions about seeing the best in each other.’’
No, no, keep your royal gown on!
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