From
The
Irish Examiner, Nov.13, 2000
IRA to be named as O’Connor killers
THE North’s peace process could be
facing a new crisis this week when RUC Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan
is expected to confirm the Provisional IRA was behind the murder of Real
IRA commander Joseph O’Connor.
He is understood to be finalising
his findings in a report which will be handed to Northern Secretary Peter
Mandelson.
It is certain to trigger demands from
hard-line unionists that Sinn Féin should be suspended from the
power sharing Executive and Assembly. O’Connor, 26, was a key figure in
the Real IRA.
He had just left his mother’s house
at Whitecliff Parade in Ballymurphy, west Belfast, last month and got into
a car when two gunmen approached and shot him at point blank range.
The Provos denied any involvement
in the killing and local Sinn Féin councillor Sean McKnight said
at the time: “If the IRA killed him they would say so, and they would say
why they did it.”
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