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LONDON, Feb. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Irish officials on Sunday identified three top figures of the nationalist party Sinn Fein as members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) command, in their unprecedented challenge to Sinn Fein's claim to be an independent political
party.
Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and his deputy Martin
McGuinness,and Ferris, a Sinn Fein MP of the Irish parliament, were members of
the IRA's seven-member army council, Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell
said on the Irish national radio program Ireland Today.
Sharing McDowell's view, Irish Defense Minister
Wkllie O' Dea described Sinn Fein and the IRA as being two sides of the same
coin. "We can no longer turn a blind eye to criminality and the close links
between Sinn Fein and the IRA," he said.
However, the allegation was denied by Sinn Fein. "No
republicanworthy of the name can be involved in criminality. If any are, they
should be expelled from our ranks. We are not involved in criminality and we
will not tolerate such behavior," Gerry Adams told a Sunday gathering in
Strabane, a Catholic border town of Northern Ireland.
Until Sunday, both Irish and British governments had
declined to identify Adams and his deputy McGuinness as members of IRA's army
command.
The latest development came as Sinn Fein, known as
IRA's political wing, is under increasing pressure for its alleged involvement
in a Belfast bank robbery of 26.5 million pounds (50 million US dollars) last
December and a subsequent wide money-laundering campaign.
In a series of police raids all over Ireland
following the December heist, police have seized more than 2.5 million pounds
(4.6 million US dollars) and arrested seven men and a woman, of whom seven were
later released.
Earlier this month, both British Prime Minister Tony
Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern called on the IRA to give up all
criminal activity to allow a return of power-sharing between Catholic Irish
nationalists and pro-British Protestant unionists in Northern Ireland. Enditem กก
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