Irish Republican News · July 2, 2004

Bomb alerts cause Belfast chaos

The breakaway ‘Real IRA’ has claimed responsibility for a series of hoax bomb alerts which created traffic chaos across Belfast early yesterday.

Following a series of telephoned warnings a number of major routes into the city were closed for a time while British army bomb experts examined suspicious objects.

The PSNI later declared that the alerts were all hoaxes.

A caller claiming to represent the ‘Belfast Brigade of the Real IRA’ said the alerts were “taken against the backdrop of ongoing human rights abuses of republican prisoners of war in Maghaberry jail.

The caller added: “We will not allow Republicans to be degraded and humiliated out of the view of the general public.

“We will no longer tolerate the brutalisation of our comrades or any other republican prisoners.”

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