Irish Republican News · December 20, 2007

‘No evidence’ for PSNI raids

A man questioned by the PSNI police in connection with the recent IRA gun attack on a PSNI member says some of the ‘evidence’ against him was a page from Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia.

The ‘Real IRA’ has increased its campaign in recent weeks against the PSNI police, which they view as a traditional British colonial police force. In the latest attack by the republican hardliners, a grenade-style pipe bomb was thrown at Strabane PSNI base in County Tyrone at the weekend.

Paddy McDaid, one of four men arrested in heavy-handed raids last week and questioned in Antrim, said the PSNI had no evidence against him and were reduced to quoting from a page on Wikipedia.

He said: “The RUC/PSNI had absolutely no evidence against me to connect me to this shooting and they never asked me to go on an ID parade or anything like that. All they seemed to be interested in was harassing me and my family as much as possible. They raided three houses belonging to people with the same name as me and then they arrested me while I walked through the Bogside.”

Another of those arrested, Gary Donnelly, says it seems the PSNI was intent on targeting those families which disagreed with the current political process.

He said: “I was taken to Antrim at high speed where I was forced to sit in the car for a couple of hours before being processed - so I can’t see what all the rush was about. When they eventually got around to questioning me, it was ridiculous. They did not know Derry, they didn’t even know anything about me.”

Mr. Donnelly said he was asked about a poem found in his house and a receipt for money signed in to a prisoner. He said: “This is clearly an attempt to criminalise republicans. Is it a crime to have a poem? Is it a crime to sign money into a prisoner? All this breaking down doors and stuff is ridiculous.”

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