BELFAST, Northern Ireland: Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams called Wednesday on Catholic witnesses to a killing committed by Irish Republican Army members to tell police what they saw — a stunning reversal of policy over one of Northern Ireland's most politically sensitive killings.Adams' plea came just three days after a special conference of his IRA-linked party voted to begin supporting the Police Service of Northern Ireland for the first time — and on the same day that all Northern Ireland parties began campaigning for a crucial March 7 election in this British territory.
Sinn Féin, already the major Catholic-backed party, is hoping to build its strength in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the legislature that is supposed to form a Catholic-Protestant administration following the vote.
Sinn Féin and the IRA suffered international criticism over their handling of the Jan. 30, 2005, killing of a 33-year-old Catholic man, Robert McCartney, outside a Belfast pub. The case highlighted the IRA's practice of controlling Catholic districts and intimidating people from turning to the police.
McCartney was stabbed and clubbed to death by senior IRA figures from the outlawed group's main east Belfast unit. The fight began in front of scores of witnesses, many of them Sinn Féin activists. But witnesses refused to talk to police, instead offering statements to their own lawyers, Catholic priests or other intermediaries and claiming they saw nothing.
The case gained worldwide attention, largely, because the victim's fiancee and four sisters went public with their accusations that Sinn Féin was shielding killers from prosecution.
The IRA initially denied involvement, then admitted some of its members were responsible — and offered to have two members, but not the unit's powerful commander, shot in punishment.
At the time, Adams said Sinn Féin members should not be expected to talk to the police, who were the IRA's opponents during the group's failed 1970-97 campaign to force Northern Ireland into the neighboring Irish Republic.
But on Wednesday, Adams said times had suddenly changed.
"Anybody who has any information on the McCartney killing should give it to the police," he said.
The McCartney family welcomed Adams' call, but said they feared that an air of intimidation and obstruction was likely to remain. They noted that just one person had been charged with the murder, but more than a dozen IRA and Sinn Féin members were suspected of involvement in the attack and the clean-up of forensic evidence afterward.
And a politician who has championed the family's cause, Alasdair McDonnell, accused Sinn Féin of not meaning what it says.
"The acid test for Sinn Féin is to actually live up to the spin they have put on their newfound belief in the rule of law," said McDonnell, deputy leader of Sinn Féin's moderate rival for Catholic votes, the Social Democratic and Labour Party.
"Unfortunately for Sinn Fein's new perspective on policing, there are still far too many unanswered questions in relation to the action of its membership in some of the most horrific crimes carried out in Northern Ireland," McDonnell said, referring to the IRA careers of many Sinn Féin activists.
The McCartney family's campaign created huge diplomatic difficulties for Sinn Féin, particularly among Irish-American supporters, at a time when the party was already on the defensive over the IRA's alleged massive robbery of a Belfast bank.
The IRA's involvement in crime, and Sinn Féin's hostility to the police, became the central issue in the peace process — and culminated in the policy U-turn this week.
Adams in 2005 was dumped from many St. Patrick's Day functions in Washington, normally a time when Sinn Féin makes diplomatic gains. Instead, President Bush and key U.S. senators — Hillary Clinton, Edward Kennedy and John McCain — made the McCartneys their guest and publicly backed their demands for justice. Adams also suffered restrictions on his ability to raise U.S. funds.
But once the St. Patrick's Day spotlight faded, Belfast intimidation of the McCartneys resumed, ranging from phoned death threats to bomb hoaxes. In October 2005 they abandoned their family home in Short Strand, a Catholic district where some of the IRA killers were their nearby neighbours, citing fears that they or their children could be wounded or killed.
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