Didn't Jeffrey know about Kelly's Maze role before Monday?
25 September 2008
Commenting on Jeffrey Donaldson’s decision to pull out of a ceremony to receive the Peace Dove Award alongside Gerry Kelly Jim Allister said:
“On Monday the Office of the Joint First Ministers announced that Mr Donaldson and Kelly were going on a two-day visit to the United States “with the highlight being the receipt of the Peace Dove Award on Wednesday evening” and yesterday at 3:45pm OFMDFM issued another press release saying they had addressed the Co-operation Ireland dinner and jointly received this award. It contained an abridged version of Donaldson’s speech. The statement was also mounted on the OFMDFM website. In response to this, I issued a statement expressing my disgust.
“I'm glad that having flushed out Mr Donaldson he then belatedly withdrew from the ceremony. The question is, though, why did he ever agree to participate in the first place? Didn’t Jeffrey know about Kelly’s pedigree before Monday? Surely he knew about his partner’s potentially murderous role in the Maze escape before some DUP party hack gave him a call on his mobile to tell him about what had been broadcast back home –Gerry Kelly laughing as he recalled how he had shot a prison officer in the head - and that TUV was onto him.
“The truth is – as the DUP are very well aware – that Donaldson was quite prepared to receive the Peace Dove Award alongside Kelly but for the fact that it would look bad in Ulster, not because of some point of principle, something which the DUP abandoned a long time ago”.
