Allister comments on McGuinness Photo
10 August 2009
Commenting on the emergence of a photo of Joint First Minister McGuinness posing with a Luger pistol TUV leader Jim Allister has called for the police to investigate and repeated his appeal to Unionists to break their ties with Sinn Fein/IRA.
Mr Allister said:
“Everyone – including those Unionists who share power with Sinn Fein – knew that Martin McGuinness was a senior IRA member when that wicked terrorist organisation was killing people on a daily basis. However, in light of this particularly stark new evidence of his involvement in that murderous criminal gang McGuinness should be investigated by the police.
“Nowhere else in the United Kingdom could one serve in ministerial office when a photograph such as this was in the public domain. It is yet another reminder that justice has been dispensed with in Northern Ireland. McGuinness’s threatening pose is much more than just a show for the cameras. People were being slaughtered by the Provisionals around the time when this photo was taken. Was the gun which appears in this photo used in any of those attacks? Indeed I would challenge Joint First Minister McGuinness to clarify when he employed this or any other guns during the IRA’s campaign.
“How could anyone contemplate devolving policing and justice powers to an executive jointly headed by such an individual? In the photo McGuinness has his finger on the trigger. This is the same trigger finger which will be going, line by line, through every policing and justice paper which comes before the Executive.
“Today I have written to the Chief Constable to ask him to investigate the issues surrounding this photograph. I have also written to Co-First Minister Robinson asking what action he intends to take against McGuiness and again challenging him as to why he continues to occupy joint office with an IRA commander.
“Calls by the DUP for an investigation by the police are hypocritical in the extreme. If they were genuinely concerned about McGuinness posing with a firearm they would immediately pull out of the coalition which Marty jointly heads.”
