Paisley has no answer - Allister
17 October 2007
Statement by Jim Allister MEP:
“On 9 July 2007 I drew to Ian Paisley’s attention correspondence from the PSNI confirming an IRA threat to the life of Crown witness, Mrs Zaitschek. It was self evident that the threat came from the IRA because the PSNI letter expressly said the threat to her life arose because of “those involved” in the Castlereagh break-in, which as everyone knows was the IRA. The police letter said:-
“Mrs Zaitschek remains within the Witness Protection Scheme. Given the nature of this investigation and those involved, my belief has remained the same, which is that should Mrs Zaitschek’s whereabouts become known, that her life and that of her family would be at risk.”
Amazingly, the First Minister tried to twist and turn to avoid facing this reality, taking feeble refuge in the fact that the word “IRA” was not used in the police letter. In his reply he said:-
“I note the PSNI’s assessment that the risk to Mrs Zaitschek and her family remains ongoing. However, while this situation is clearly unacceptable, I note that in its correspondence with you the PSNI does not attribute this risk to any other specific individuals or organisation.
I do not therefore feel it is appropriate to take any action in relation to this issue.”
I, therefore, wrote to him in the following terms:-
Dear First Minister,
I refer to my letter of 9 July 2007 concerning the IRA threat to the life of Mrs Zaitschek and your belated reply of 12 September 2007.
Even in the context of a “Nelson-approach” to the still continuing IRA, I am astounded by your response. To say that the PSNI correspondence, in the context of how I posed the question, does not attribute the risk to the IRA is absurd.
Two elementary points of construction arise. First, in my letter of 19 June to the Chief Constable there was no room for doubt that the threat came from the IRA. The reply by the police did not resile from the IRA being the source of the threat. If that were the police position, wasn’t the onus on them to say so?
Second, the police letter explicitly grounds their belief that Mrs Zaetschek’ s life is under threat on the important matter of “Given the nature of . . . those involved.” Since you are on record as unequivocally accepting the police assessment that the IRA was responsible for Castlereagh, are you now repudiating this belief? If not, how can you interpret reference to the threat being rooted in “those involved” other than pointing the finger very clearly at the IRA?
If you had genuine doubt as to the involvement of the IRA in threatening this Crown witness, then, did you trouble to check directly with the Chief Constable?
It is clear to me that having joined yourself in office to a self-confessed IRA leader, you are now so hopelessly tied in that you seem to have no interest in facing up to a blatant incident of continuing illegal IRA activity.
Yours sincerely,
I received the following reply from OFMDFM:-
Dear Mr Allister,
FOLLOW-UP TO PSNI CORRESPONDENCE
You wrote on 20 September following an earlier exchange of correspondence between the First Minister and deputy First Minister on this matter.
There is nothing further that the Ministers wish to add to the earlier correspondence which issued from this office on 12 September.
Yours sincerely
ElLIS McDANIEL
PS/First Minister
How pathetic! The First Minister is faced with inescapable confirmation that the IRA is still in the business of threatening the life of a Crown witness and he recoils into disinterested and indifferent silence, with no answer to the points put to him. Shame, not least considering his loud boasts that he would be holding Sinn Fein/IRA to account and if they stepped out of line he’d resort to some mythical default mechanism. Sadly, Ian Paisley is now so irreversibly tied up with Sinn Fein in government that he is helpless when they revert to form.
Moreover, Zaitschek is not an isolated incident. Last week Mr Justice Treacy refused Martin McGuiness’ brother-in-law bail for the third time, because the IRA was seeking to intimidate the injured party into withdrawing his complaint. It is not me but a High Court Judge which put this on the record, yet the First Minister carries on regardless.”
