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Man Charged Over Northern Bank Robbery
It's been the guts of a year but a man appeared in court today charged with taking part in the £26m robbery of the Northern Bank. Dominic McEvoy, 23, of Mullandra Park, Kilcoo is one of 5 men arrested in recent days but denied the charges of posessing a firearm with intent and of false imprisonment, and also denied membership of the IRA.
Follow up:
However, following his arrest in south Down, both Sinn Fein and SDLP representatives have (completely unpredictably) moaned about the raids being "heavy handed" and/or "a joke". It's sad that the SDLP choose to laucnh a populist attack on the police rather than support the rule of law, claiming that the repurcussions would be felt in the wider community. Given that the victims of the crime (the bank worker and his wife) were both from the local area, I'd have expected the local community to be quite supportive. Silly me, eh?
While Mr McEvoy and the provisional IRA deny any knowledge of each other, there were riots as roads were blocked in Co. Down following the arrest and according to the BBC "As the defendant was being taken down to the cells a large group of men in the public gallery started to applaud and shouted out encouragement." To me that says that either the men just felt like celebrating a man facing charges for bank robbery, or he has friends with other motivations.
One of the other men arrested was a Brian Arthur, a former IRA leader from Tyrone whose brother Declan was shot dead by soldiers defending a police station that Declan was trying to blow up in Loughgall 18 years ago.
Chief Constable Hugh Orde has promised there will be more arrests as the investigation continues.