IRA secret letters: who are the on-the-runs?
 Key questions about the terrorist suspects promised immunity from prosecution for crimes during Northern Ireland's Troubles Who are the on-the-runs or OTRs?They are about 187 IRA members who are wanted in either Great Britain or Northern Ireland for crimes committed during the Troubles between 1969 and 1998, when the Good Friday agreement was signed. Who do they include?As well as John Downey, the convicted IRA man whose trial for the 1982 Hyde Park bomb atrocity collapsed this week, there are other leading republican figures. These include Rita O'Hare, who is wanted in connection with attacks on British troops in the early 1970s and once ran Sinn Féin's office in Washington DC. Other OTRs are Owen Carron, the former Sinn Féin MP who succeeded Bobby Sands as MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone after the latter's death in the 1981 hunger strike; and two men wanted in connection with the murder of Garda Gerry McCabe in the Irish Republic in 1996, one of whom now lives in Latin America. How did the deal on the OTRs come about?Initially Tony Blair's government tried to legislate to allow the IRA on-the-runs to escape prosecution for crimes for which they were wanted. But other parties in the peace process – not just unionists, but also the nationalist SDLP – opposed this. The SDLP, along with the Irish government, pointed out that such legislation would also lead to amnesties for British soldiers accused of killing civilians or loyalist terrorists. So instead, Blair's negotiators offered the republican movement a secret deal to immunise the OTRs from prosecution via these letters. How did this controversy bring the power-sharing peace settlement in Northern Ireland to the brink of collapse?Unionist politicians who agreed to share power with Sinn Féin in 2006 (when the secret scheme was put in place) say they did not know about its existence. The Irish government at the time says it knew nothing about the letters either. So, the unionists interpreted the letters as a sign of government duplicity and betrayal. What happens next?If David Cameron's proposed judicial inquiry finds that the letters are no longer legally valid, this will placate the unionists but it may also increase problems for Sinn Féin, which has promised the 187 IRA members, many of whom are influential within the republican movement, they would not face prosecution for crimes during the Troubles. theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds |
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