Real IRA is illegal, rules court Alex Richardson

BELFAST – A judge’s ruling that the Real IRA, the guerrilla group behind Northern Ireland’s bloodiest bomb attack, was not an illegal organisation was overturned by a higher court yesterday.

In a decision handed down at the court of appeal in Belfast, a panel of three senior judges, headed by Lord Chief Justice Brian Kerr, said the Real IRA was a banned group, even though it was not specifically mentioned in anti-terrorism legislation. “In our judgment it is inconceivable that the legislature did not intend that the ‘Real’ IRA should be proscribed…,” the judges recorded.In an embarrassing ruling for the authorities, Belfast judge Paul Girvan cleared four men of charges of Real IRA membership in May, after deciding the group was not specifically proscribed.Girvan said the Real IRA, which killed 29 people in a bomb blast in Omagh in 1998, could not be considered banned because it was not listed in the Terrorism Act of 2000.Britain appealed the ruling, and at a hearing last week the government’s top legal adviser, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, insisted the Real IRA, a splinter faction of the mainstream IRA, was covered because the “Irish Republican Army” was named.Yesterday’s judgment accepted Goldsmith’s argument that the law used “Irish Republican Army” as a generic term which took in both the mainstream group and its dissident offshoots.”Given the manner in which the various groupings of the IRA have been proscribed historically, we consider that it should have been apparent to any member of the ‘Real’ IRA that he was guilty of an offence,” the judges said.The four men at the centre of the original case were freed on Tuesday after being cleared of additional charges of plotting to kill police and troops and possessing a rocket launcher.They are unaffected by yesterday’s ruling because the appeal was brought on the point of law rather than their acquittals.The Real IRA split from the mainstream IRA in late 1997 after the latter called a ceasefire in its campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.Its name was coined by the media to distinguish it from the mainstream IRA and another dissident group, the Continuity IRA, and has been widely adopted in political and security circles.The small band of militants who make up the group usually call themselves “Oglaigh na hEireann”, the Irish name literally meaning “Army of Ireland” also used by the mainstream IRA.- Nampa-Reuters”In our judgment it is inconceivable that the legislature did not intend that the ‘Real’ IRA should be proscribed…,” the judges recorded.In an embarrassing ruling for the authorities, Belfast judge Paul Girvan cleared four men of charges of Real IRA membership in May, after deciding the group was not specifically proscribed.Girvan said the Real IRA, which killed 29 people in a bomb blast in Omagh in 1998, could not be considered banned because it was not listed in the Terrorism Act of 2000.Britain appealed the ruling, and at a hearing last week the government’s top legal adviser, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, insisted the Real IRA, a splinter faction of the mainstream IRA, was covered because the “Irish Republican Army” was named.Yesterday’s judgment accepted Goldsmith’s argument that the law used “Irish Republican Army” as a generic term which took in both the mainstream group and its dissident offshoots.”Given the manner in which the various groupings of the IRA have been proscribed historically, we consider that it should have been apparent to any member of the ‘Real’ IRA that he was guilty of an offence,” the judges said.The four men at the centre of the original case were freed on Tuesday after being cleared of additional charges of plotting to kill police and troops and possessing a rocket launcher.They are unaffected by yesterday’s ruling because the appeal was brought on the point of law rather than their acquittals.The Real IRA split from the mainstream IRA in late 1997 after the latter called a ceasefire in its campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.Its name was coined by the media to distinguish it from the mainstream IRA and another dissident group, the Continuity IRA, and has been widely adopted in political and security circles.The small band of militants who make up the group usually call themselves “Oglaigh na hEireann”, the Irish name literally meaning “Army of Ireland” also used by the mainstream IRA.- Nampa-Reuters