Guerrilla22
30th November 2006, 01:15
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) -- One of Northern Ireland's most infamous Protestant militants, Michael Stone, forced the province's legislature to be evacuated Friday when he tossed a bag into the building and said it contained a bomb.
Police could not confirm whether the bag did contain any explosive device. Journalists and politicians were ordered out of the building as the fire alarm sounded -- and two security guards pinned Stone by both arms to the main doorway of the Stormont Parliamentary Building.
The attack came shortly after Protestant leader Paisley Ian refused to accept a nomination as the future leader of Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration.
Paisley, whose Democratic Unionist Party is the largest in Northern Ireland, said he would work with Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party that represents most Catholics, only when it supports the police force. If that happened, Paisley said he would accept the post.
"When Sinn Fein has fulfilled its obligations with regard to the police, the courts and the rule of law, then and only then can progress be made. There can and will be no movement until they face and sign up to their obligations," Paisley told the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Shortly after his speech, police subdued Stone, the Protestant extremist who killed three people at a Belfast funeral in 1988, after he tossed a bag into the building and claimed it contained a bomb.
Politicians and journalists were ordered out of the building as the fire alarm sounded -- and two security guards pinned Stone by both arms to the main doorway.
Stone appeared to have been spray-painting the entrance to Stormont with the slogan "Sinn Fein are murderers," but security staff stopped him before he could finish the last word.
Stone was paroled from prison under terms of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord, which permitted early releases for more than 500 convicted members of the IRA and outlawed Protestant paramilitary groups. (Profile)
Stone was convicted for committing one of the province's most audacious terrorist attacks -- a solo gun-and-grenade strike on an IRA funeral. He killed three mourners, among them an IRA man, before a Catholic mob surrounded and badly beat him.
British desperation
Earlier, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, said he had drafted a bill to dissolve the assembly if Paisley's party withheld his nomination to become the administration chief.
"I have a dissolution order drafted, which would have to go through Parliament of course next week, and I might have to deploy that today. I hope not," Hain said.
Friday was a British-imposed deadline for Paisley and Martin McGuinness, deputy leader of Sinn Fein, the largest Catholic-backed party, to be nominated to serve in the top two power-sharing posts. The event would have been purely symbolic, because the full 12-member administration would not be formed and given powers until late March.
At stake is the revival of power-sharing, the central goal of the Good Friday accord -- a landmark 1998 pact that Paisley opposed chiefly on the grounds it required too little from Sinn Fein.
For weeks, Paisley has insisted he will not accept the office of first minister, the top post, until Sinn Fein abandons its decades-old policy of boycotting the police force in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein insists it will not discuss changing its policy until after McGuinness and Paisley are in office.
In a sign of Britain's desperation to keep the push for power-sharing alive, Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke by phone Thursday night with Paisley and at one point was considering flying to Belfast on Friday, but relented when it became clear that direct intervention would make no difference, officials in the British government and Paisley's party said.
Police could not confirm whether the bag did contain any explosive device. Journalists and politicians were ordered out of the building as the fire alarm sounded -- and two security guards pinned Stone by both arms to the main doorway of the Stormont Parliamentary Building.
The attack came shortly after Protestant leader Paisley Ian refused to accept a nomination as the future leader of Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration.
Paisley, whose Democratic Unionist Party is the largest in Northern Ireland, said he would work with Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party that represents most Catholics, only when it supports the police force. If that happened, Paisley said he would accept the post.
"When Sinn Fein has fulfilled its obligations with regard to the police, the courts and the rule of law, then and only then can progress be made. There can and will be no movement until they face and sign up to their obligations," Paisley told the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Shortly after his speech, police subdued Stone, the Protestant extremist who killed three people at a Belfast funeral in 1988, after he tossed a bag into the building and claimed it contained a bomb.
Politicians and journalists were ordered out of the building as the fire alarm sounded -- and two security guards pinned Stone by both arms to the main doorway.
Stone appeared to have been spray-painting the entrance to Stormont with the slogan "Sinn Fein are murderers," but security staff stopped him before he could finish the last word.
Stone was paroled from prison under terms of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord, which permitted early releases for more than 500 convicted members of the IRA and outlawed Protestant paramilitary groups. (Profile)
Stone was convicted for committing one of the province's most audacious terrorist attacks -- a solo gun-and-grenade strike on an IRA funeral. He killed three mourners, among them an IRA man, before a Catholic mob surrounded and badly beat him.
British desperation
Earlier, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, said he had drafted a bill to dissolve the assembly if Paisley's party withheld his nomination to become the administration chief.
"I have a dissolution order drafted, which would have to go through Parliament of course next week, and I might have to deploy that today. I hope not," Hain said.
Friday was a British-imposed deadline for Paisley and Martin McGuinness, deputy leader of Sinn Fein, the largest Catholic-backed party, to be nominated to serve in the top two power-sharing posts. The event would have been purely symbolic, because the full 12-member administration would not be formed and given powers until late March.
At stake is the revival of power-sharing, the central goal of the Good Friday accord -- a landmark 1998 pact that Paisley opposed chiefly on the grounds it required too little from Sinn Fein.
For weeks, Paisley has insisted he will not accept the office of first minister, the top post, until Sinn Fein abandons its decades-old policy of boycotting the police force in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein insists it will not discuss changing its policy until after McGuinness and Paisley are in office.
In a sign of Britain's desperation to keep the push for power-sharing alive, Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke by phone Thursday night with Paisley and at one point was considering flying to Belfast on Friday, but relented when it became clear that direct intervention would make no difference, officials in the British government and Paisley's party said.