Pubdate: Wed, 26 Apr 2000
Source: Irish Independent (Ireland)
Copyright: Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd
Contact:  http://www.independent.ie/
Author: John Devine, North Editor

IRA PLOT `TO KILL DRUG DEALERS IN CONTROL MOVE'

THE IRA plans to shoot three drug dealers in the next few days, the
North Human Rights Bureau has warned.

IRA units have been given the go-ahead to execute two dealers based in
Dundalk/Newry and another from north Belfast, the NIHRB said last
night. A spokesman for the bureau claimed the IRA were trying to take
complete protective control of the drugs trade within the nationalist
community in the North.

A similar charge was last night made by lawyer Alban Maginness, a
senior member of the SDLP, who last night accused republicans of
trying to ``instil terror'' in Catholic communities in the North.

He castigated the IRA after a young man was abducted from a pub in
north Belfast, severely beaten and dumped on the roadside.

Mr Maginness said it was ``self-evident'' these ``punishment
beatings'' could be turned off and on by republicans as the occasion
demanded.

It is a republican policy ``calculated to instil terror in people and
to exercise control over people in the community and is something
which the community itself has got to resist,'' he said. Mr Maginness
said Sinn Fein should support human rights by condemning these attacks
and calling for them to cease. 
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