WikiLeaks cables: Sinn Féin leaders 'were aware of' Northern Bank heist plans | Politics | The Guardian

WikiLeaks cables: Sinn Féin leaders 'were aware of' Northern Bank heist plans Politics The Guardian: "Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness held lengthy negotiations with the former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern to save the Northern Ireland peace process in the full knowledge that the IRA was planning to carry out the biggest bank robbery in its history, according to leaked US cables passed to WikiLeaks.
Ahern, who was instrumental in drawing up the 1998 Good Friday agreement, judged that the two Sinn Féin leaders were aware of plans for the £26.5m Northern Bank robbery in 2004 because they were members of the 'IRA military command' with a deep knowledge of its operations.
The US cables also reveal that:
• The Irish government believed Britain had a 'valuable source of information' at a senior level in the republican movement.
• Adams argued that the IRA would have to be 'taken out of the equation' during negotiations which led the organisation to declare a formal end to its armed campaign in July 2005.
The revelations are published as Adams seeks to broaden Sinn Féin's appeal in the Irish Republic. The Sinn Féin president is abandoning his Westminster seat to stand in the forthcoming general election amid hopes of a breakthrough as voters register anger with Ireland's mainstream political parties after the country was forced to apply to the EU and IMF for a bailout.
Ahern's concerns about Sinn Féin and the IRA are highlighted in cables which describe a challenging period in the peace process as London and Dublin sought to restore the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland. Unionist suspicions about the intentions of the republican movement were fuelled when the IRA robbed the headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast in December 2004."

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