Crime wave hits police

By Mark Devenport BBC Northern Ireland political editor

If you live in the village of Garvaghy on the outskirts of Omagh you will no doubt remember the past week as the one when a tornado hit County Tyrone.

But if you live somewhere else, though, it may stick in the mind as the week when we experienced a rather unusual crime wave - not this time on our streets, but inside our police stations.

The raid on the Special Branch office at Castlereagh left the Police Service without some of their most confidential documents and with distinctly red faces to match their new green and white uniforms.

Both unionist and nationalist members of the Policing Board echoed Mr Bradley's criticism

It also led to a criminal investigation and a wider inquiry into what the government is terming a breach of national security.

Those probes were only just getting under way, when the deputy chair of the Policing Board, Denis Bradley, criticised the government's choice of Sir John Chilcot as head of the inquiry into the Castlereagh incident.

Denis Bradley knows Sir John well from the 1990s, when Mr Bradley acted as a go-between - passing messages between the IRA and the government.

Outcome

While he acknowledged Sir John's personal integrity, Mr Bradley argued that the senior civil servant's close relationship to the intelligence services sent out the wrong message, given that members of MI5, MI6 or army intelligence might very well turn out to be suspects in the Castlereagh raid.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Politics, both unionist and nationalist members of the Policing Board echoed Mr Bradley's criticism.

The Ulster Unionist Fred Cobain and the SDLP's Eddie McGrady also expressed concern about the veil of secrecy which surrounds Sir John Chilcot's inquiry.

Any outcome will be made known to ministers, but not to the public.

Sinn Fein were given a headache of their own this week by the US Congress

However, Justice Minister Des Browne insisted that Sir John - a sort of George Smiley character, for those who know John Le Carre's spy novels - was the best man for this most sensitive of jobs.

If Sinn Fein had tried to manufacture ammunition to fire at both the Special Branch and the Policing Board they could not have fabricated any more damaging than first, the Omagh bombing controversy, and now the Castlereagh raid.

Asked about the row over Sir John's appointment over the heads of the board, Gerry Adams could not resist saying: "I told you so."

'Economical fares'

However, Sinn Fein were given a headache of their own this week by the US Congress.

It is hard to imagine Mr Adams relishing the prospect of being cross-questioned

The House of Representatives International Relations Committee invited Mr Adams to give evidence to a hearing entitled "The IRA in Colombia - the Global Links of International Terrorism".

The hearing is due to take place on 24 April, just a week or two before the likely date for the Irish General Election.

The Sinn Fein President says he still has not received the Congressional letter which appears to be making its way across the Atlantic by pigeon post.

But when he does, it is hard to imagine Mr Adams relishing the prospect of being cross-questioned about 'barrack buster mortars' when he would much rather be canvassing in Kerry.

Perhaps even now, some less high profile Sinn Fein figure, Alex Maskey say, or Mitchel McLaughlin, is on the internet scanning for economical fares to Washington DC next month.