Priest believes IRA on bank raid

Fr Alec Reid said he believes IRA denials over bank raid

The priest who compared unionists to Nazis in their treatment of Catholics has said he believes IRA denials it carried out the Northern Bank robbery.

Fr Alec Reid was speaking about the £26m raid during a BBC NI Hearts and Minds interview, which was recorded earlier this week.

"On that issue their leadership has denied it. I believe absolutely they had no truck to do with it," he said.

Fr Reid, who witnessed IRA disarmament, apologised for his Nazi comments.

Fr Reid conceded that it was possible IRA members out to feather their own nests could be involved in criminality because every organisation could have individuals prepared to go to such lengths.

However, in the programme broadcast on Thursday night, he said he did not accept the IRA was a criminal organisation.

'War'

"The whole spirit of that would be a betrayal of the whole meaning of the republican movement," he said.

"In their own minds they are fighting a war."

The decommissioning witness said he was also opposed to the paramilitary style attacks carried out in nationalist neighbourhoods and he knew republicans who wanted an alternative.

However, he said the attacks occurred in the context of there being no police service in nationalist areas.

"There is an absence of a police force that has functionality in nationalist districts and people are going around who are raping, who are breaking into houses, who are joy-riding and knocking people down, who are terrorising the elderly people," he said.

"There are drugs of course... those people, whoever they are, they will do something about it themselves."

Fr Reid was criticised by DUP assembly member, Ian Paisley junior.

Mr Paisley said Fr Reid "appears to have totally, utterly lost it".

"He is in denial about criminality and if he is in that sort of denial there can be little credibility in what he says or what he claims to have seen," he said.

"If he had not made the Nazi comment last night, these comments alone would have struck at his credibility."

The Ulster Unionist Party's Fred Cobain said no-one has the right to carry out paramilitary style attacks.

"There is no justification for this type of action and people should not be trying to even explain it. It is wrong and Fr Reid should know that. He is a priest," the North Belfast assembly member said.

"The danger of comments like these is that they are used to legitimise this type of activity."

Fr Reid's comments on the treatment of Catholics at Wednesday night's public meeting involving his fellow decommissioning witness, the Rev Harold Good, were also criticised by Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain.