Arrests after arms ship haul

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33189, 31 March 1973, Page 15

Arrests after arms ship haul

, (X.ZP.A.-Reuter —Copyright) • DUBLIN, March 30. |' Six Irishmen, includ- 1 ing Joe Cahill, a leader ; of the Irish Republican Army will be charged in : Dublin today in connection with the Irish ■ Navy's seizing of a ship . carrying five tons of j arms and ammunition. - Cahill, the former head ini Belfast of the I.R.A.’s mill-11 tant Provisional wing, and! the others were arrested as I 1 the Navy swooped on the Cypriot - registered coaster! Claudia and an Irish fishing, beat off the south-east coast ! late on Wednesday night. i The cargo of arms was the! largest consignment found of weapons presumably des-! tined for the I.R.A. It included more than 250: rifles—reportedly of Russian, make, and 245 revolvers.! about 20,000 rounds of am-] munition, hundreds of mines! and grenades, more than

5001 b of explosives and 100 detonators. The arms capture and detention of the six men culminated a well-planned military operation. There was strong speculation that the 298-ton Claudia had been kept under surveillance for several days by British Intelligence, who tipped Irish authorities as she approached the Republic from the south. Navy ships surrounded the vessel and the fishing boat that went out at night to meet her. Shots were fired across the bows of the I Claudia and a 12-man Navy . boarding party, with blackened faces, made the capture. Some reports said the I arms were in cases marked | “Tripoli,” but there was no official confirmation of their 'source. The Libyan leader (Colonel Gaddafi) has said

I in the past that his country was providing arms for the I.R.A. There was also talk in Dublin and London of a i possible connection between > the I.R.A. and the Eoka gueri rillas in Cyprus. None of the five-man crew ■—said to be three Germans i and two Turks—of the I Claudia was arrested and the . ship was allowed to sail from ; Ireland yesterday with what t the Defence Minister (Mr > Donegan) referred to as “a 1 boot in the transom” and a ; warning never to return to i Irish waters. MOST-WANTED MAN j Cahill, when detained, j shrugged his shoulders and , said “this was a million dolr lar operation.” Police said that the British Army had j Cahil] as its most wanted

man. i Cahill, aged 53, worked as] a foreman in a Belfast! building yard before he fled: from Ulster after the intern-ment-without-trial of I.R.A. 1 suspects began in August,! l 1971. He became one of the]' key figures of the Pro-1 visional I.R.A. within the! Republic and was a close! 1 associate of the former Chief] 1 of Staff, Sean MacStiofain, : who is now ending a sixmonth gaol sentence in the Curragh military camp. However, there has been talk among republican sources recently that his influence in the guerrilla organisation was dropping. I BELFAST SHOOTING In Belfast yesterday, a] British soldier was killed] by a sniper in the Romani Catholic Andersonstowm district and bombs exploded at a youth employment centre, a grocery store and a bar, says a report from Belfast. Troops who took a close] look at a pram as it was! being pushed through Belfast] yesterday found an unusual “baby”—lsolb of explosives and 40 feet of fuse wire. The search was made by soldiers outside a school in the Ardoyne district. The potential bomb was defused safely and later two women were reported to be helping police with their inquiries. A Belfast court has sentenced a young Provisional officer in the guerrilla I.R.A. ; to eight years in prison for ' taking part in the bombing ' of a bar in east Belfast in , 1971. Gerald McGuire, aged 19, who, refused to recognise the , Court, was found guilty of : having helped plant the I bomb, which destroyed the , building. ! A Belfast office worker has ( told police that one of the . three women being sought by detectives investigating t the shootings of three British 5 soldiers in a Belfast flat is 1 his wife. He said he had not seen 1 her since the identi-kit i photos of the women alleged 1 to be involved in the incident i were circulated. However, support for both

Roman Catholic and Protes- ■ tant extremists in Northern Ireland has fallen off noticei ably since the British Government published its proposals for the future of the province last week.