I.R.A. leader recaptured

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33521, 30 April 1974, Page 13

I.R.A. leader recaptured

•A 3 Pres« SssOftatien—C'pvrig: :> BELFAST. \pril 29. \ Belfast leader of the Provisional wing of the 1.R.A., I\or Malacln Belt, has been recaptured. onl\ two weeks •alter his escape from the Maze I’rison in County \ntrim

Bell was surprised hy the police late last night in his hide-out. a house on the western outskirts of Belfast. Be!I, who is 37. escaped from the Maze, formerly the Long Ke<h internment camp by exchanging identities (with a fellow-Republicai (prisoner who had been allowed paroie to be married. After securing the other man's papers. Bell calmly walked out of the prison, apparently foiling a rigid system of 'hecks. His return to custody has prompted fears in Belfast (that there will be an im- ! •mediate, defiant burst of terrorist violence. A wave of fire-bombs (damaged a Roman Catholic •boys school and more than lhaif a dozen shops in the (border town of Newry (yesterday. British Army bomb-dis-(posal experts defused an incendiary device in another (store in the town, but allowed a hijacked truck abandoned bv masked men (to burn itself out on a street, because they feared that it was pan of a terrorist ambush. Policemen in 'he republic

yesterday searched hundreds of ci ttages and farmhouse*, looking for clues to the world's greatest art robbery Officers called at every house and bi; d : m; within live miles of the stately mansion from which a woman and three men st e 19 paintings worth about 11 Sm Immediate clues it and far between, the oniv solid one being the stolen car found abandoned about 70 miles fr >m the crime \ ■ from tha police have to go -n ; .he hazy account of the tbie\> > appearance from the owner of the art collection, the millionaire. Sir Alfred Beit, aged 71. and Lady Beit and from their servants The thieves hit Sir Alfred Beit over the head with a gun-butt, and then trussed him and Lady Beit in nylon hose. Sir Alfred Beit heard the gang abuse him as "a capitalist pig,” and then dnws observed them marching round the house, selecting paintings on the orders the female number M ti e gang, a woman with a French accent. The remainder of the gam spoke in Irish accent* - one of them, according t '• terrified servant, in Northern Ireland sou-