'Provos linked with foreigners’

Press, 29 April 1978, Page 9

'Provos linked with foreigners’

NZPA-Reuter Belfast The Irish police have said that they have uncovered a document linking the outlawed Provisional Irish Republican Army with Leftwing groups in several countries.

The assertion was made after a round-up on Thursday of 15 leaders of Sinn Fein, the Irish guerrilla army’s legal political wing, in raids by 330 police backed by British troops.

Informed sources said the foreign groups concerned were in West Germany, The Netherlands, Japan, and the Middle East. The police declined to say what the nature of the document was.

The police from the United States, several European countries, and the Middle East were in direct telecommunications contact with Belfast police on the case.

There was speculation that the raids against the Sinn Fein might help to defuse a mounting campaign by Irish republicans for convicted guerrillas to be recognised by Britain as political prisoners.

Sinn Fein had planned a huge march for tomorrow which the police feared would end in riots. It. was not yet known if the march would go ahead without the (detained leaders. At the Maze Prison, 25km! from Belfast, 290 convicted! guerrillas have intensified al two-year campaign for political status by refusing to wash themselves or use the toilets. The Northern Ireland office this week again refused to revise the “oolitical prisoner” category for the Irish guerrillas.

As they refuse to wear the “criminal” prison uniform, most have spent years living naked except for prison blankets used as (cloaks.

John Carson, a Northern Ireland member of the British Parliament, said after visiting the prison that a wing had been cleared to receive prisoners if an epidemic broke out.

A police spokesman said today, however, that the raids were part of investigations begun last August. The 15 can be held for seven days without trial. The same leaders were arrested in a blaze of publicity last December after the guerrilla bombing of the La Mon House restaurant that killed 12 people, but all were later released.