Security tightened as Sands fades

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 8

Security tightened as Sands fades

NZPA-Reuter Belfast The British Government shows no sign of conceding any of the demands of the jailed Irish Republican guerrilla, Bobby Sands, reported to be near death yesterday on the fifty-ninth day of his hunger strike. *' Sands’s mother and sister, who saw him in the Maze Prison hospital outside Belfast yesterday, said he could barely speak, sources close to the family said. Prison doctors have told the family to stay by the telephone as Sands, who is 27, could die at any moment. The British authorities stepped up security measures both in mainland Britain and in tense Northern Ireland, where all police leave was cancelled. The public was excluded from Downing Street in London, where the Prime Minister lives. Sands, a convicted gunman who was elected to the British Parliament 17 days ago, went on hunger strike to back his demands for special treatment for jailed Republi-

cans. Britain treats such prisoners as common criminals. Yesterday, one policeman was killed in West Belfast and three others were injured, two seriously, when a bomb exploded in a hijacked truck. Republican guerrillas claimed responsibility for the attack. The province was otherwise reported by the police to be mostly calm, but widespread violence was predicted by both mainly Catholic Republicans and mainly Protestant loyalists if Sands dies. Republican sources said 15 activists who support the hunger strike had been detained by security forces in the past 48 hours to try to forestall trouble arising from Sands’s death. Three of Sands’s fellow Irish Republican Army prisoners in the Maze have also been on a similar hunger strike for up to 45 days. In London, three jailed I.R.A. guerrillas ended an overnight protest demonstration on the roof of Wormwood Scrubs prison.

h The "Daily Mirror" called l ’ on Britain to withdraw from Northern Ireland, ’“troops, ’’ money and all — and leave !t the Irish to .settle their '■ future among themselves.” a British politicians had a been defeated by the riddle s of Ireland, it said, adding: e “To pacify the Catholics is to provoke the Protestants. To satisfy the Protestants is to e inflame the Catholics.” ‘ A second Tory member of Parliament yesterday received a parcel which the V bomb squad had to deal with, s two days after the first inci- . dent when a letter bomb ’ failed to explode. - The first letter bomb was ' received on Saturday by 1 Barry Porter. Conservative ’ member for Bebington and 1 Ellesmere Port, who has publicly expressed criticism ' about the Republican atti- ' tude towards Sands. The latest package, which the bomb squad blew up, was 1 forwarded from the House of i Commons to Richard Alexan- - der, member for Newark. He ■ has tacitly taken the same line on Sands as Mr Porter.