9 February 2010 / REUTERS, BELFAST
One of Northern Ireland’s deadliest paramilitary groups has dumped all its weapons in front of independent witnesses, the commission overseeing the province’s disarmament process said on Monday.
Confirming what sources close to the militants told Reuters on Saturday, the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) said the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) had got rid of all its weapons and ammunition. “The IICD can confirm that it has conducted events in which quantities of firearms, ammunition, explosives and explosive devices belonging to the INLA have been decommissioned,” it said in a statement. “The events were attended by witnesses chosen by the INLA,” said the IICD, set up by the British and Irish governments in 1997. “The INLA representatives have informed us that the arms decommissioned constitute all of those under the control of the INLA leadership.” The INLA had said in October its armed struggle was over and its formal decommissioning marks a further step in the peace process days after Northern Ireland agreed a deal to take full control of its own police and justice system. A small but ruthless splinter group, the INLA killed Margaret Thatcher’s Northern Ireland spokesman Airey Neave with a bomb under his car in the House of Commons car park weeks before she was elected prime minister in 1979.
