McGuinness urges people to help police jail RAAD members

THE Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has called on people in nationalist and republican areas of Londonderry to give police information that will help them put members of an organisation terrorising communities in jail.
By The Newsroom
Published 14th May 2012, 15:07 BST

In an interview with the Guardian, reported in print and broadcast online today (May 14), Mr McGuinness made his hardest hitting statement yet against the so-called Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) which is reported to be behind the murder of one man, the shooting of many others (over 50 in three years), and the expulsion of 200 people over the past three years.

The Guardian articles examine life in the “City of Culture: City of Fear”. The Guardian has provided the Londonderry Sentinel with a video of Mr McGuinness’s interview.

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Mr McGuinness said: “I think it is quite obvious the community is beginning to rise up against this and as a result of that it is quite clear that RAAD are about to make the biggest mistake of their lives. They are about to bite off more than they can chew because if the community in Derry turns against you then you are going absolutely nowhere.

“And I think they (RAAD) do need to be going somewhere and they need to be going to prison. And I would hope as a result of the rise in opposition to the activities of RAAD that people will come forward to give all the information they have about this group.”

Donna Smith, whose son Andrew Allen (24) was murdered by RAAD on February 9 this year, said the violence must be brought to a halt before someone else is killed.

She said: “How can they call this the City of Culture when they (RAAD) are going around butchering children? Something has to be done, it has to be stopped before another family is sitting in the situation that we are in: me without a son, my other children without a brother and two small children without a father.”