McGuinness Claudy offer slammed as 'PR exercise'

DUP MP Gregory Campbell was speaking after Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams defended the deputy first minister over his recollections of a meeting with Father James Chesney - the priest who was a suspect in the 1972 atrocity.

Mr McGuinness has come under pressure last week after admitting that he recalled visiting Fr Chesney on his deathbed in 1980, despite previously stating that he had never met the controversial cleric.

While stating he is willing to meet with the Claudy families, the Sinn Fein MP vehemently denied he knew the IRA bombers responsible for the atrocity.

The son of one of the nine innocent murder victims - Gordon Miller - has already voiced his opposition to such a meeting, saying he does not want to be told "more lies and half-truths" by the man who has admitted being a senior member of the Provisional IRA in Londonderry at the time of the terrorist attack.

But another relative, Mark Eakin, whose eight-year-old sister Kathyrn was the youngest victim, declared he would be willing to meet with Martin McGuinness.

While acknowledging that there were "mixed views" from the Claudy families on the issue, Mr Campbell questioned the motives of the Deputy First Minister.

"The fact that he has said what he has put out in the public domain is all that he knows, and he is going to go to the families and tell them what he has already told everybody, that would indicate it is a PR exercise," the DUP man said.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster on Friday, Mr Adams said his party colleague had issued the statement regarding Fr Chesney "of his own volition".

"The statement Martin issued at some point in the past saying he had never met Fr Chesney in my opinion was released in good faith - why otherwise would he deny it?

"When he remembered, it was he who came forward, he told me that he was going to put out the statement.

"He told me it was because of the appeal from the families on the back of the recent report (Ombudsman's report)."

Slamming the Sinn Fein president's intervention, Mr Campbell said if he was looking for a defence, "it wouldn't be from Gerry Adams".

"Now when he (McGuinness) is under pressure, the man who has always denied being in the IRA (Adams) and therefore feels he doesn't have to answer the awkward questions that Martin McGuinness has to answer, comes to the rescue. It just defies belief that either of the two men think this will wash with people."

The East Londonderry representative said he was still awaiting a definitive response from Mr McGuinness as to where he was and who he was with in the days prior to, and after, the Claudy bombings.

In a television interview on Thursday, the Sinn Fein man said he was "on the run" but did not elaborate any further.

Mr Campbell added: "I think they (republicans) have to stop living in denial and this is a further example. They can't face up to what they were engaged in for 30 years and they need to."