IRA denies part in bank robbery

The IRA has denied it was behind a big Northern Ireland bank robbery which has undermined efforts to hand running of the province back to divided Protestant and Catholic communities.

A republican source and the IRA's political ally, Sinn Fein, had already said the guerrilla group was not involved in last month's £26.5 million ($72.12 million) raid, but yesterday's statement was the first explicit denial by the outlawed armed group in its own name.

"The IRA has been accused of involvement in the recent Northern Bank robbery," said the statement, signed "P O'Neill", the name traditionally used in IRA communiques. "We were not involved."

Northern Irish police and the British and Irish Governments say they believe the IRA carried out the December 20 heist, one of the biggest in British history.

Pro-British Protestant unionists say the raid has bolstered their determination not to sit in a power-sharing government set up under a 1998 peace deal with Sinn Fein until the IRA disarms and disbands.

The official IRA denial came on the day a bank worker kidnapped during the robbery described how he was told his family would be killed if he did not help the gang raid the vaults at Northern Bank's headquarters in central Belfast.

Chris Ward, 23, who worked as a supervisor in the bank's cash centre, told the Belfast-based Irish News that his ordeal began when two men tricked their way into his home the night before the robbery.

"They said, 'Look Chris, we know everything about you and your family'," he told the paper.

"'We are going to take you away for 24 hours and if you co-operate everything will be okay. If you don't, you and your family are dead."'

The next day Ward carried a sports bag stuffed with £50 and £100 notes out of the bank as a "dummy run" to check the police had not been alerted.

Later, after the rest of the staff had been sent home, he and assistant manager Kevin McMullan - whose family were also being held hostage - carried boxes of cash out to a van waiting in a loading bay behind the bank.

Northern Bank said yesterday that it was transferring all 40 staff working in the cash centre to new posts for their own safety.

No one has been arrested or charged over the December 20 robbery, and none of the cash has been recovered.

- REUTERS