UNIONISTS WANTED SINN Féin to be excluded from talks being carried out during a review of the Good Friday Agreement in 2004 after the attempted abduction of Bobby Tohill.

Tohill was a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and later the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).

He was abducted from a bar in Belfast city centre on 20 February 2004 and driven away in a van which was then intercepted by police. He was badly beaten in the incident.

At the time, it was widely suspected that the men who abducted him were IRA members.

Four men were charged but, after being granted bail, went on the run. They were all caught years later and sent to jail, receiving sentences of up to eight years.

Tohill never testified against the men and asked a judge for leniency, saying they were his friends. Earlier this year, Tohill confirmed he likely only had a few months to live due to his deteriorating health.

In the days and weeks after his attempted abduction – long before the suspects were jailed – the incident was a major talking point in political meetings.

Previously confidential records, which were released this month as part of the State Papers, show that unionists were deeply unhappy with the situation.

‘Serious breach’

On 24 February 2004, Irish and British officials met with several senior members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) including Ian Paisley Sr, Ian Paisley Jr, Peter Robinson, Nigel Dodds and Jeffrey Donaldson.

At this 40-minute meeting, Paisley Sr said the DUP were greatly concerned by the events four days prior and wanted to know what both governments planned to do about it. 

Then-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Paul Murphy confirmed that the PSNI’s Chief Constable Hugh Orde believed the incident was an IRA operation.

Relations between Ian Paisley Sr and Martin McGuinness improved over time (file photo from 2007) Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

In May 2003, the Irish and British governments published the Joint Declaration which outlined steps needed to ensure the Good Friday Agreement would lead to lasting peace in the region.

Paragraph 13 states: “We need to see an immediate, full and permanent cessation of all paramilitary activity, including military attacks, training, targeting, intelligence gathering, acquisition or development of arms or weapons, other preparations for terrorist campaigns, punishment beatings and attacks and involvement in riots.”

Unionists viewed the attempted abduction of Tohill as a serious breach of this paragraph.

State Papers / Department of Justice State Papers / Department of Justice / Department of Justice

The DUP wanted Sinn Féin excluded from ongoing talks related to a review of the Good Friday Agreement. However, the record of the meeting notes that the review “was not a formal talks process” so “there was no means of exclusion”.

Both governments had referred the matter to the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), which was tasked with reporting on the activities of paramilitary groups in the North and operated from 2004 until 2011.

The internal document notes that the DUP delegation “was very dissatisfied with the Governments’ proposed course of action and the rest of the meeting was taken up with various DUP participants criticising the Governments”.

Murphy and Brian Cowen, then-Foreign Affairs Minister, defended their positions. The document continues:

Donaldson, Robinson, Dodds and Paisley Jr. were prominent in these sometimes animated exchanges.

“They argued that there was no role for the Independent Monitoring Commission in the current context. The Chief Constable had already clearly indicated what organisation was responsible.”

Anti-Sinn Féin agenda 

On the same day, 24 February, government officials also met with senior Sinn Féin members including Martin McGuinness.

A record of this meeting notes that McGuinness “began by saying he wished to object in the strongest possible terms at the way in which the PSNI handled the arrests on 20 February in Belfast and the subsequent comments of the Chief Constable over the weekend”.

Gerry Adams, then-Sinn Fein leader, and his deputy Martin McGuinness outside Number 10 Downing Street on 29 November 2004 Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The document adds that McGuinness “made no comment about IRA involvement” in the Tohill abduction.

He claimed the PSNI’s handling of the incident was “clearly part of a political agenda… to attack Sinn Féin”, adding that such “knee-jerk reactions” were very damaging to the party and its role in the peace process.

McGuinness is quoted as saying: “Announcing that the entire process is in a mess is not a good news story.”

He added that Sinn Féin had stated “its total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means and its opposition to any use or threat of force on 21 October last, and had unequivocally restated its position many times since then”.

‘Inclusivity had run amok’

At a later meeting on 27 April 2004, Paisley Jr said the British and Irish governments had allowed “inclusivity to run amok” and “a window of opportunity would be lost if the Governments continued to play around by not confronting SF/IRA”.

“Paisley (Jr) added that inclusivity had failed; that was why the DUP was now in pole position within unionism. Inclusivity was preventing the process moving ahead without SF,” a document notes. 

Murphy added that, in order to end paramilitarism, the governments needed to talk to all relevant parties.

Minister John O’Donoghue said the IMC report on the matter “was of immense importance”, adding that its “condemnatory tone had placed [Sinn Féin] under huge pressure in the South”.

According to the record of this meeting, Paisley Jr then “interjected to say that a great deal of the response to the IMC response was nauseating hypocrisy”. He is quoted as saying that people in the Republic were “not as sick of the paramilitaries as we are”.

O’Donoghue insisted there was now “an unprecedented widespread acknowledgement of the evil of the IRA and that the republican movement had come under enormous pressure”. He added that the criminal process would deal with those who allegedly were involved in the Tohill abduction.

Paisley Jr accused both governments of being “scared of the Provos”. He claimed that if loyalist paramilitaries had been involved in a similar incident, the governments “would have moved on without the DUP”.

His party “wanted to be part of the deal but the Governments could make that impossible if they insisted that SF must stay in, irrespective of what the republican movement did”, the file notes. 

State Papers reference number: 2024/112/1