N Ireland murder suspect refuses to speak

The prime suspect in the Robert McCartney stabbing case was released from custody in Northern Ireland after presenting himself to police with his solicitor.

With the IRA giving signs of being in a dazed state, the man spent hours under questioning by detectives investigating McCartney's fatal stabbing in January outside a city bar.

It is believed the suspect exercised his right to silence and did not answer questions about the killing.

He was released on police bail.

Police had been trying for some weeks to question him about reports that he was the man who wielded the knife that killed McCartney.

The killing plunged the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein into a crisis so deep that the two organisations have overcome their profound antipathy to the police and ordered their members to co-operate with authorities.

The sense of crisis led the IRA to announce this week that it had gone to McCartney's five sisters and his fiancee and offered to shoot three of its members, an offer that was rejected by the McCartney family.

Chief Constable Hugh Orde said he had no doubt the IRA had offered to kill the men rather than wounding them, adding: "This is an organisation theoretically on ceasefire. This is an organisation that is still prepared to kill people now from its own community."

The IRA revelation was greeted with outrage and amazement that the organisation, in apparently trying to demonstrate its serious approach to the killing, had so undermined and undercut its political wing.

Sinn Fein has been making huge efforts to dissociate itself from criminality, so the public announcement of IRA preparedness to use its guns came as a blow to the attempts to improve its image.

The statement is regarded as another self-inflicted setback for republicans.

Police have already interviewed two high-ranking IRA figures present in the bar on the night McCartney was killed. But detectives said they made only brief statements and refused to respond to questions.

It is not known if the man arrested yesterday came forward in response to the IRA statement. This said: "We have ordered anyone who was present on the night to go forward and to give a full and honest account of their actions."

Senior republican sources said at the weekend that they doubted the man involved would voluntarily turn himself in.

He is thought to be one of three IRA members who were expelled by the organisation. The IRA said one of these three used a knife to stab McCartney and his friend Brendan Devine, who was gravely injured.

The McCartney family said yesterday they wanted the investigation to be conducted through due process. They went on to indirectly accuse the IRA of continuing to deter witnesses, saying that in the five weeks since the killing no one had come forward with substantial evidence.

"There were 70 people in the bar ... no one has come forward with anything to the police they can act on," said his sister Catherine.

The family said: "This must be due to ongoing intimidation and fear."

Family members are to travel to Washington for St Patrick's Day events, and the United States Administration has pointedly refrained from extending its usual invitation to Sinn Fein.

In the House of Commons yesterday British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the IRA statement defied description.

"There's no way we can make any progress in Northern Ireland that includes Sinn Fein unless we have a complete and total end to violence of whatever kind.

"There is a stark choice facing republicanism. They can either embrace the democratic and peaceful route or be excluded from the political process."

The Commons was to today debate punishing Sinn Fein by suspending the party's parliamentary allowances.

- INDEPENDENT, additional reporting REUTERS