IRA supporter invited to bigotry summit

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Sunday Times
Jason Allardyce



THE first minister has been criticised for inviting an IRA supporter, who has been jailed for inciting people to attack police officers, to tomorrow’s summit on sectarianism in Scotland.

Jack McConnell has asked Jim Slaven, the national organiser of Cairde Na hEireann, a republican organisation described by its critics as “dangerous”, to sit down with church leaders and football clubs to help to work out ways to curb religious hatred in Scotland.

Slaven is an active campaigner on behalf of the three IRA suspects sentenced in their absence to 17 years for aiding terrorists in Colombia.

Slaven, who claims that his organisation’s members have been targeted by Special Branch and MI5, was convicted in 1993 of organising an illegal march by the pro-republican James Connolly Society.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1482541,00.html