Adams' expenses cut over bank heist

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Sunday Times
Liam Clarke



THE government is to move this week to cut off Sinn Fein's Westminster expenses for a year to punish the party for the role played by its leadership in sanctioning the UKÃÔ biggest bank robbery.

The sanctions against the republican MPs, including Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, follow last weekÃÔ series of moves by Irish police to smash an IRA money laundering operation linked to front companies in Bulgaria and Libya.

Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, has seen its reputation severely damaged since the ¤Ô6.5m raid on the Northern Bank in Belfast in December.

It has already been denied expenses from the suspended Northern Ireland assembly because of an IRA kidnapping last year. This penalty will now be extended.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1492046,00.html

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1. Parker Bowles business link

THE former husband of Camilla Parker Bowles has emerged as a business associate of Phil Flynn, the former Sinn Fein vice-president questioned by police in connection with allegations of IRA money laundering, writes Mark Watts.

Flynn, a 64-year-old banker, is a non-executive director of Chesterton Finance, a company in Cork that is being investigated by police in connection with December’s £26.5m Northern Bank robbery.

Until Friday, when he resigned, Flynn was also one of six directors of Harcourt Developments, a property company. In documents filed at Ireland’s Companies Registration Office Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles, of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, is also listed as a director of Harcourt Developments.

He declined to comment last night.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1492051,00.html

[Kagemusha]

2. If they're gonna do this, they'd better provide proof.

Sounds like it exists but, if they're not going to introduce it into the public domain, justifying a parliamentary action will be very difficult.