Adams rejects hunger strike 'deal' claims
SINN Fein leader Gerry Adams has rejected claims that several of the republican hunger strikers were allowed to die in 1981, despite there being an acceptable deal on the table from the Government.
Mr Adams spoke out after recent claims from former Irish premier Dr Garret FitzGerald that he remembered there being a deal on offer from the Thatcher Government that would have ended the hunger strike and saved the lives of some of those who later died.
The current claim and counter claim wrangle about the hunger strike and any possible deal started after a former senior republican prisoner in the Maze, Richard O'Rawe, wrote a book claiming there was an acceptable offer to the prisoners that was kept from them by the Sinn Fein leadership in order to make political capital out of the continuing deaths.
Writing in the Irish News, which carried the original claims from the former Irish premier, Mr Adams categorically rejected any accusation that the prisoners were kept in the dark about a possible deal.
He said it had been communicated to them verbally that there was an offer being made, but the prisoners wanted a Government official to come into the Maze and explain to them exactly what was in the deal.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Belfast
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South east
