[Sinn Fein]

10th May 2000


RUC decision vindicates Sinn Fein View

North Belfast Sinn Fein Assembly member Gerry Kelly has said that today's court decision in favour of Patrick Griffin has vindicated Sinn Fein's stance that there can be no watering down of the Patten proposals.

Mr. Kelly said:

``Today's decision in favour of Patrick Griffin has shown the RUC in their ture colours. The jailing of two officers and the imposition of a £1,000 fine for their part in the brutal assault of this man in the back of an RUC Landrover cleraly shows that reform of the RUC is impossible.

``What is required is a new policing service which is acceptable to all. Officers who have been involved in such attacks can have no place in an impartial police service.

``The fact that these RUC officers threatened this man with the LVF also highlights the high level of collusion which has taken place, and indeed continues to take place, between the RUC and loyalist death squads. It is now clear for all to see that the Patten proposals cannot be watered down to suit unionist demands. Nationalists will accept nothing less than the new beginning to policing promised in the Good Friday Agreement.''


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