Jailed members of the Real IRA, which carried out the bloodiest attack of the Northern Ireland conflict, say the group is breaking up because of corruption among its leaders, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Dublin’s Sunday Independent newspaper published what it said was a statement from about three dozen Real IRA prisoners, held in the Republic of Ireland, calling for a halt to ‘‘armed struggle’’. An overwhelming yes to EU expansion DUBLIN: Irish voters have switched overwhelmingly to back a key EU enlargement treaty, early referendum results showed on Sunday, easing fears in the 10 countries of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Lithuania, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Malta which are preparing to join the bloc in 2004. Romania and Bulgaria are expected to join later this decade. The results showed a big increase in turnout to about 50 per cent, compared with a national average of just under 35 per cent last year. Main group opposing the treaty have conceded there is little likelihood of it being defeated. (Agencies) ‘‘We feel we are left with no option but to withdraw our allegiance from this Army leadership,’’ said the inmates in Portlaoise prison, accusing their ‘‘financially motivated’’ leaders outside of ‘‘fraternising with criminal elements’’. There was scepticism, however, from the families of bomb victims and one man whose son died in the Omagh bombing said he thought the statement was a tactical move to sway imminent sentences rather than a real renunciation of violence. The Real IRA is a small splinter group that broke away from the much larger Irish Republican Army during the 1990s in protest of the latter’s ceasefire in its war against British rule in Northern Ireland. The members are being held on charges of membership in an illegal organisation or complicity in bombings. But none of them is charged in connection with the Omagh bombing. The Real IRA has admitted carrying out the bombing in Omagh in August 1998, which killed 29 people and injured more than 200. It was the worst single act of violence in three decades of ‘‘The Troubles’’, in which more than 3,600 people have been killed. Other high-profile attacks linked with the Real IRA include a 2001 explosion at BBC headquarters in London. (Reuters)
