Blair criticised over amnesties for wanted paramilitaries

Proposals by the British government to offer an amnesty to absconded terrorist suspects have been condemned by the Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble.

Mr Trimble made his comments during Prime Minister's Question Time in Westminster following reports that the government were on the brink of making the amnesty offer. The UUP leader said that any amnesty "will provoke uproar".

"Our people are fed up with IRA foot-dragging over arms decommissioning," he added.

According to the prime minister the issue of the amnesty was "under discussion" but would he not disclose at what stage the discussions had progressed. It has been reported that an offer could be made at Easter – a date that commemorates the IRA's uprising in Dublin in 1916.

The amnesty is believed to apply to paramilitary members who are being sought for crimes committed previous to the signing of the Good Friday agreement in 1998. That would exclude the perpetrators of the Omagh bomb outrage.

The issue has been ongoing for two years and Sinn Fein stated that they had come to an arrangement over amnesties during the Weston Park talks last year.

There was further criticism for the prime minister at Westminster when opposition members pointed out that wanted paramilitaries could return home freely when former British soldiers may face penalties in relation to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.

Conservative Shadow spokesman on Northern Ireland Quentin Davies said: "There will be universal disgust at a government that puts its own soldiers on the same footing as wanted terrorists."

There are currently believed to be about 60 paramilitaries on the run from authorities in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

(GMcG)