A RETIRED senior detective has accused Sinn Fein of being “opportunistic” in how its public representatives have contradicted each other about the Quinn controversy.
Former RUC and PSNI Detective Chief Superintendent Norman Baxter said that Sinn Fein appeared to be saying what it thought voters wanted to hear by supporting Sean Quinn in Fermanagh over his battle with the Dublin justice system but criticising the bankrupt tycoon in the Republic, where he is unpopular.
Mr Baxter, who like the Quinn family lives in Fermanagh, also said that “from a unionist perspective the Quinn financial crisis has been transformed into a dispute within nationalism in the Republic”.
Fermanagh and South Tyrone Sinn Fein MP Michelle Gildernew has said that Mr Quinn has been “treated disgracefully by the Irish government” which she accused of trying to “humiliate” the one-time billionaire.
However, Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald, who is based in Dublin, disagreed.
She said that the money owed by the Quinns was now money owed to the Irish state and that “neither loyalty nor emotion can be allowed to get in the way of justice being done in the Quinn case”.
Mr Baxter told the News Letter: “It does show a huge difficulty for Sinn Fein – they seem to be split between what is electorally beneficial, that is to be seen to be supporting the Quinns in Fermanagh and south Tyrone, and the public image which that support creates in the Republic.
“It shows Sinn Fein to be opportunistic. They want to gain the local benefits of supporting the Quinns but in an Irish context they want to distance themselves from it.”
Almost three weeks ago, a Dublin court sent Sean Quinn’s son, Sean Quinn Jr, and the tycoon’s nephew, Peter Darragh Quinn, to jail for hiding millions of pounds from the bank in contempt of court orders.
Sean Quinn Jr is now in Mountjoy Prison, but his cousin is on the run in Northern Ireland where he can remain free as contempt of court is a civil, not a criminal, offence.
The case stems from Sean Quinn Sr’s vast bet on Anglo-Irish Bank – which has since been nationalised in the Republic – which ultimately lost him more than 3.2 billion euros.
Since then Mr Quinn has broken a series of laws in an attempt to retain control of his fortune and Peter Darragh Quinn has been secretly recorded telling two unidentified Russians that it “wouldn’t overly worry” him to lie to a court.
When asked for his views on the Quinns’ move to take control of foreign assets after a court order prohibited such actions, Mr Baxter said: “I think they should have abided by the rulings of the court but this has to be seen in a context of a very complex legal argument where they believe that they were given illegal loans and have been wrongly bankrupted.”
Mr Baxter also said that from a justice perspective he was deeply concerned that a court in the Republic was able to indefinitely imprison someone, arguing that an open-ended sentence seemed to run against both natural justice and the Human Rights Act.
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