Two bailed in Northern Bank case
Two Sinn Féin members were released on bail today after being charged with membership of the IRA as part of the investigation into the £26.5m Northern Bank robbery.
Tom Hanlon and George Hegarty were arrested in Cork last night by investigators probing the 2004 heist in Belfast.
Both were taken to the non-jury Special Criminal Court under armed guard this morning, where they were charged.
Hanlon (aged 42) of Pembroke Row, Passage West, Cork, is a former Sinn Féin councillor and stood unsuccessfully for the party in the 2002 General Election.
Hegarty (aged 62) of Donnybrook Cottages, Douglas, Cork, is also known as a Sinn Féin member and republican.
The pair were arrested as part of Operation Phoenix, a huge cross-border investigation, involving anti-terrorist units, fraud squads and the Criminal Assets Bureau.
The court heard Hanlon, a father of four schoolchildren, made no reply when arrested on suspicion of being a member of an unlawful organisation, the IRA, on February 16 2005.
Hegarty was also charged with being a member of the IRA on the same date.
A lawyer for Hegarty, a father-of-five on disability benefits, said he was a primary carer for his partner and his grown-up child who had a learning disability.
Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding over the three-judge court, granted bail on condition both surrendered their passports and did not leave the country.
They were ordered not to talk to each other while on release and to give detectives a mobile phone number on which they could be contacted at all times.
Both must also sign on twice daily at Togher garda station in Cork, provide a bond of €100, while their relatives agreed to €15,000 fines if bail conditions were broken.
A file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions and the pair are to appear again before the court on June 23.
The fresh charges come just weeks after money lender Ted Cunningham was jailed for 10 years for laundering more than £3m from the robbery.
Detectives discovered £2.4m packed into six holdall bags locked in a cupboard in the basement of his home on February 16 2005.
The 60-year-old, from Farran in Co Cork, was also found guilty of another nine counts linked to the stolen cash.
His son, Timothy Cunningham, was given a three-year suspended sentence after he admitted knowing the money was from the heist.
It was claimed during the 10-week trial that Mr Hanlon had helped Ted Cunningham count some of the money in his basement.
The Cunninghams are the only people to have been convicted in connection with the robbery.
On the same day Ted Cunningham's home was raided, detectives investigating the missing millions arrested a chef in a Dublin city centre train station who was carrying a Daz washing powder box containing more than €94,000.
Don Bullman (aged 34) from Fernwood Crescent in Wilton, Co Cork, was jailed for four years for membership of the IRA in March 2007, but no evidence was given as to the origins of the money.
Within days, another man, Don Blaney, was arrested for firearms offences when half-burnt Sterling notes swept up the chimney of his home in Passage West, Co Cork.
Last month, the 51-year-old was jailed for two years for possessing more than 200 rounds of ammunition for a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Northern Bank worker Chris Ward - who was wrongly labelled the "inside man" by police in the north - was acquitted last October when the prosecution dramatically dropped its case.
