Five directors of Quinn Industrial Holdings receive renewed death threat
The directors of Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) have received a second death threat, telling them this is their “last warning”.
The letter containing the threat was delivered to the Irish News newspaper in Belfast, and the contents were relayed to QIH's five directors last night by police.
The anonymous authors of the letter sent to the Irish News warn the QIH directors that if they wanted, “we could have killed Kevin very easily”.
Responding in a statement to the alleged death threats contained in the letter, directors of QIH said: “Regrettably, continuing threats are no surprise to QIH. It is just proof positive that this issue will not be resolved until the paymaster behind it is brought to justice and law and order is restored to this peace-loving community.”
The threat follows last month's abduction and torture of Quinn director Kevin Lunney, who is still recovering from his injuries. The father of six was attacked as he arrived at his home in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh. He received knife wounds to his face and neck, had one of his legs broken in two places and had been doused in bleach in a bid to mask any DNA or other evidence of his attackers.
John McCartin, a director of QIH, condemned the latest threat.
He said: "From what we know, a letter was delivered to a newspaper office and it warns that we have not learned our lessons from Kevin's abduction and that we have to resign immediately, as we were previously instructed to do.
"(The letter goes on) that we have broken commitments and generally (contains) a warning that the permanent solution will be enacted on us if we don't immediately resign."
'...you haven’t learned your lesson after what happened to Kevin'
The directors were told in the letter they had not learned their lessons after what happened to Mr Lunney.
“This is your last warning to resign to the directors of QIH; obviously you haven’t learned your lesson after what happened to Kevin,” says the letter.
“Directors of QIH were given a mandate to hold the company in safe hands for the Quinn family until a position was put in place to buy it back. The local community won’t stand by any longer and see it continue in its current projectory (sic),” it reads.
“The Quinn family that employed hundreds of people were stabbed in the back. We have the capability and the manpower to see this through until the end and achieve a permanent solution.”
The five directors of Quinn Industrial Holdings are Kevin Lunney, Tony Lunney, Liam McCaffrey, Dara O’Reilly and John McCartin.
In response to the latest threat against its directors, Quinn Industrial Holdings issued a one-line statement that said:
Regrettably, continuing threats are no surprise to QIH. It is just proof positive that this issue will not be resolved until the paymaster behind it is brought to justice and law and order is restored to this peace-loving community.
There have been around 70 incidents throughout a five-year campaign of violence and intimidation directed at the management that has been running QIH since the fall of Sean Quinn, who was once Ireland’s richest man.
