McCartney sisters were to have been witnesses in IRA membership trial

The sisters of Robert McCartney, who was murdered in 2005, were to have been key witnesses in the case against two senior republicans charged with IRA membership, it has emerged after reporting restrictions were lifted.

Belfast Crown Court yesterday removed the prohibition on the press naming the five McCartney sisters as witnesses in the IRA membership case against Padraic Wilson and Sean Gerard Hughes.

The case against Hughes (52), of Aghadavoyle Road, Jonesborough, in south Armagh, and Wilson (55), of Hamill Park, Andersonstown, in west Belfast, collapsed last week. The North’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) in a statement at the time indicated the case fell because key witnesses decided not to give evidence.

Wilson and Hughes had previously pleaded not guilty to a charge of belonging to a proscribed organisation between January 1st, 2005, and March 31st, 2005.

They also denied that on a date unknown between February 1st, 2005, and March 7th, 2005, in Belfast they "addressed a meeting and the purpose of this address was to encourage support for a proscribed organisation, namely, the Irish Republican Army, or to further its activities".

Pleaded not guilty

This related to a meeting in Clonard Monastery in west Belfast.They had also pleaded not guilty to a similar charge of addressing a meeting at Holy Cross Church in Ardoyne on a date between February 25th, 2005 and March 9th, 2005.

More than a month after the murder of Mr McCartney, who was beaten and stabbed to death allegedly by IRA members outside Magennis’s Bar in central Belfast, the IRA offered to shoot four people they said were directly involved in the killing, two of them senior IRA men. This offer was rejected by the McCartney sisters – Catherine, Paula, Claire, Gemma and Donna. In May, former senior IRA member Jock Davison was shot dead in the Markets area of Belfast. He was viewed as the chief suspect for ordering the murder of Mr McCartney.

Last week, a spokeswoman for the North’s PPS said it was “disappointing” witnesses had withdrawn.