“At the time Sinn Féin condemned the arrest and subsequent charges and pointed to a political motivation behind the entire episode…”
The BBC reports that the long running saga of the charges against “prominent Co Tyrone republican” Brian Arthurs, who was named in this 2005 Times report as a member of the PIRA army council, and his wife, Paula Anne, has ended with guilty pleas to “three charges of obtaining a money transfer by deception and two counts of possessing £31,718 worth of criminal property”. The couple from Finulagh Road, Castlecaulfield, had been due to stand trial at Belfast Crown Court. But they …