Irish Prime Minister says AK-47s used in murder last week were IRA weapons shipped by Gaddafi via Malta in 1980s
A few weeks ago, when that man was blown up by a bomb in his car, I wrote a column for The Malta Independent in which I said that Malta has been involved in smuggling via Libya for more years than I can remember, that Gaddafi smuggled weapons to the IRA via Malta in the 1980s, and that real and counterfeit cigarettes were smuggled by Maltese networks from Libya, via Maltese networks, to the IRA – which used them for revenue – in the 1990s. The Northern Irish police, in conjunction with the Maltese police, carried out a major investigation around 1999/2000, with detectives from the Northern Irish police spending time in Malta for that purpose. I have no idea what the end result was.
Today the weapons smuggling via Malta was in the news in Britain again. I reproduce the relevant paragraphs from today’s Telegraph below. The Irish Prime Minister said that the AK-47s used in a murder in Dublin last week were part of consignments of weapons received by the IRA in the 1980s. Gaddafi regularly shipped weapons to the IRA in 1985 and 1986 with the full knowledge and cooperation of Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s Labour government. The weapons destined for the IRA terrorists were loaded onto ships off Malta’s coast. Some months after the last shipment the Labour Party was voted out of office and the arms shipments stopped.
