AN ARMED robbery in west Belfast last week was an IRA fund raising operation, the Northern Ireland High Court heard yesterday.
The allegation was made by a Crown lawyer objecting to a bail application by Mr Seamus Hawkins (52), one of eight men arrested during the raid. Six of them come from Belfast and the other two from Dublin.
Mr Hawkins, from Summerhill Gardens, Belfast, is accused of the armed robbery of £146,000 worth of cigarettes and three counts of false imprisonment.
The Crown lawyer said armed members of the gang took over a house and flat and forced the manager of Holmes tobacco store at Boucher Road, Belfast, to return to the warehouse where staff were assembled at gunpoint. He said the gang then loaded cigarettes into a lorry which had been stolen in Cabra, Dublin.
Cigarettes worth about £146,000 had been loaded when police arrived and arrested the gang.
Articles recovered included, walkie talkie radios, imitation guns, a CS gas spray, handcuffs, masks and gloves.
The Crowns lawyer said "If the gang had succeeded in filling the lorry and another vehicle the value of the cigarettes would have been about £1 million.
"It is believed by police that this was a well orchestrated robbery carried out on behalf of the Provisional IRA in what police would see as a funds raising enterprise.
A lawyer for Mr Hawkins said he was not an IRA member. He had simply driven a van to the warehouse after being promised a small payment for doing so.
Bail was refused by Lord Justice Nicholson who said he could think of no circumstances in which any judge would grant bail "on very grave offences such as these".