The head of the Sinn Fein office in Washington, Ms Rita O'Hare, has rejected the charge in a Washington Post editorial that party members are "apologists" for the Omagh bombers. In the Post article yesterday, Ms O'Hare said the charge "furthers the agenda of those who seek to collapse the Good Friday agreement, including the bombers".
She "profoundly" objected to "the Post's accusations that Sinn Fein members were `apologists' for those who bombed Omagh". A Post report and the editorial "attempt to turn Sinn Fein's attitude towards the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) into support for Omagh", she wrote.
In the Post editorial, Mr Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein chief negotiator, was quoted as saying that concerning the Omagh bombing, "I am not an informer. You can't ask me to confer legitimacy on the policing power. I have no respect for the constabulary. I won't help them."
The editorial went on: "It seems no big problem to Mr McGuinness and his colleagues that in order to `deny legitimacy' to the existing police, he is condoning mass murder. His statement has the effect of giving a free pass to political crimes until the administration of justice has been reformed according to the terms of the Good Friday agreement."
Ms O'Hare's said Mr Gerry Adams condemned the Omagh bombing and those responsible without equivocation. Sinn Fein also "assisted in bringing about the IRA ceasefire and secured our party's support for the Good Friday agreement in spite of serious concern for the compromises we have made.
"Unfortunately, we were not able to bring all republicans with us. A small number rejected the Good Friday agreement. The actions of some of these republicans, the worst of them the bombers in Omagh, are not condoned in any way by Sinn Fein and the majority of republicans."
The RUC was "identified in the Good Friday agreement as one of the causes of the conflict" and Sinn Fein is "obligated to work for the disbandment of the RUC and is not afraid to say so. We will not be hypocrites and pretend it is okay to simultaneously prop them up with propaganda coups at this delicate time," Ms O'Hare wrote.