INLA PROVIDED `PROTECTION' TO DRUG GANG THAT KILLED ITS MEMBER

THE splinter Republican Group, the INLA, was providing protection services
for the group which killed one of its members in a bloodbath of violence 11
days ago.

The group, which has attempted to establish itself politically in West
Dublin on an anti-drugs platform, is engaged in the widespread provision of
``protection'' for several drug dealers and a number of businesses in the
area.

Two of the organisation's fringe members have admitted to gardai that they
acted as agents for John Gilligan's drugs distribution gang. One operative
confirmed he distributed pounds 10,000 worth of cannabis weekly for
Gilligan's gang. Another, whose name was found in Gilligan's cannabis
warehouse in Harold's Cross in October 1996, confirmed the link between
Gilligan's group and the INLA. The details are confirmed in a secret Garda
file. The revelations follow the death of INLA member Patrick Campbell,
fatally injured in a bloody confrontation between the INLA and a
Walkinstown-based drugs gang 11 days ago. The events have brought West
Dublin to a ``knife edge'', an INLA source said. Its leadership, which is
prepared to do battle with the drug-dealing gang which killed 22-year-old
Campbell, but has expressed ``serious anger and concern'' at the
confirmation that its Dublin members are engaged in the extortion of
business people and drug dealers alike.

``The situation is truly critical. The Belfast leadership is extremely
worried and annoyed that its members have been exposed in associating
themselves with such anti-social behaviour at a time when they are trying
to emulate the approach taken by Sinn Fein in putting the association
forward as a guardian of the people,'' an INLA source close to the affair
said yesterday.

Sources close to the bloody battle at Ballymount have confirmed that the
INLA had not called a meeting with the drug dealers, as was earlier
reported, to discuss the regular extortion money it has been collecting
from the group. Rather, INLA members had been invited to the warehouse by a
businessman from whom they were extorting money in return for
``protection''. He also was being ordered to pay cash to the drugs gang for
an offence over a burnt-out van, which he insisted he did not commit. ``The
businessmen had a dispute with the druggies for which he was ordered to pay
compensation, so he decided that he might as well make use of the
protection being offered by the INLA and he called them in,'' said a
Clondalkin-based Garda source, called to the scene of the attack on the night.

When six members of the drug dealing gang arrived at the warehouse just
after 8.30pm, the businessman signalled to a team of about 12 INLA men, who
were hiding in an office. The INLA men proceeded to strip and gag the drug
dealers. Then the leader of the drugs gang, a 27-year-old Walkinstown man,
arrived at the scene. He called in a further group of about six associates
and the battle with sawn-off shotguns, hatchets, knives and crowbars which
resulted in Patrick Campbell's death began.

Last night, political sources ridiculed a statement from the INLA's
political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, which said that
Campbell died in defence of his community in the ongoing struggle against
drugs. A senior source at the Department of Justice described the statement
as ``laughable''. The source said: ``In providing protection to drug
dealers, in their warped minds the INLA see themselves as taking the
dealers' profits from them to go to a greater cause.''