Gunman ambushes N. Ireland prison officer

DUBLIN — A veteran Northern Ireland prison officer was killed Thursday in a gun ambush as he was driving to work, the first slaying of a security-force member in the British territory in 18 months.

Police said they were not certain whether David Black was killed by gunfire or died after his car crashed into fencing. They said several bullets struck his car as he drove onto the M1 motorway southwest of Belfast.

Police found the attackers’ suspected getaway car burned out in the nearby town of Lurgan, a power base for two Irish Republican Army factions opposed to Northern Ireland’s peace process, the Real IRA and Continuity IRA.

No group claimed responsibility. Politicians said IRA die-hards were almost certainly to blame, and the government of the neighboring Republic of Ireland pledged to help hunt down those responsible.

“I know that I speak for every decent man, woman and child on this island, north and south, in expressing revulsion at this act,” said Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore.

Mr. Gilmore said police in both parts of Ireland would crack down anew on IRA extremists, many of whom live in the Irish Republic near the border.

“There will be no return to the dark and violent days of the past,” he said.

Sinn Fein – the Irish nationalist party that persuaded the Provisional IRA to renounce violence and disarm in 2005 – said today’s IRA remnant offered no coherent path forward.

“It is patently obvious that the peace process will not be derailed by incidents like this. It hasn’t in the past, and it won’t in the future,” said Sinn Fein’s John O’Dowd, education minister in the unity government that has run Northern Ireland since 2007.

He said IRA splinter groups should recognize reality and “bring an end to these pointless actions.”

The Northern Ireland Prison Service said Mr. Black had been a prison guard for nearly 30 years and was due to retire soon. He was the 30th prison officer to die as part of Northern Ireland’s four-decade conflict. Most were killed by the Catholic Provisional IRA, but the previous killing in 1993 was committed by a militant Protestant group, the Ulster Volunteer Force.

Finlay Spratt, director of the Northern Ireland Prison Officers Association, described Mr. Black as “a very nice fellow to work with. He always ensured he did his job to the letter. He was a very good officer.”

Mr. Spratt lambasted the weakening of security provisions for prison officers, who live in civilian areas and still face death threats from extremists on both sides of Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide.

Mr. Spratt said the Northern Ireland and British governments “have stripped away all the security around prison officers.”

“They treat us now as if we live in normal society,” he said.

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