IAN PAISLEY jnr approved a decision to send a PSNI officer to Libya to assist in police training there, provoking a storm of criticism and allegations of hypocrisy from political rivals.
As chairman of a sub-committee of the policing board which oversees the PSNI, he supported the request last December for an officer to go to Tripoli. He then sent his decision for rubber-stamping by Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward.
DUP colleagues Nigel Dodds and Jeffrey Donaldson are, meanwhile, spearheading an effort to win compensation from the Gadafy regime for relatives of those murdered by the IRA which was supplied with Libyan explosives and weapons.
Before Mr Paisley’s role in the decision became clear, Mr Dodds, the party deputy leader, said that whoever approved the move must be “living on another planet”.
“Given the very recent history of what the Libyans have done in terms of the annals of terrorism in Northern Ireland” he said it was “totally inappropriate and offensive” that the PSNI send officers to assist in training Libyan police.
The resulting furore is being seen as a major embarrassment for the party on a sensitive issue.
William Frazer, head of IRA victims organisation Fair, said: “You couldn’t write the script for this, if you did it would be Monty Python. Here we have the police helping out the people who trained the IRA and supplied the weapons to murder their colleagues, it’s just unbelievable.”
Mr Paisley did not comment on his role in the controversy until about 6pm yesterday after the storm had been building throughout the day. He told BBC Radio Ulster Mr Dodds was “not undermined by me”, claiming he had been “bounced by the BBC” into making his remarks.
The circumstances surrounding the decision to help in the Libyan training programme were more complicated than the BBC portrayed them in its questioning of Mr Dodds, Mr Paisley jnr complained. He also claimed there were advantages for the UK and for the police service in sharing expertise with other countries.
The PSNI had helped with training in Colombia, Bosnia and in several Middle East countries with the broad backing of the policing board which draws some of its members from the political parties. The request for PSNI support in Libyan training had been made to the British government through its embassy in Tripoli.
However other unionist parties were quick to criticise the DUP.
Jim Allister, who quit the party over powersharing with Sinn Féin and now heads the rival Traditional Unionist Voice, said: “Given the magnitude of this gaffe I would call on Nigel Dodds to join with me in calling on Ian Paisley jnr to resign from the policing board.”
Claiming a failure by Mr Paisley to inform committee members, Ulster Unionist Assembly member Basil McCrea said: “Given the sensitivity of the Libya issue it beggars belief that this was not openly discussed. Certainly recent DUP grandstanding on victims’ issues smacks of hypocrisy in light of this revelation.” SDLP policing board member Alex Attwood said the DUP was deeply hypocritical.
Mr Woodward said it was common for the PSNI to send small numbers of officers to share skills with other forces.