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Senior republican and former leading IRA figure Bobby Storey has died, Sinn F\u00e9in has announced.<\/p>\nSenior republican and former leading IRA figure Bobby Storey has died, Sinn F\u00e9in has announced.<\/p>\n
Storey, from west Belfast, was a highly influential presence within the republican movement throughout the Troubles and subsequent peace process.<\/p>\n
Party president Mary Lou McDonald said: \u201cIt was with deep sadness that I learned today of the death of Bobby Storey.<\/p>\n
\u201cBobby was a lifelong and very deeply committed Irish Republican whose passing will be received with great sadness by republicans throughout Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Storey spent more than 20 years in prison during the Troubles.<\/p>\n
He was sentenced to 18 years for possession of a rifle in 1981 and also spent several periods behind bars remanded on other charges.<\/p>\n
As a teenager, he had been interned without charge.<\/p>\n
In 1983 he was involved in a mass escape by republican prisoners from the Maze paramilitary prison near Lisburn.<\/p>\n
In 2005, then Ulster Unionist MP David Burnside used parliamentary privilege to claim that Storey was the IRA\u2019s head of intelligence.<\/p>\n
Two years ago his house was targeted in an attack Sinn F\u00e9in blamed on dissident republicans.<\/p>\n
Three years earlier, police investigating the murder of former IRA member Kevin McGuigan in Belfast arrested Storey.<\/p>\n
He was subsequently released without charge.<\/p>\n
In a press conference after his release he compared the IRA to a caterpillar, insisting the organisation had become a \u201cbutterfly\u201d and had \u201cflew away\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IRA has gone. The IRA has stood down, they have put their arms beyond use,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have left the stage, they are away and they\u2019re not coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms McDonald described him as a \u201cchampion of the peace process\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBobby was extremely committed to the pursuit of a United Ireland with equality and social justice for all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will be greatly missed.\u201d<\/p>\n