On Friday, October 4, 2002 from 5 am on the Northern Ireland Police Service PSNI raided offices of Sinn Fein and homes of Sinn Fein members. They also raided the offices at Stormont parliament building. Six members of Sinn Fein were arrested. There is no official explanation yet.
The raid is thought to be in support of the pro-british unionist UUP and its leader David Trimble who threatened to withdraw from the institutions. This would be a political action and would be another scandal of this renamed but not renewed police force who still lacks democratical accountability.

Irish Republican News and Information, 5 October 2002, http://irlnet.com/rmlist/ 

OUTRAGE AT ATTACK ON POLITICAL PROCESS

There has been a furious reaction among republicans following the raid on the party's assembly office at Stormont parliament buildings outside Belfast and the arrest of the party's senior administrator there.

There have been six arrests of Sinn Fein members in morning raids in west and north Belfast for which no justification has yet been provided. Documents relating to the peace process were taken, as well as texts on policing, human rights and election preparations.

Senior Sinn Fein members, Minister for Health Bairbre De Brun and Assembly member Gerry Kelly were present as some two hundred RUC/PSNI members swarmed through the offices, seizing some items in a heavy-handed and chaotic manner.

Afterwards Mr Kelly said: "It a disgrace and an attack on democracy and the vote for Sinn Fein.

"It is a highly political act, and worse, it is anti-Agreement when they are doing nothing about those anti-Agreement elements (loyalists) who are out there killing people."

The leader of the Sinn Fein group in the Dail, Caoimhghin O Caolain TD described the raids as "outrageous".

He said: "This is an outrageous attack on a political party instigated by those within the PSNI/RUC who are most bitterly opposed to real change in policing and to the entire Agreement. Those arrested were involved in formulating our party's detailed analysis and policy on the policing issue. This raid is clearly part of the current propaganda effort to target Sinn Fein in pursuance of the anti-Agreement agenda of the Ulster Unionist Party.

"I am calling on the Taoiseach and Minister for Foreign Affairs to protest to the British government in the strongest possible terms."

Today's raids mirror those in the weeks following an incident at Castlereagh RUC police base, in which classified documents on Britains' covert war in Ireland mysteriously disappeared.

Former RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan accepted the raid was most likely an "inside job" by renegade elements in the British security forces. But he later accused the IRA of carrying out the raid and ordered the arrest of prominent republicans, all later released without charge. No evidnce has since emerged to justify the claims, which republicans angrily rejected as a smear.

Both sides see echoes of that operation in Friday morning's raids, with republicans suspecting a major pre-election attempt disrupt Sinn Fein activists and intimidate supporters at home and abroad.

Employees at the Sinn Fein office in Stormont were accused of "intelligence gathering" by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who refuses to distinguish between Sinn Fein and the IRA.

He claimed "what we know so far or suspect so far" was that intelligence was being gathered "against the upper echelons of the Government, having penetrated the Northern Ireland office".

The Ulster Unionist leader added he believed that today's operation was as serious as the break-in at a Special Branch office at Castlereagh station in East Belfast.

"It is in the same league as Castlereagh. It is in the same style of operation as Castlereagh. It's probably been carried out by the same people. It's probably been done by the same people who did Castlereagh."

Meanwhile, Republicans have accused the same British securocrats and psy-ops division who were involved in Castlereagh.

Sinn Fein MLA for North Belfast Gerry Kelly, responding to Trimble's comments, said the Ulster Unionist Party was an anti-Agreement party.

"David Trimble outlined his strategy at the UUP AGM in March. He wanted to collapse the political institutions and point the finger of blame at republicans. At last months UUC meeting Mr. Trimble unveiled his wrecker's charter to achieve this.

"Dove-tailing with this anti-Agreement strategy is the campaign being waged by the securocrats. They have sought to demonise republicans through a series of very public interventions.

"Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan was central to this. He used off-the-record briefings and leaks. Others in the British securocrat system planted bogus stories in willing elements of the media.

"The challenge for the two governments continues, with more urgency now, to be the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. They have to minimise the effects of the UUP and presumably the DUP withdrawal from the institutions."

It is also not seen as a coincidence that today sees the start of the court process in Colombia for the three republicans facing charges of training rebels in Colombia's civil war.

But there has also been some concern that this may represent more than a propoganda attack on Sinn Fein. By raiding Sinn Fein's assembly office at Stormont, the forces of the British state have been seen to have attacked republicans' involvement in the peace process itself.

Ulster Unionists have previously said they will collapse the power-sharing adminstration in January unless the IRA disbands. There have also been suggestions that that nationalist SDLP could collapse the Executive sooner, in response to a unionist boycott of all-Ireland bodies to begin later this month.

There are now suspicions that the British government may have succumbed to pressure to expel Sinn Fein from the Executive, and some have seen the raid in that light.

One way or another, there is little doubt that the raid was politically motivated.

Speaking from Stormont, Sinn Fein's Conor Murphy said it had an "anti-Agreement agenda". He suspected an attempt was being made "to force the Ulster Unionists to withdraw from this institution and try and pull down the Good Friday Agreement."

Mr Murphy told BBC Radio: "I think we will find there is clearly nothing to link our office in the Assembly buildings here in Stormont to anything remotely connected with anything anti-Agreement or violent at all."

"I think that [British Secretary of State] John Reid has a duty to explain to us if he authorised this raid, his reasons for doing so," he said.

"And if he wasn't behind the raid, if he didn't authorise it, what a force under his control is actually doing carrying out such raids which serve and will fuel the anti-Agreement elements in society here."