Northern Irish police to interview First Minister O’Neill over parade protest

BELFAST, Oct 9 (Reuters) – Northern Irish police will interview the region’s first minister, Michelle O’Neill, in relation to an investigation into a protest that has blocked a Protestant parade from marching through a Catholic area for almost two weeks, O’Neill said on Friday.

Thousands of protesters, including O’Neill of Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and the party’s leader Mary Lou McDonald, gathered on the Catholic Garvaghy Road, in Portadown, to stop the September 26 march after it was allowed to proceed for the first time since the contentious route was banned in 1998.

Annual attempts by the Orange Order to march through the area triggered unrest across the British-run region before the route was banned the same year the Good Friday Agreement largely ended the three decades of violence known as the “Troubles”.

Police opened an investigation into what they called an unlawful protest and said they had identified people reasonably suspected of committing offences.

Sinn Fein, which leads Northern Ireland’s fragile power-sharing government alongside pro-British rivals who have called for O’Neill to be prosecuted over the protest, confirmed on Thursday that a number of its representatives received correspondence from police.

“I can confirm I have received a letter inviting me for a police interview … I will cooperate with the investigation,” O’Neill said in a statement, adding that she would continue to stand with the Garvaghy Road residents.

Britain’s Northern Ireland minister failed to broker a compromise with the two sides last week and is awaiting a ruling on Monday from Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal on whether residents can challenge the removal of the parade ban.

(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson, writing by Padraic Halpin, Editing by Alex Richardson)

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