Ex councillor son jailed for pipe bombs
A son of a former Sinn Fein councillor has been jailed for 12 years for grinding down fertiliser to be used to make pipe bombs.
Jailing Turlough Robert McAllister, 36, at Belfast Crown Court, Mr Justice Hart told him he was “clearly deeply involved in an effort to construct viable pipe bombs”, although it maybe that “despite his efforts he had not fully mastered the technique of making them properly”.
McAllister, from Lisarraw Road in Crossmaglen, who admitted making and possessing explosives on September 14, 2008, was caught red-handed in his grandmother’s former home at The Square, Crossmaglen operating an industrial sized coffee grinder.
Going through the grinder into a black bin bag was ammonium nitrate based fertiliser, commonly used in explosives.
In the back bedroom were other bags estimated to contain “some tens of kilograms of both ground and unground fertiliser”.
A follow-up search uncovered a number of shotgun cartridges, and pipe-bomb making equipment, while an improvised munitions handbook was also found in his own home, all of which he also admitted having.
Mr Justice Hart said that time and again the courts have had to make it clear “that such offences will result in substantial sentences”.
He added that regrettably, “the continuation of serious terrorist violence renders it necessary to re-emphasise that a deterrent element must be a factor in sentencing such cases”.
Mr Justice Hart said the only mitigating factor in favour of McAllister, who now feels “he has been used and betrayed” was his guilty plea.
“Nevertheless,” he added later,”it is an aggravating feature of the present case that the defendant was not merely in possession of the components of pipe bombs, but was attempting to make them and the sentence must reflect that”.
An earlier court hearing heard that in 2002, McAlister was handed a suspended jail term after he admitted throwing a petrol bomb at Crossmaglen PSNI station but succeeded only in setting fire to his own shoes.
Defence SC Philip Magee revealed that his father Jim was first elected in 1982 and remained as a Sinn Fein councillor until 1996, eventually resigning from the party in protest at the death of Paul Quinn who was beaten to death.
Mr Magee submitted that unfortunately for McAllister, he was prevailed upon by others “to allow that house to be used…he was prevailed upon to assist them and he was grinding this material down but he did not buy it nor did he have anything to do with the pipe things.”
“He instructs me that he is not and has never been a member of any illegal organisation,” declared the lawyer.
