British MPs fine Sinn Fein over IRA crime links

Britain's parliament yesterday fined the Irish Republican Army's political ally Sinn Fein for crime by the guerilla group and a poll showed most Northern Ireland Catholics want the paramilitaries to disband.

The sanction comes a day after the United States called on the IRA to "go out of business" following the outlawed group's admission it had offered to shoot two of its members involved in the fatal stabbing of Belfast Catholic Robert McCartney.

Legislators agreed without a vote to strip Sinn Fein's four MPs of state funding worth around £450,000 pounds, the latest blow to a party reeling under allegations the IRA carried out a massive bank robbery and shielded Mr McCartney's killers.

"In a place that cherishes the fundamental principles of democracy, it is indeed deeply dispiriting to have to impose penalties on members who have not lived up to those principles," senior British government minister Peter Hain said.