CLAIMS PALESTINE PROTESTERS WERE STRIPPED 'FALSE'

GARDA chief Drew Harris said Dail claims about women arrested outside Leinster House being strip-searched are "false" - Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan declared yesterday.

- BY MICHAEL O'TOOLE

He told the annual conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors: "Politicians, in my opinion, should reflect on that before standing up in Dail Eireann to make very serious allegations about identifiable gardai."

Mr O'Callaghan was speaking after controversy blew up last month when 11 members of the Mothers Against Genocide group were arrested under the Public Order Act outside Leinster House in Dublin.

They were arrested and later released without charge, during a protest on March 31 against Israel's attacks on Gaza.

But claims later emerged that several of the women had been strip-searched in custody - and one had even been subjected to an invasive cavity search.

The allegations were made outside the Dail, but also in the chamber, which gives deputies privilege.

A day after the incident, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett told Taoiseach Micheal Martin in the Dail: "The group Mothers Against Genocide was on a Mother's Day protest to show solidarity with women and children in Palestine and Lebanon who have been slaughtered over the past 18 months.

HORRORS

"They had a peaceful sit-down protest and were arrested, very violently in some cases.

"In some cases, it included Palestinian and Lebanese people who actually suffered the horrors of the past 18 months. Some were strip-searched.