IRISH REPUBLICAN INFORMATION SERVICE (no. 14)
Teach Dáithí Ó Conaill, 223 Parnell Street, Dublin 1, Ireland
Phone: +353-1-872 9747; FAX: +353-1-872 9757; e-mail: saoirse@iol.ie
Date: 25 Aibreán / April 2005
Internet resources maintained by SAOIRSE-Irish Freedom
http://saoirse.rr.nu
In this issue:
1. RPAG public meeting in Derry:
2. Nelson inquiry expected to last over a year
3. Six-County police Ombudsman scrutinises Loughinisland probe
4. Families probe State violence
5. RUC/PSNI notebook found in Waterside hotel
6. Amnesty urges judges to boycott Finucane inquiry
7. New law for Six Counties
8. In the shadow of NATO
9. Top secret intelligence unit will quit Belfast for new role in Iraq
10. Pentagon defends Spicer contract
11. Irishman’s appeal fails
12. Gama to stop paying 230 workers involved in dispute
13. Ahern to asked to save 1916 building
1. RPAG PUBLIC MEETING IN DERRY:
IN A statement on April 25 Richard Walsh, PRO, Republican Prisoners Action Group said that the RPAG will hold a second public meeting to discuss the current conditions facing Republican POWs in Maghaberry jail on Saturday, April 30 in the Munster Suite of the Calgach Centre, Butcher Street, Derry City (opposite the Tower Hotel), starting at 2p.m. The statement called on everyone concerned about the plight of Republican prisoners to attend.
2. NELSON INQUIRY EXPECTED TO LAST OVER A YEAR
THE long-awaited public inquiry into the murder of County Armagh lawyer Rosemary Nelson opened on April 19 amid concerns about its independence and powers. The inquiry is being held under the Westminster Police Act, which gives the British government significant powers to restrict publication of sensitive evidence, and the right to decide if a final report is published.
The dead woman’s family are cooperating with the inquiry. However they are watching to see if the British government uses its powers to restrict its investigations. The inquiry, which is likely to last over a year and call over 100 witnesses, will adjourn immediately after opening to begin behind-the-scenes collating of evidence including lists of witnesses.
Rosemary Nelson, who gave evidence to a Congressional hearing into fears she would be murdered, was inspired in her work by the example of slain Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane. She attended his funeral but was later, like him, murdered after pursuing high-profile human rights cases.
A UDA gang that allegedly included two police informers and a serving British soldier murdered her by placing a booby-trap bomb under her car in Lurgan on March 15, 1999. Her youngest daughter, Sarah, heard the explosion from her nearby schoolyard. Nelson survived over two hours with extensive injuries to her legs and lower body.
A retired British judge, Sir Michael Morland, is chairing the three-strong panel examining alleged security force collusion.
The British government agreed to set up the inquiry following the recommendations of Canadian Judge Peter Cory. He was appointed in 2001 and delivered six reports on a total of eight killings on both sides of the border.
He also called for tribunals into Finucane’s murder, the shooting in prison of loyalist murderer Billy Wright, and the fatal attack on nationalist man Robert Hamill.
When the Nelson hearing began on April 19, Morland and his colleagues — ex-Chief Constable of South Wales Sir Anthony Burden and Dame Valerie Strachan, former chair of the Board of Customs and Excise - started to examine allegations that the RUC ignored death threats against her.
British Six-County Secretary Paul Murphy extended the inquiry’s terms of reference to include the British army and government agencies. Several military/police and political figures are expected to be called as witnesses, including a former chief constable of the RUC, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, and former Six-County secretary Mo Mowlam.
Human rights’ groups repeatedly wrote to both, warning that RUC members had allegedly made death threats against Rosemary Nelson and that her life was in danger. Her friends and family say neither the RUC nor British government took any steps to protect her.
British government officials, British-Irish Rights Watch, and the Six County’s leading human rights’ group, the Committee on the Administration of Justice, are attending the hearings.
The British-Irish Rights’ Watch director, Jane Winter, said Flanagan had been dismissive when she wrote to him highlighting the dangers Rosemary Nelson faced in her daily work.
The inquiry has the power to subpoena witnesses and compel the disclosure of documents. Bar exceptional circumstances, proceedings should be held in public, but there are still concerns about how it will develop.
Belfast solicitor Pádraigín Drinan, one of Nelson’s closest colleagues, claims the decision to establish an inquiry under the terms of the Police Act 1998 could present major obstacles to the search for truth.
Section 44 of the Police Act permits the Six County Secretary to establish an inquiry “into any matter connected with policing”. It also gives London the power to restrict the public nature of the inquiry “so far as appears consistent with the public interest”.
“If it is alleged that there was collusion between the RIR and loyalists, how is that connected with policing?” Drinan said. “If it is alleged that someone in government refused Rosemary protection prior to her death, how is that connected with policing?”
3. SIX-COUNTY POLICE OMBUDSMAN SCRUTINISES LOUGHINISLAND PROBE
AN OFFICIAL at the Six-County [British] Police Ombudsman’s Office confirmed that the body was investigating the RUC handling of the Loughinisland Massacre carried out by a British-backed loyalist death squad.
Nearly eleven years after the atrocity, which saw the deaths of six men drinking in the Heights Bar during the World Cup Finals of 1994, their surviving families have still not found closure.
A spokesperson for the Six-County Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s office said the fresh investigation would proceed “for as long as it takes” until a conclusion was arrived at.
4. FAMILIES PROBE STATE VIOLENCE
THE campaign group Relatives For Justice held a press conference in Belfast’s Europa Hotel to announce details of a conference dealing with the victims of British state violence. The conference will deal with such controversial topics as the RUC/PSNI’s so-called Crime Review unit. The launch was attended by relatives of some of the many victims of British state violence in Ireland.
“It’s time for the truth. The British government is using its sovereignty as a shield to prevent the truth from emerging,” Relatives For Justice spokesman Mark Thompson said. “The British government must stop the business of denying its central role in the conflict. Attempting to silence the voices of hundreds of families bereaved and injured by its forces, and its allies in loyalist paramilitaries will not succeed.”
Clara Reilly, of the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets, told the launch that following the recent crime review proposals by RUC/PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde and British Six County Secretary Paul Murphy, many victims of state violence “do not support or have any confidence in any process that is not independent, transparent or accountable”.
She said: “It is evident that the British government is seeking to create a mechanism which controls and which safeguards its own interests by preventing proper, independent examination of the role of its forces and agents during the conflict.
“Officers involved in past abuses, particularly in Special Branch, simply transferred from the RUC into the PSNI, and many of them will, ultimately, have a final say in any internal process of investigation. This is totally unacceptable.
“Persistent barriers to creating trust and confidence, and more importantly delivering truth and justice, are still in place, including the deliberate stalling of inquests and the use of public interest immunity certificates in scores of state and loyalist killings to deny justice,” she said.
Among those in attendance yesterday were John Finucane, son of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, along with Caoimhe Hanna, whose brother Kevin Barry O’Donnell was shot dead by the SAS in 1992, and Paul McIlwaine, whose son David was murdered by the UVF in 2000.
Relatives for Justice’s conference, headlined State Violence - State the Truth, will take place on Saturday, April 30 in Belfast
5. RUC/PSNI NOTEBOOK FOUND IN WATERSIDE HOTEL
NATIONALISTS in Derry on April19 demanded answers from the RUC/PSNI after a police notebook, complete with personal details of a number of former prisoners, was allegedly found in the toilets of a hotel in the Waterside area of the city.
The notebook, which which the Derry Journal newspaper say they have seen a copy of, contained details of 13 nationalists, seven of whom are former prisoners. The details included their dates of birth, addresses and, in some cases, descriptions of their cars including vehicle registrations.
Derry solicitor Paddy MacDermott, who is acting on behalf on those named in the notebook, said that the matter would be reported to the [British] Police Ombudsman for investigation.
“A number of questions arise out of this. First of all; how did this notebook come to be where it was found? Was it negligence or something more sinister? Was this reported to the police authorities? If so, were any steps taken to warn the people whose details were in the book?”
Paddy MacDermott added: “We are considering launching legal action against the PSNI on behalf of the people named in this document.”
6. AMNESTY URGES JUDGES TO BOYCOTT FINUCANE INQUIRY
AMNESTY International have called on all judges in the Britain to decline appointments to sit on any inquiry set up under the recently enacted Westminster Inquiries Act - including a planned inquiry into allegations of British state collusion in the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane. The campaigning organisation also called for the repeal of the act.
The Amnesty call came days after a similar request to judges from Pat Finucane’s widow Geraldine who wrote individually to every senior judge in England, Scotland and Wales earlier this week.
Amnesty UK campaigns director Stephen Bowen said: “By holding an inquiry into the Finucane case under the Inquiries Act 2005, the UK Government is trying to eliminate independent scrutiny of its agents.”
He claimed: “Any judge sitting on such an inquiry would be presiding over a sham.”
Members of the loyalist death squad the UDA/UFF shot Pat Finucane in front of his family in their North Belfast home in 1989.
In the years since there have been repeated claims of security force collusion with the killers and retired Canadian judge Peter Cory told the British government in a report published last year there was enough suspicion of collusion to merit a public inquiry.
The Finucane murder was one of a series Judge Cory examined, and recommended public inquiries be held because of collusion suspicions.
The first inquiry to be set up, that into the murder of Co Armagh nationalist solicitor Rosemary Nelson by loyalist bombers in 1999, held its opening session on April 19.
Amnesty complains that the Inquiries Act means the British government would control any inquiry held under its terms and a final report would be published at the British government’s discretion. They say also that crucial evidence could be omitted from publication at the British government’s instigation - using the excuse it was in the public interest.
Stephen Bowen said the Act, rushed through Parliament on the last day before it was dissolved for the election, “undermines the rule of law, the separation of powers and human rights protection”.
He added: “It cannot be the foundation for an effective, independent, impartial or thorough judicial inquiry into allegations of serious human rights violations.”
Both Judge Cory and Lord Saville who conducted the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, came out against the terms of the Inquiry’s Bill when it was before Parliament and said they would not sit on an inquiry set up under its terms.
7. NEW LAW FOR SIX COUNTIES
IT was reported on April 18 that a new law has come into force in the Six Counties meaning people can be tried twice for the same crime, even if they have been acquitted.
It applies only in certain situations. There are also new rules relating to the type of evidence, which can be introduced into a trial by the prosecution.
The new criminal justice provisions have already come into force in England and Wales and have now been introduced to the Six-County courts. The biggest change concerns the law on retrials. Until now once a person had been found not guilty of a crime, they could not be re-tried under the rules of double jeopardy.
However now there is an exception, where there is new and compelling evidence and where it is a serious crime, which would carry a maximum sentence of life such as murder manslaughter or rape. Prosecutors will now have the right to appeal a judicial ruling which ends their case, such as a situation where a judge rules there is no case to answer.
A prosecution team can also introduce evidence of bad character it its value is thought to outweigh the risk of an unfair trial and evidence relating to previous convictions.
8. IN THE SHADOW OF NATO
WHEN we hear 26-County politicians bleating about their “sovereign parliament” and defending it against the “threat” of Republicanism, it behoves us to stand back and ask, “Who really holds power in modern Ireland?”
Fact: Our country remains partitioned by Britain with the acquiescence of Dublin.
Fact: Ireland is situated in the North Atlantic between NATO allies - Britain and the US.
Shannon and Baldonnell airports are used by US NATO troops on their way to suppress the Iraqi people.
Fact: The EU is governed by an unelected EU commission controlled by NATO members who issue diktats to the member states.
Note the debacle around the 26 Counties biggest employers; Intel, the Dublin government wanted to grant the multinational €170 million to expand its operations in the State.
They were severely admonished by the Eurocrats and cowed down to that pressure, yet last year the EU approved a €545 million grant to Intel rival AMD to build a factory in Germany.
Meanwhile Intel is reviewing offers from Israel, China and the US to set up manufacturing plants.
In a few months the Leinster House politicians will be to the fore again trying to persuade Irish people to formalise their vassal status in the new EU constitution.
Who governs Ireland? Not a ’sovereign parliament’ in Dublin. The NATO powers led by the US are quite happy to allow Britain to police partitioned Ireland on their behalf.
It is time for the Irish people to wake up to these facts and come out of the shadow of the NATO gunmen led by Blair and Bush. A start can be made by rejecting the EU constitution.
9. TOP SECRET INTELLIGENCE UNIT WILL QUIT BELFAST FOR NEW ROLE IN IRAQ
IT was reported on April 18 that the successor of the infamous and discredited FRU, which was part of the British state’s war of terror on the nationalist community and which directed the Loyalist death squads, the Joint Support Group is now to be posted to Iraq, most likely to inflict a similar campaign on the Iraqi people. Brian Nelson, who was the UDA’s chief intelligence officer when he was recruited to become one of the FRU’s top agents, was jailed for ten years in 1992 after admitting five counts of conspiracy to murder. He died of a brain haemorrhage in April 2003.
The FRU and its former leader, Brigadier Gordon Kerr, who became military attaché in Beijing, is the subject of continuing inquiries by Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, who retired as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in January. The JSG has continued the role performed by the FRU.
The Joint Support Group (JSG), which runs agents under the control of the British army’s Intelligence Corps, is one of a number of units expected to leave Belfast as part of the so-called “normalisation process” under which the British Government plans to cut its troop levels within the Six Counties by more than half to about 5,000.
As reported in IRIS Paul Murphy, the Six County Secretary, announced in February that MI5 would take over primacy for intelligence gathering in the Six Counties by 2007.
10. PENTAGON DEFENDS SPICER CONTRACT
THE US Government has defended its decision to award a £293 million Iraq Security contract to British mercenary Tim Spicer, in response to concerns raised by the family of Belfast man Peter McBride, who was shot dead by British army Scots Guards soldiers under Spicer’s command in 1992.
In a letter to the Pat Finucane Centre last month, Melissa Rider of the US Army Contracting Agency said the US had determined that Spicer and his company Aegis Defence Services “both possessed satisfactory records of integrity and business ethics and were responsible. The issue you have raised, though surrounded in political controversy, does not support any grounds for overturning the responsibility determination by our contracting officer. The actions you attribute to Mr Spicer do not appear to have resulted in any conviction for any illegal activity bearing on his integrity and business ethics. The fact that others could have reached a different conclusion does not mean that this determination was unreasonable.”
Rider said that there was no legal basis to deny the contract to Aegis, adding “I now consider this matter closed.”
Spicer’s role in the McBride case and his chequered mercenary career have fuelled worldwide controversy since the US Army announced last June that it was awarding his company, Aegis Defence Services, the contract to co-ordinate the work of private security contractors in Iraq.
“As Commanding Officer of the Scots Guards he told a pack of lies about Peter’s murder and dragged his name through the dirt,” Peter McBride’s mother Jean said when she learned of the deal. “God knows what his own private army will do in Iraq.”
A campaign against the Aegis contract launched by Irish-American lobby group, the Irish National Caucus, earned significant support in Washington. Senators including Ted Kennedy, Hilary Clinton and John Kerry wrote to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last August calling for an investigation.
In a reply to the Senators last November, the director of the US Army Contracting Agency Sandra Sieber, defended Spicer’s role in supporting McBride’s killers, Scots Guardsmen Mark Fisher and James Wright, who each served three years of a life sentence for murder before being released and returned to active duty, serving with their regiment in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“It is significant that the British Ministry of Defence was apprised of our intention to award the contract to Aegis, and did not object to or advise against the action,” Sieber said.
“The contracting officer was not aware of the allegations subsequently lodged against Mr Spicer in the press at the time of the contract award. However, our post-award review of the facts surrounding these matters did not establish that Mr Spicer’s advocacy on behalf of his former soldiers had any bearing on his or Aegis’s record of integrity or business ethics. I understand that others besides Mr Spicer, including members of the British Government, also advocated for the soldiers’ release from prison. The British Government reviewed the case and found in favour of the soldiers release. Recently, a British Army review board reinstated the soldiers into the British Army.”
The Pat Finucane Centre responded in December with a submission on behalf of the McBride family, which described the Pentagon’s conclusions as “factually inaccurate and flawed on a number of levels.
“The allegation against Mr Spicer is not that he advocated for the soldiers’ release from prison. The issue is that he opposed their arrest and opposed their being charged with any offence whatsoever. In a sworn affidavit and again in his autobiography Spicer has sought to portray an entirely fictitious and untruthful version of the events preceding, during and following the actual murder. It is essential to point out that the version of events as described by Spicer, which constituted the defence offered by the soldiers, has been rejected by the courts and described as a ‘concoction of lies’ by the trial judge. The original judgement has been upheld in subsequent appeals.”
The Pentagon responded to the Pat Finucane Centre’s submission following a letter to the US Embassy in London in January from British Brent East MP Sarah Teather.
Teather first became involved in the McBride case in 2003, when Kelly McBride stood in the Brent East by-election to highlight the British Army’s retention of her brother’s killers. Teather defeated Labour’s Robert Evans to take the North-West London seat, which has the largest Irish community of any British constituency, and pledged to raise the McBride case at Westminster.
In a parliamentary answer last month, Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell told Teather that the British Government was not a party to the Aegis contract.
The latest Pentagon response follows a further letter from the Pat Finucane Centre last month, which said that “various US government departments and bodies are passing the buck and refusing to face up to their obligation to ensure that contracts are not awarded to individuals whose respect for domestic and international human rights standards is questionable and whose record of integrity and business ethics is in doubt”.
11. IRISHMAN’S APPEAL FAILS
AIDAN Hulme (27), who was convicted of conspiring to cause a series of explosions for the so-called ‘Real IRA’ in 2001 in London and Birmingham and sentenced to 20 years failed to have his conviction overturned on appeal. His lawyer claimed the jury at his trial should not have been shown evidence of text messages said to link him to the attacks. The judges rejected the appeal. They also refused Noel Maguire, convicted with Hulme, leave to appeal his sentence.
12. GAMA TO STOP PAYING 230 WORKERS INVOLVED IN DISPUTE
IN what SIPTU have described as a “very sinister” development, Turkish workers in dispute with GAMA Construction over pay and conditions were told on April 22 they were to be removed from its payroll and asked to vacate their accommodation.
SIPTU has asked the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to convene a meeting of all the company’s unions to plan a co-ordinated response.
At least 230 GAMA employees are affected by the move, including 130 for whom the company says it has no work. It wants to repatriate them to Turkey.
A number of GAMA’s Turkish employees have refused to work in recent weeks and have staged protests against the company.
This latest move by GAMA came within hours of a 26-County High Court decision preventing publication of a Labour Inspector’s report on the company, pending further proceedings.
Judge Peter Kelly however said the report could be released to the 26-County police fraud squad, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Revenue Commissioners, the Director of Corporate Enforcement, the Competition Authority and the 26 County police National Immigration Bureau.
The report was prepared for the 26-County Minister for Employment, Micheál Martin after Socialist Party TD, Joe Higgins claimed in Leinster House that GAMA, a Turkish based multi-national construction company, was engaged in “immigrant worker exploitation of massive proportions”.
SIPTU construction branch secretary, Eric Fleming said the union received notice from GAMA late on April 22 that workers involved in the dispute at the company would be removed from the payroll on April 25. They were also being asked to leave accommodation provided by GAMA at its various sites by next Friday, April 28.
13. AHERN TO ASKED TO SAVE 1916 BUILDING
A CAMPAIGN to save 16 Moore Street - the last headquarters of the leaders of the 1916 Rising in Dublin - was stepped up over the weekend when the leader of 26-County administration, Bertie Ahern, was urged to intervene.
The building became a brief headquarters for the leaders of the Rising after they abandoned the GPO on Friday, April 28, 1916.
Pádraig Pearse, Tom Clarke, Joseph Plunkett and Seán Mac Diarmada made the decision to surrender when they were gathered around the bed of the wounded James Connolly in 16 Moore St on Saturday April 29 1916. However the building has fallen into serious disrepair in recent years, particularly since it was vacated by a clothes shop in 2003.
The building forms part of the Carlton development site, which is the subject of a compulsory order by Dublin City Council. The former cinema site has been the subject of a long-running legal action between the council and the Carlton group.
On Sunday, April 24, three children presented a letter to Bertie Ahern as he attended a 1916 commemoration in Arbour hill.
Matt Doyle of the National Graves Association said the children had been chosen to present the letter because the building would not be available to them to mark the centenary of the 1916 rising if Bertie Ahern did not intervene now.
The NGA has been campaigning to save the building since 2002, but Matt Doyle said nothing had been done despite several Dublin City Council motions.
A council spokeswoman said its recently published development plan gave a commitment to convert the building into an Easter 1916 museum. However action could not be taken until legal proceedings could be resolved.
Paddy Lennon, of the NGA, said he had “no doubt that it would suit certain people all round if the building fell apart and was forgotten about.
“In 2016, just 11 years away, politicians will be falling over themselves to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.
“It would be a tragedy and a shame if there was no official venue to mark this glorious event in Irish history,” he said.
ENDS
'So venceremos, beidh bua againn eigin lá eigin. Sealadaigh abú.'
--Bobby Sands