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Drive forces legal experts to snub hearing
By Chris Thornton, Political Correspondent
cthornton@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
22 October 2005
Pat Finucane, murdered by State-sponsored terrorism
A CAMPAIGN to discourage judges from taking charge of the inquiry into Pat Finucane’s murder appears to have handcuffed the Government’s plans for setting up the probe.
Two years after the inquiry was recommended by retired Canadian Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory, the Government has been unable to appoint a judge to oversee the case.
Sources close to the case say numerous judges have been approached about conducting the inquiry - looking at collusion in the solicitor’s 1989 murder - but so far all have declined to take part.
The judges’ reluctance appears to be the result of an international campaign by the family of the murdered solicitor and Amnesty International, who said the inquiry would be “a sham”.
The campaign to discourage judges from taking the case was launched in response to the Inquiries Act, the special legislation passed six months ago for holding the Finucane probe.
The family and human rights groups objected to the legislation, saying it increased the Government’s ability to control the information that went before the inquiry.
Bloody Sunday Inquiry chief Lord Saville is among the senior legal figures who have objected to the Act and Justice Cory said it would make a proper examination of the Finucane case “impossible”.
Preparations for the inquiry are continuing. The investigation team under former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens - the detective who uncovered collusion in the case - is currently indexing all the material they found during the years spent investigating the Finucane murder and other collusion cases.
But finding a judge to chair the inquiry appears to remain a stumbling block.
However, Ministers insist they will not be going back to the drawing board.
A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office said: “We are currently taking forward arrangements for the establishment of the inquiry.
“The Secretary of State hopes to make an announcement on its terms of reference and membership in due course.”
Two years have passed since Justice Cory recommended an inquiry into the case.
The Government held on to his report for six months before publishing it.
Then in September 2004 the then Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, announced plans for the Inquiries Act, which he said would allow the Finucane case to be conducted “speedily and effectively”.
The legislation was pushed through Parliament in April, days before Westminster broke up for the general election. Around the time it was passed, a senior British official told the UN Human Rights Commission that a “large proportion” of the inquiry would have to be held in secret.
Killer cleared of Arlene murder is transferred
By Jonathan McCambridge, Crime Correspondent
jmccambridge@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
22 October 2005
KILLER Robert Howard was last night transferred from Northern Ireland to a high security prison in England.
The 61-year-old paedophile, who had been held in Maghaberry, was handed over to HM Prison Service and transferred to Frankland Prison in Durham.
Howard was tried earlier this year for the murder of Castlederg teenager Arlene Arkinson. He was acquitted on June 27.
Originally from Wolfhill in Co Laois, Howard was sentenced to life in 2003 for the murder of 15-year-old Kent schoolgirl Hannah Williams, whose body was discovered at a cement works in Northfleet in March 2002.
There was outrage last month after Howard’s 40-year catalogue of sex crimes was revealed when reporting restrictions imposed in court were lifted.
He had committed a catalogue of offences in the Republic, Northern Ireland and England stretching back to 1964, when he attempted to rape a six-year-old girl in London.
The killer’s case has drawn huge criticism of the legal system and of police in Ulster.
Howard was on bail when Arlene Arkinson went missing in 1994, and was serving a suspended sentence when he murdered Hannah Williams in 2002.
It is understood that police in the Republic have applied for permission to interview Howard about a number of missing person cases.
Detectives want to quiz him about his movements over the last 25 years when he moved around Ireland and had at least 12 addresses.
It is believed Garda have reopened the case of Jo Jo Dullard (21) who disappeared in November 1995 while hitching to her home in Co Kilkenny. They are also investigating the disappearance of American Annie McCarrick (26), who lived in Dublin and vanished while walking in Co Wicklow in March 1993.
Article posted by Rob Holmes 16/01/03
The muralists: Danny D (right) and Marty Lyons - BBC photo
Ever since the Hunger Strike of ten Republican prisoners in 1981, political murals have been a significant feature of communities in Belfast, Derry and other cities across Northern Ireland, dotting the landscape in both Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods.
Danny Devenney, one of the most prominent muralists in the North, and I make our way to his studio, which is tucked away at the end of a dark corridor on the second floor of Conway Mill, a rather imposing structure that used to house an old flax mill. My eyes roam the walls of his workplace like searchlights. The studio consists of two rooms — space where Danny and his partner Martin paint much of their work and an office that adjoins the studio through an old door propped open by a chair. It would be a rather drab place if not for the many photographs, newspaper articles and other memorabilia that decorate the large wall above the two tables that serve as a desk. The carpeting is old and frayed and flecked with dried paint. The only window in the office looks out on a listless gray landscape of buildings that all bleed together.
Danny lights a cigarette. I am at the mercy of where Danny’s thoughts take him. He tells me of not getting into Arts College in Belfast, of how Catholics did not gain admission to such university positions in the late 1960s. As he flicks the ash of his cigarette, Danny casually exclaims, “in 1970 I ended up in jail — Longkesh. “We tried to rob a bank.” Danny re-enacts the failed attempt to take a hostage in the bank; his eyes flashing with unsettling intensity. Danny could not pull the trigger. The British security forces did not have the same problem and shot him four times. Two other IRA volunteers, Danny’s companions, were shot dead.
“So you started painting and drawing in the Kesh?” I ask.
“While I was in hospital my mother brought me paints and brushes. With little else to do, I started sketching things in bed. The nurses would ask me to draw things for them. Even the British soldiers would ask me to draw for them.” “What would they ask you to draw?” “A typical IRA man,” Danny replies with a laugh. Just before Christmas in 1976, after spending six years in prison, Danny was released. His artistic talent, which he had used to design IRA pamphlets and leaflets (that were smuggled out) in prison, would now find a home at the An Phoblacht (the Republican News).
By 1981, with the Hunger Strike under way, murals began to appear across the North. Danny quickly took to the new medium, which blended artistic vision with political and social issues. “Murals are a part of the voice of the community . . . reflecting things within the community,” Danny explains. Rain pours down outside. Danny lights another cigarette.
“Do you have anything in common with the Protestant muralists of Belfast?” I ask.
“Our medium is the only similarity. Their message is about triumphalism and promoting sectarianism. Yes, there has always been sectarianism.” Danny’s cell phone rings. A chilling mural from Derry’s Waterside neighborhood of a Loyalist emerging from the ruins of the Bogside, while a slain Catholic lies slumped over a rock “What’s the craic?” fires Danny. Another muralist has called seeking advice about a project. “Stick to the lark,” Danny replies when asked about the use of a symbol to represent Bobby Sands, the most famous of the Hunger Strikers.
Sitting in a grayness of smoke and rain, I was warmed by the words and images crafted by Danny Devenney for nearly two hours. For all the acclaim Danny has received for his work, it has not changed him — save to add a few strands of gray to his dark brown shoulder-length hair. Together with Marty Lyons, he has painted murals for Hollywood movies (The Devil’s Own) and Broadway shows — and yet he still lives in the Short Strand, the neighborhood of his youth, and always has time for people.
Later at a pub I asked Martin if he would ever leave West Belfast. “Oh, no. Even if I hit the lotto, I would buy the biggest house in West Belfast.” I left Conway Mill and made my way onto the Falls Road, walking past a mural that Danny and Martin had recently painted. One thought flooded my mind — beauty emerging from the void of violence and bigotry.
By Robert Watt
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
22 October 2005
BELFAST artist Danny Devenney is at the centre of a ‘Bannergate’ storm in Scotland.
The former IRA prisoner was recently commissioned by an officially backed Celtic fans group, the Jungle Bhoys, to produce a banner marking the 20th anniversary of the death of legendary Parkhead manager Jock Stein.
But Rangers fans claim their club has been the victim of a media witch-hunt over even the slightest of contentious issues.
Now they are angry that Celtic’s links with a convicted republican have been allowed to go unreported.
“There are double standards at work here, perhaps even something more sinister,” declared Mark Dingwall, editor of the Rangers fanzine, Follow Follow, and a board member of the Rangers Supporters Trust.
“It seems to be open season on Rangers but nobody dares to say anything which asks questions of Celtic. A few weeks ago a Sunday newspaper carried a story about the grass on the Ibrox pitch being cut and rolled in a pattern which resembled an Orange collarette. I’m afraid that one passed over my head, seeing as the pitch remained green.
“It was a non-story, yet it commanded a prominent page in the paper.
“There was even the suggestion that Celtic would be entitled to demand that the match they lost on August 28 be replayed.”
More recently, he continued, a few Rangers fans sang Derry’s Walls at the Inter Milan v Rangers game and, because the match was played behind closed doors, the singing was heard on TV.
“So many media men were in such a hurry to get up on their soap box and criticise Rangers for the singing of a ’sectarian’ song.
“Yet for reasons best known to themselves, they remain silent about Celtic effectively hiring the services of this convicted IRA terrorist.”
Celtic’s stance is that Devenney was commissioned by the fans, not the club, but when asked if they would prefer the Jungle Bhoys to have found an alternative artist, they adopted a strict ‘no comment’ line.
22 October 2005
SUSPECTED loyalist terror chief Ihab Shoukri will be allowed to return to Belfast to live with his mother despite police objections.
The 31-year-old defendant from Alliance Road, Belfast had been barred from the city after agreeing to live in Larne, Co Antrim, as part of his bail conditions while awaiting trial on charges of being a member of both the UDA and UFF loyalist terror groups.
Belfast Crown Court Judge Kevin Finnegan QC yesterday altered Shoukri’s bail so that he can live with his mother in her Westland home in north Belfast to enable him to visit his doctor.
However, as part of his new bail, Shoukri was also ordered to keep out of the loyalist Shankill, Ballygomartin and Crumlin Road areas of north and west Belfast.
Judge Finnegan said while police objected to the bail variation because they “believe he holds significant ranking in these organisations”, it was his experience that such “people of rank” leave the door-stepping of witnesses “to the foot soldiers”.
Other conditions surrounding Shourki’s £11,000 bail remain unchanged in that he must report three times a week to police and observe a 7pm curfew.
A Liverpool man has been charged under the Terrorism Act with membership of the banned loyalist group the Ulster Volunteer Force.
John Irwin, 43, of Scarsdale Road, Norris Green, was appearing in court in Manchester on Saturday.
He is also charged with possessing items for “a terrorist purpose” and possessing an illegal firearm.
Mr Irwin was arrested by Greater Manchester Police’s anti-terrorist unit on Thursday in Liverpool.
Loyalists are being urged to follow the IRA move on arms
Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey has urged loyalist paramilitaries to re-engage with the body overseeing the decommissioning process.
Sir Reg said loyalists should respond to the IRA’s latest disarmament move.
He also said mainstream unionists could not be absolved of responsibility for some people being drawn into the ranks of loyalist paramilitaries.
Sir Reg was speaking to the BBC as the party holds its first annual conference since he became leader.
He told the BBC’s Inside Politics programme on Saturday: “Loyalists should engage with the decommissioning body.
“I think a lot of them now recognise that things have moved on - times have changed.
“It’s not possible to sustain their current position and they did say over the years that in the circumstances where the IRA were clearly moving off the field, they would respond to that positively.
“I think the time has come to make that response.”
Last month, General de Chastelain, the head of the arms decommissioning body, said the IRA had now put all its arms beyond use.
The general said he was satisfied the IRA had given up all its weapons, and said he hoped loyalists would as well.
Loyalists are said to have an “on-off” relationship with the general.
The two major loyalist paramilitary groups are the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association.
A number of guns belonging to the Loyalist Volunteer Force were destroyed in 1998 in a token gesture of decommissioning, but no further arms have been handed over from any of the loyalist groups.
Meanwhile, at the party conference on Saturday there will be a contest for the post of party president.
It will be fought between Martin Smyth, who had challenged the leadership of David Trimble and Lord Rogan who was one of his strongest allies.
There are 16 candidates vying for six new officer posts, including Johnny Andrews whose grandfather and namesake was Northern Ireland’s second prime minister.
The former Royal Irish Regiment leader, Colonel Tim Collins, will also speak at the conference about the disbandment of the regiment’s home battalions.
22/10/2005 - 08:39:32
The youth wings of Labour and SDLP meet in Belfast today to discuss a new Ireland free of sectarian division.
Both parties have been forging strong links in recent months to promote a social democratic political agenda.
Labour Youth recently held a recruitment campaign in Northern Ireland and attracted members from different backgrounds and communities.
Labour Youth chairman Donal O’Liathain said: “It is important, we feel, that people can express themselves in politics in a peaceful fashion and look forward to a new Ireland where people are united, free from sectarian division.
“Young people North and South have been scarred by the Troubles but we have the power to make the future a happier one for all,” he said.
Guest speakers at the event at Stormont include SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone, Belfast deputy mayor Pat Convery and Ulster Unionist Party member and former Irish rugby international Trevor Ringland.
**He should be mounting the steps to a prison cell
CIRCUIT Court Judge Brian Curtin is to mount a Supreme Court challenge to the procedures that were put in place by the Oireachtas to investigate and decide upon his suitability as a judge.
Seven judges will on Monday begin hearing Judge Curtin’s appeal against the High Court’s rejection of his challenge to the mechanism adopted by the Oireachtas to investigate his alleged misbehaviour.
This is the first time the Supreme Court has been asked to rule on the powers of the Oireachtas to investigate a judge for ’stated misbehaviour.’
If Judge Curtin loses the appeal he will face legal bills amounting to €600,000.
LEGAL BILLS
Judge Curtin will be represented by three senior counsel in the appeal which has been listed for three days.
The State will be represented by two senior counsel and the Oireachtas Committee by one senior counsel.
The Judge suffered a legal defeat last May when the High Court dismissed his application to prevent an All Party Oireachtas Committee from accessing his computer.
In April 2004 Judge Curtin he was acquitted of possessing child pornography, when it emerged that a warrant under which his computer was seized was out of date.
Last May Mr Justice Thomas Smyth in the High Court found the Oireachtas was within its powers in ordering an investigation and the procedures put in place were fair and within the law.
The Circuit Court Judge’s appeal will centre on the construction of Article 35 of the Constitution which deals with the appointment and removal of judges from office.
This will be the first time that the Supreme Court will be asked to decide on the precise meaning of Article 35 and whether the procedures set up by the Oireachtas in relation to Judge Curtin conform with it for the purposes of removal of a judge.
The State will contend the establishment by the Oireachtas of a Joint Committee to investigate the alleged misbehaviour respects Judge Curtin’s rights and allows him to put his case. Those claims will be disputed by Judge Curtin’s lawyers.
Ann O’Loughlin
FIANNA Fail is to re-claim the legacy of 1916 by bringing back military parades in front of the GPO from next Easter.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced the Easter Rising commemoration plans in what’s being seen as a bid to counter the threat posed by Sinn Fein before the next general election.
Over 3,000 delegates at the Ard Fheis delivered a rapturous response when he announced that the Defence Forces will march past the GPO in Dublin on the 90th anniversary of the rising, to show they are the true successors of the volunteers.
CELEBRATION
And the Taoiseach confirmed the Government will establish a 1916 Centenary Committee to plan for a major celebration in 2016.
Even though he said this was a Government decision, Mr Ahern made it clear that Fianna Fail is laying primary claim to the Rising.
“Next Easter Sunday, we are reintroducing a parade to commemorate 1916. Our Defence Forces - the only legitimate army of the Irish people - will parade to commemorate this historic event and their proud contribution in the service of the State,” he told cheering delegates.
Mr Ahern said the State will “recognise and praise the vision of the volunteers of 1916 and indeed the War of Independence. . . . The Irish people need to reclaim the spirit of 1916, which is not the property of those who have abused and debased the title of republicanism.”
And he told party members: “I want next Easter to be an expression of our pride as a nation. This is our State’s inheritance.”
The last major military parade to commemorate 1916 was for the 50th anniversary in 1966. The annual parades were abandoned after the Troubles in the North exploded and the IRA launched its 30-year campaign of violence.
The last official commemoration was in 1991, the 75th anniversary, when there was a token military presence outside the GPO.
With Fianna Fail morale suffering a battering in recent weeks Mr Ahern used the opening address of the Ard Fheis in Killarney to signal the government party is gearing up for a fightback against Sinn Fein.
Although he did not name Sinn Fein, the Taoiseach said the Government wanted to demonstrate that 1916 was not the property “of those who abused and debased the title of republicanism.”
Indicating that his party was preparing for a big political fight-back to recover from months of setbacks, he warned delegatesthat the key to winning the next election was their commitment to the campaign.
“We have a strong case to make to the Irish people. As candidates are nominated, as campaigns begin, it is vital that all of us . . . go door to door and make the case for Fianna Fail,” he urged.
‘BOUNCE’
He also signalled that the Government is expecting a popularity “bounce” when the €15bn of SSIA savings start coming on stream.
And the onslaught against the opposition leaders is to continue today with an attack on the Labour Party leader, Pat Rabbitte.
Defence Minister Willie O’Dea will claim that not only did Labour lose the 2002 election badly, “they ended up with an aging windbag as leader . . . though, compared to the rest of his parliamentary party, he’s a mere gasún”.
O’Dea is also expected to round on the former links between Rabbitte and Sean Garland, who was arrested in Belfast recently on charges related to alleged forgery of US dollars.
The opposition parties, he will tell delegates, are only just starting to muster themselves into a credible alternative government.
Brian Dowling
Political Correspondent
22 October 1974
Damage to the interior of the club was extensive
A bomb has exploded in Brooks Club, London, injuring three members of staff.
One of the first on the scene was Conservative Party leader Edward Heath who was dining nearby.
“I don’t think it was meant for me. I didn’t decide to have dinner out until a quarter of an hour before,” he said.
Describing the scene, Mr Heath said: “There is a lot of damage, the ceiling is down in one room and it is a shambles.”
None of the waiters is believed to be seriously injured and they are being treated in hospital for cuts and shock.
They had been relaxing in the restaurant area after all the diners had left when the bomb went off.
Wine Steward Michael Plank described what happened: “I was sitting on a chair in the serving area behind a screen eating a meal and the two boys were washing up. We heard something smashing like crockery.”
As they went to investigate the bomb exploded.
There was a function taking place on the floor above in a room just off the main dining area, but there were no reports of injuries.
Police are now trying to establish how and where the 5lb (2.27kg) bomb was planted.
“It may well have been placed from the inside rather than the outside by someone who may have had access. There is always a possibility it could have been thrown,” said Commander Robert Hardy of Scotland Yard.
The bombing is the latest in a series of attacks on clubs with military connections.
Although Brooks Club has no serving officers as members it does attract retired officers.
Bomb squad detectives said they thought it had been an “establishment target”.
In Context
Investigations by Scotland Yard’s bomb squad concluded the bomb had been left inside the restaurant.
It is thought the Provisional IRA was behind the spate of bomb attacks in London in 1974.
The attacks came in a year of IRA violence after an attempt at power sharing between the different factions in Northern Ireland broke down.
Later that year, Edward Heath was a direct target of the IRA when a bomb exploded at his London home on 22 December.
It was the third time in a year he had been involved in a bomb attack. No-one was injured.
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