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Irelandclick.com

Roisin McManus speaks to Robert McClenaghan about his quest for justice for his murdered grandfather

BBC photo

The grandson of an elderly man killed in the attack on McGurk’s Bar in North Queen Street on 4 December 1971 says that he won’t rest until the truth is known about the bombing.

Robert McClenaghan from West Belfast is a spokesman for campaign group An Fhirinne. His grandfather Philip Garry (75) was killed in McGurk’s Bar. The campaign group will travel to Brussels on 6 December to lobby politicians at the European Parliament in a bid to shine an international spotlight on the issue of collusion between the British state forces and loyalist paramilitaries.

The loyalist bomb at McGurk’s Bar killed 15 people including children and pensioners. After the bombing official sources claimed that the bombing was an IRA “own goal”. However seven years later a UVF man was convicted of the bombing and received 15 life sentences.

Robert was a 13-year-old schoolboy when his grandfather was murdered. He clearly remembers the events unfolding.

“Philip Garry was my grandmother’s second husband. My biological grandfather had died when my father was very young,” says Robert.

“Philip had been a merchant seaman and had fought during the Second World War. I think he came home basically to enjoy his retirement and the rest of his days in Belfast.

“He was one of those people who was always very bubbly,” he added.
Robert says he remembers hearing the explosion from his family home on the Springfield Road.

“It wasn’t until the next afternoon, when all our family were sitting watching the highlights of the football, the next thing it came on to say they were interrupting the programme because of the bombing and they started to name the names of those who had been killed the night before in McGurk’s,” said Robert.

“The names came up on the TV screen and my mother started to squeal and my father jumped up to grab his coat. It was a massive shock,” he added.
Three days of funerals followed and Robert vividly remembers his grandfather’s funeral.

“He was buried from St Patrick’s chapel in Donegall Street and I remember that as the funeral came to the bottom of the Shankill there were loyalist mobs waving Union Jacks and they were singing a song ‘Bits and Pieces’.

“Even as a child I said to myself, there is something wrong with this.”
Political reaction to the bombing and media coverage angered the family who were overcome with grief.

“What outraged the family was the lies,” said Robert. “Unionist politicians at the time, the RUC, the British army and almost the entire media – and all of a sudden from being a 75-year-old innocent civilian my grandfather suddenly became a bomber and that’s what hurt and deeply affected the family.

“For years to come there was the stigma that my grandfather along with 14 other men, women and children were somehow responsible for the explosion at McGurk’s Bar on that Saturday night.”

Robert says that as he grew older he started to ask questions about why the truth was concealed about the bombing.

“Who were they trying to protect and why were they trying to protect them with such outlandish lies?” he said.

Robert says that the lies surrounding the bombing ate away at his grandmother Lily who died a few years ago.

“I remember sitting one night and we were having a cup of tea. I was involved with the An Fhirinne campaign and I asked her, ‘What would you consider justice?’ and she said if only they would say he was innocent, if only they would say he wasn’t a bomber. Basically that was it, she didn’t want a long drawn out thing, she just wanted the truth. If one thinks about collusion, collusion started for our family that night on 4 December 1971,” he added.
Robert says that his own family want to find out from the British government what information they have on the McGurk’s Bar explosion.

“Realistically up to now we have had nothing but intransigence and a brick wall as far as the British government openly admitting they colluded with loyalist death squads, and we are taking it to an international level.

“I firmly believe that the only way the truth about collusion will ever come out is if we have some sort of international, independent, judicial public inquiry which would compel senior members of the RUC, Special Branch, senior members of British military intelligence and members of the Northern Ireland Office, senior members of the British government, to compel them to give evidence under threat of prosecution.

“I believe that those are the only circumstances under which the truth of collusion will be revealed,” he added.

BBC

Mrs Smith is seeking to “reduce the administrative burden”

The government is “not on a collision course” with the Catholic Church over the proposed downgrading of its education body, the NIO has said.

Education Minister Angela Smith told the BBC there was “no threat to the Catholic ethos in schools”.

The Council for Catholic Maintained Schools could be broken up as part of a sweeping review of NI administration.

The CCMS, which runs Catholic schools, is the employer of 8,500 teachers and looks after 500 schools.

The Review of Public Administration (RPA) has proposed that the body should be downgraded to an advisory role.

Mrs Smith said she was seeking to “reduce the administrative burden”.

“The RPA will do that across the public sector. The announcement will be made shortly of how we don’t spend too much money on administration and how that money gets to frontline services.

“That is the intention of the RPA and that is what we intend it to do.”

She added: “I do not believe we are on a collision course (with the Catholic Church).

“I met the bishops last night and we discussed this last night, along with a number of issues.

“I can give them absolute reassurance, in terms of what they are concerned about, of maintaining the ethos and the character of their schools, they will not notice any difference.”

‘Learning experiences’

CCMS chief executive Donal Flanagan said to remove their input would diminish educational standards.

“What we are saying is that our ethos adds value to children’s standards,” he said.

“Teachers and ethos are inextricably linked and we want the right to be able to appoint teachers who are committed to the aims of a Catholic education.

“The government recognises, and nowadays almost everyone recognises, Catholic education adds value to the learning experiences of young children and improves their standards overall.”

Widely anticipated changes to the way Northern Ireland is administered are set to be unveiled next Tuesday.

The review is the largest examination in more than 30 years of the organisation and delivery of public services in the province.

It was initiated by the devolved executive before the assembly was suspended in October 2002.

Many Catholic schools’ representatives have written to the government in protest at the proposed downgrading of the CCMS.

The schools say they are concerned that it is a threat to the ethos of Catholic education.

Daily Ireland

UDA leader ‘to be out within week’

Ciarán Barnes

Ulster Defence Association (UDA) chief Andre Shoukri will be officially stood down by the paramilitary group within the next week, loyalist sources said yesterday.
The move to oust the 27-year-old comes at a time when almost the entire leadership of the north Belfast UDA is behind bars.
It is understood the UDA’s ruling Inner Council will use this as an opportunity to remove Shoukri and his gang in the coming days.
Last Friday Shoukri and his second in command William ‘Bonzo’ Boreland were remanded in custody on charges of blackmail, intimidation and money-laundering.
On November 1 leading north Belfast loyalist and Shoukri associate, Garry ‘Jock’ McKenzie, was remanded in custody on allegations of riotous assembly.
The arrests came six months after the paramilitary described as Shoukri’s ‘enforcer’ - convicted UDA killer Robert Molyneaux - was remanded in custody on blackmail charges.
Shoukri, Boreland and McKenzie also have convictions for blackmail. Along with Shoukri’s brother, Ihab Shoukri, they each were sentenced to two years in prison in 1997 for extorting money from a Catholic businessman.
Ihab Shoukri is currently on bail awaiting trial for UDA membership.
Last weekend supporters of the Shoukri gang attempted to install convicted loyalist blackmailer Tommy Potts as the organisation’s new north Belfast boss.
However, the appointment was rejected by the UDA Inner Council which is grooming a well-spoken loyalist who is heavily involved in interface work for the role.
Potts, who is loyal to Shoukri, was recently released from prison after serving two and a half years for extortion.
Shortly after being freed Potts, under orders from Shoukri, started a poison pen campaign against South Belfast UDA leader and convicted extortionist Jackie McDonald.
McDonald is the paramilitary boss leading the charge to have Shoukri thrown out of the UDA. He represents the UDA old guard and wants to politicise the organisation.
A north Belfast UDA source predicted that Shoukri’s latest stint in prison will finish his paramilitary career.
“Everything is in place to bring him down and something definite should happen within the next week.
“Shoukri and his gang are finished as a force in north Belfast.”

Daily Ireland

Connla Young

Security cameras have been erected around a Catholic Church in County Derry in a bid to ward off loyalist attack.
Magherafelt parish priest Peter Murphy says the decision to install the cameras was unfortunate but necessary. The security move came just weeks after Saint John’s Church, which is located between Castledawson and Magherafelt, was targeted in a loyalist graffiti attack. During the September incident a number of graves were desecrated after loyalist vandals attacked headstones with paint and scrawled obscene sectarian graffiti on the church walls.
St John’s was reopened just over 12 months ago with a complete internal refit after it was gutted in a loyalist firebomb attack in 2003.
Fr Peter Murphy said the security cameras are needed.
“This church has a special place in the affections of parishioners who found these acts very distressing indeed. We have to try and prevent the chapel and adjoining graveyard from being attacked in such a way again and hopefully the cameras will achieve that aim. There is now 24-hour surveillance at Saint John’s which will hopefully deter those who carry out such disgusting acts.”
Magherafelt Sinn Féin councillor Sean McPeake said it was a matter of regret that the cameras were erected.
“It’s regrettable that in this day and age that we have to resort to placing cameras around a church. It’s indicative of the sectarianism that has been festering around the Magherafelt area this summer.”
Magherafelt SDLP councillor Jim Campbell is saddened by the erection of the cameras. “It’s a sad reflection on society we live in that not even the dead are safe. The people while in that churchyard did nobody any harm when they were alive they are hardly going to do any harm now.”
In recent months an outbreak of tit-for-tat sectarian incidents in the Magherafelt area has resulted in churches and Orange halls being targeted in vandal attacks. In August the PSNI issued a warning to GAA clubs in south Derry after they claimed to have uncovered a loyalist plot to spread broken glass on gaelic fields. Days later an explosive device was discovered at the gates of Magherafelt O’Donovan Rossa GAA club, which sits just yards from St John’s Church. A recent anti-GAA poster campaign in Counties Derry and Antrim originated in the Magherafelt area in September.
Last month Sinn Féin councillors in Bellaghy condemned nationalist vandals after the town’s Orange hall was singled out by spray painters.

Daily Ireland

Sinn Féin leader among 50 targeted

Martin McGuinness is demanding a public inquiry after more than 50 people and Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams were notified yesterday that their personal details are on a ‘military intelligence targeting list’ in the hands of loyalists - A full public inquiry has been demanded into how the details of scores of Republicans and residents of the Short Strand were taken from British Army offices in Castlereagh last year

Jarlath Kearney

Sinn Féin yesterday demanded a full public inquiry into the circumstances in which over 50 residents from Short Strand in Belfast were notified their personal details were in the possession of loyalists.
PSNI members visited dozens of addresses on Tuesday night to advise residents that a top-secret military intelligence document had been discovered in the possession of paramilitaries.
Sinn Féin also confirmed party president and West Belfast MP Gerry Adams was notified yesterday that his details were found on the military intelligence targeting list which unidentified loyalists possessed.
A PSNI spokesperson said on Tuesday night that, “police have recovered what is believed to be a document linked to a breach of internal security in British Army offices at the Castlereagh complex in July 2004.
“As a result, police are contacting a number of people about their personal security,” the PSNI spokesperson added.
The intelligence document is believed to contain the personal details of 400 republicans targeted by the British government’s intelligence-gathering services over recent years.
In the days after the document’s disappearance in July 2004, British government officials began directly contacting newsrooms and members of the media in Belfast to advise them that the security breach was “a non-story”.
Then, on July 21, 2004, after a meeting at Stormont specifically about the developing scandal, Sinn Féin policing spokesperson Gerry Kelly declared that British minister Ian Pearson told him, “this will be a very short meeting on Castlereagh because there’s no story here”.
Mr Pearson was accompanied by three senior civil servants and a note-taker, but refused to confirm or deny any details about the affair when pressed by Mr Kelly.
Later that day Mr Pearson issued a written statement denying that there was any prospect of collusion:
“I have confirmed with senior officers that there are no indications that material has fallen into the hands of paramilitaries.”
SDLP Policing Board member, Alex Attwood, also commented on the affair, explaining that a senior PSNI member blamed the document’s disappearance on over-zealous “research” by British soldiers.
“One senior officer advised me that one line of inquiry was that the document was taken for ‘research’ purposes,” Mr Attwood said.
With the British government actively lobbying to prevent the full ramifications of the incident becoming public, the malign hand of Special Branch and British Intelligence was apparent - particularly in the context of a previous alleged burglary at Castlereagh barracks on March 17, 2002.
On that occasion, the emerging picture after St Patrick’s Day quickly suggested the incident was “an inside job”.
A senior official source later revealed to this reporter that “for the first nine to ten days after the alleged break-in (in 2002) a substantial part of the investigation was directed at disgruntled police or army involvement”.
In those initial stages, 14 PSNI detectives were assigned to investigate the ‘inside job’ theory.
However that all changed on Thursday, March 28, 2002, when the PSNI major investigation team, commanded by Detective Chief Superintendent Phil Wright, made a decision to target republican activists over the alleged burglary.
Within forty-eight hours, the number of detectives on the case had been increased to 24.
On the morning of Easter Saturday, March 30, 2002, a massive PSNI/British Army operation codenamed Hezz resulted in six arrests and 28 raids against prominent republicans across the North.
Three other arrests and at least a dozen extra raids took place in the following two weeks.
Not a single item of evidence was recovered in relation to the alleged Castlereagh burglary and none of those arrested faced charges over the incident.
One former republican prisoner, John O’Hagan, was held for prolonged questioning.
He was subsequently charged, inter alia, with possessing documents likely to be of use to terrorists, including the biographies of former British prime minister John Major and former Chancellor Norman Lamont.
He was also charged with possessing an article from New Statesman magazine published in 1988. Mr O’Hagan was convicted at Belfast Crown Court in July 2004.
However, in a significant development, two reliable sources subsequently disclosed that on March 31, 2002 - the day after the Easter Saturday arrests - a senior detective formally confirmed that at least three-quarters of the PSNI investigation was still focused on “disgruntled police or army involvement”.
Sinn Féin yesterday said that the facts about the 2002 affair - taken together with the subsequent disappearance of the intelligence document from Castlereagh barracks in July 2004 - raise serious questions about the veracity of claims alleging republican involvement in the first apparent burglary.
Such questions are heightened by this week’s PSNI admission that loyalists have in fact obtained official British government intelligence documents detailing hundreds of nationalists.
Moreover, it’s worth recalling that news about the July 2004 incident only leaked out during the middle of the North’s official summer holiday fortnight.
On the evening of July 11, 2004, the PSNI issued a brief statement that the force “had been called to investigate” an alleged internal breach of security at Castlereagh barracks.
It was then reported that a member of the British Army had been arrested and was being questioned about the incident at the Military Intelligence site on the base - known as the ‘Green Huts’.
Although that suspect was released the following day, within the following 48 hours a number of broadcast newsrooms received telephone calls from a man claiming to be a British soldier.
The caller alleged that the person arrested was a member of the Royal Irish Regiment, formerly known as the Ulster Defence Regiment. This fact was subsequently confirmed by the British government.
Thereafter, 28 members of the RIR - ranging in rank from private to major - were removed from sensitive intelligence duties, including the staffing of spy installations.
At that time, the RIR was responsible for intelligence-gathering at the Divis Tower installation in west Belfast.
The involvement of the RIR in the affair raised alarm bells throughout the nationalist community, given the regiment’s sectarian reputation.
Significantly, however, there were no high-profile PSNI/British Army raid and arrest operations designed to lay the blame with any individual or group.
Nor was there any British government inquiry, akin to the “audit of security” conducted by former senior NIO civil servant John Chilcott to “make recommendations over the handling of sensitive material” which was instigated after the apparent burglary in March 2002.
Four months ago, in July 2005, Daily Ireland exclusively revealed that – barring three initial searches and one arrest – the PSNI failed to order any follow-up searches or arrests of any kind regarding the July 2004 incident. Nor has anyone ever being charged with responsibility for the document’s disappearance from Castlereagh.
A British Army spokesperson declined to elaborate on the current assignments of the 28 RIR soldiers who were temporarily removed from intelligence duties over the affair.
“We just gave them other jobs. I don’t know what they’re doing now.
“It would be unfair of me to speculate on what they’re doing now,” the British Army spokesperson said.
Speaking yesterday, Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness demanded a full independent public inquiry into the entire affair.
Mr McGuinness also highlighted wide-ranging concerns about the activities at Castlereagh barracks and he urged the Irish government to intervene.
“There should actually be a public independent inquiry into what took place because it’s quite clear to everyone that both the PSNI, the British security services, the NIO and British government are all complicit in this cover-up and that effectively equates to their active participation in collusion,” Mr McGuinness said.
“That’s how serious a matter we’re actually talking about. We have serious question marks about what was precisely going on in this complex at Castlereagh, given that the people who had the run of the place were effectively all attached to the British intelligence services, to the RIR, to the PSNI and formerly to the RUC.
“Balance this affair against the way in which republicans have been targeted over the course - not just of recent weeks and recent months - but recent years, with huge wholesale arrests taking place and many people dragged to interrogation centres and the vast majority of them effectively released without charge,” Mr McGuinness said.

RTE

17 November 2005 19:41

Dessie O’Hare has been transferred back to the maximum-security prison at Portlaoise following what the Prison Service has described as a breach of trust.

The so-called ‘Border Fox’ is serving a 40-year sentence for the kidnapping of Dublin dentist Mr John O’Grady in 1988.

He was caught with a mobile phone and a bag of pills hidden in his clothing.
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He had just returned to the open prison section at Castlerea from Temporary release and the items were discovered when he was searched.

O’Hare was being released for short periods in preparation for his eventual release under the terms of the Good Friday agreement.

His release on licence has now been jeopardised.

A spokesman for the Prison Service confirmed this evening that O’Hare’s security profile had been changed and that he had been moved out of the Grove Section of Castlerea - where prisoners live in houses rather than cells - to Portlaoise.

BBC

Three men have been arrested and millions of cigarettes recovered during a police operation in Armagh.

The searches are part of an investigation into serious and organised crime linked to dissident republicans, police said.

The searches are continuing, with police and customs officers involved.

Meanwhile, in a seperate operation, police are questioning three men in north Antrim about paramilitary activity.

They were arrested in the Bushmills area on Thursday morning. A number of searches were carried out in connection with the arrests.

World Peace Herald

By Bill Gertz
The Washington Times
Published November 17, 2005

WASHINGTON — An Irish communist leader wanted in the United States on counterfeiting charges has fled Northern Ireland to avoid extradition.

Sean Garland, head of the Workers Party of Ireland, an arm of the Official Irish Republican Army, said in a statement posted on his Internet site yesterday that he decided to remain in the Republic of Ireland, where British authorities allowed him to travel two weeks ago for medical treatment.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia said yesterday that the U.S. government will continue efforts to have Mr. Garland extradited, if he cannot be returned to Northern Ireland, which is under the legal jurisdiction of the British government.

“We will be seeking extradition of Mr. Garland from the Republic of Ireland,” said the spokesman, Channing Phillips.

Mr. Garland was indicted by a federal grand jury in May on charges of using his party contacts in North Korea to coordinate the purchase of fake $100 bills produced there.

Mr. Garland said he initially agreed to return to Belfast for an extradition hearing related to the U.S. charges but then feared the proceedings would be unfair.

“I have decided therefore not to return to British jurisdiction” because of the unjust nature of the U.S.-British extradition treaty, he said.

Mr. Garland was arrested in Belfast on Oct. 7 as the result of a 16-year investigation involving the U.S. Secret Service and other American agencies. Six men were accused of conspiring with Mr. Garland from 1997 to 2000 to buy more than $1 million in “supernotes” — high-quality counterfeit bills that are difficult to detect — from the North Koreans during travels in Ireland, Britain, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Germany and elsewhere.

The Washington Times first reported in May 2001 that a top-secret U.S. intelligence report linked Mr. Garland to the supernotes. The report said Mr. Garland was involved in supernote trafficking and had met in 1997 with Chinese Communist Party official Cao Xiaobing to discuss “unidentified business opportunities.”

Mr. Garland has denied the charges. He was released on bail after a hearing in Belfast.

The indictment was the first official U.S. government accusation linking the government of North Korea to the production of supernotes.

Sinn Féin

Published: 17 November, 2005

Sinn Féin Assembly member Gerry Kelly today confirmed that more republicans, this time living in the Lower Ormeau and North Belfast areas, were informed overnight that their details were contained in the Castlereagh collusion dossier.

Mr Kelly said:

” Overnight a number of republicans in the Lower Ormeau area and in North Belfast were visited and informed that their lives were in danger from loyalist paramilitaries who had obtained their personal details. We assume that this information comes from the Castlereagh collusion file passed to unionist paramilitaries by the RIR and covered up by British Ministers, the PSNI and British Army over the past 16 months.

” I have requested urgent meetings with both the British and Irish governments to discuss this matter. I met both governments in July 2004 when this scandal first broke. It was in the course of these meetings that the British government Security Minster of the time Ian Pearson stated clearly that the missing file was not in the hands of loyalists.

” This has proven not to be the case and the effect of these denials and the subsequent cover up has been 400 people and their families have been living under threat without being informed and therefore unable to take measures to protect themselves. This situation is a scandal and as the British government through the NIO are complicit in the cover up a separate inquiry is required to get to the truth.” ENDS

Irelandclick.com

By Roisin McManus

West Belfast Taxi Association are ringing in the changes this week with new signage for their seven seater cabs.

This is just one of the big changes for the local taxi firm who also have new vehicles and additional services available to their customers.

West Belfast Taxis have recently received DOE approval for the new signs for their seven seaters of which there are currently eight in silver, red, blue and black.

Manager of West Belfast Taxis, Stephen Long, said that the new signs are a welcome development.

“The signage is on the seven seaters only and from a business point of view it is to make customers more aware that the seven seaters are available. This has been a personal investment from the drivers.

“We are also working on a prototype for the other taxis and once this is approved we will hopefully bring it on board.

“We are also offering additional services, we occasionally do private hire, and are doing a lot of work with the Belfast Education and Library Board and residential homes. We make no difference between disabled and able-bodied passengers in terms of price.

“We are constantly looking to improve our service and our customer awareness,” he added.

A member of staff at Dympna Mews on the Glen Road, which avails of the taxi service, said: “We use the wheelchair friendly taxis, the service is dependable and reliable even at short notice and I think that a great service is being provided.”

Journalist:: Roisin McManus

Irelandclick.com

Sinn Féin hit out at DUP in call for West Belfast cameras

By Roisin McManus

Sinn Féin in West Belfast have hit out at remarks made by the DUP’s Peter Robinson on CCTV in the area.

The Deputy Leader of the DUP has called on Chief Constable Hugh Orde to explain why there is no CCTV in West Belfast.

He said that the PSNI were guilty of partisan policing for failing to introduce the cameras in the West of the city.

The East Belfast MP said that CCTV is an invaluable tool in combating crime.

“Given that CCTV has proven to be so successful in the rest of Belfast, why shouldn’t West Belfast be placed under the scrutiny of these systems whenever CCTV has been in place in other parts of Belfast since as long ago as 2000?” said Mr Robinson.

“Is the absence of any CCTV cameras at all in the West Belfast District Command Unit because Sinn Féin/IRA have made it clear that they are opposed to them?

“Responsible public representatives should be demanding that their areas and the people they represent are protected by CCTV,” added Mr Robinson.

The DUP man said that he sees no reason why West Belfast shouldn’t have CCTV.

“It isn’t as if West Belfast is crime free. Far from it,” said Mr Robinson.

“The police’s own statistics show that between April and September this year offences against the person are up 37 per cent, domestic burglaries are up 43 per cent, robberies are up 49 per cent and criminal damage is up 30 per cent on the same period last year,” he added.

Responding to the remarks, Upper Falls Sinn Féin Councillor Michael Browne said: “Peter Robinson seemingly forgets that West Belfast has been under considerably greater levels of surveillance than other parts of the city. Not so long ago state of the art surveillance apparatus could have been found at Divis Tower, at two Springfield Road barrack locations, Andersonstown barracks, and Woodbourne barracks.

“The experience of course of people living in West Belfast has been that this apparatus did nothing to assist residents in the battle against criminal activity,” he said.

The local councillor said that this evidence makes a nonsense of any suggestion that CCTV would impact on crime related statistics.

“Anyone genuinely interested in combating crime in West Belfast would begin by recognising the need for policing arrangements that would enjoy the confidence of local people and that would actually set about addressing criminal activity.

“Today’s policing deficit not only allows the perpetrators of crime to act with impunity but in many cases it has been proven that rather than challenge the relatively small criminal element in the constituency, those charged with policing responsibilities actually work with the criminally minded to advance their own sinister agenda,” he added.

Journalist:: Roisin McManus

Newshound

(by Suzanne Breen, Sunday Tribune)

A West Belfast man has said gardai allowed armed members of RUC Special Branch to question him in Dundalk garda station. Legal sources believe it is the only such case in existence.

Patrick Livingstone said the RUC’s later claim that he had made a confession during the “interview” resulted in his conviction for murder.

“I made no confession. I served nearly 18 years in the H-Blocks for a crime I didn’t commit. I was framed by RUC Special Branch with garda complicity. I’m not prepared to let this rest. I want the guards’ actions investigated.”

Livingstone contacted the Sunday Tribune after the Barron report last week speculated that gardai hadn’t travelled North to question loyalists suspected of the 1976 murder of Dundalk man, Seamus Ludlow, because they didn’t want the same rights reciprocated to the RUC.

“That doesn’t stand up because the RUC came South to question me five months before Seamus Ludlow was murdered,” Livingstone said.

Livingstone is from a well-known republican family in Andersonstown. His sister Julie (14) was shot dead by the security forces when returning from the shop with a bottle of milk.

In December 1975, Livingstone, who was living in Dundalk, was being detained in the local garda station when he was told he had “visitors” from the North.

“I thought it was my parents. I was shocked to find three RUC Special Branch men. The guard locked the door from the outside. One of the Branchmen opened his jacket to let me see his gun.

“They showed me a photograph of Samuel Llewellyn, who had been shot dead in Belfast and asked if I’d killed him. They later said I replied, ‘Aye, I done it.’ I didn’t say that. I never considered the RUC worthy of a proper response so I said ‘you’re detectives, you work it out’.”

Livingstone claimed when he complained to gardai that he had received no prior notice of the RUC’s visit and wasn’t offered legal representation or read his rights, the desk sergeant just laughed.

Nine months later, Livingstone was arrested after an arms find in Newry. “I was taken to Bessbrook barracks. They kicked and punched me until I fell to the ground. Then, they held me down and took turns to jump on me from a table.

“I was left pure black from the chest to the knees. My testicles were badly swollen. I was taken to hospital. One of the detectives who had visited me in Dundalk walked in and charged me with Samuel Llewellyn’s murder.”

Llewellyn, a Protestant civilian, had been shot dead by the IRA in 1975 while helping repair houses on the Falls. His brutal killing, which became known as the ‘Good Samaritan murder’, caused widespread revulsion.

Livingstone said: “I never thought I’d be convicted. The case was based on the Dundalk statement I didn’t make. But it was a Diplock court. My trial started at 11am and I was convicted and sentenced by 2.50 pm. I was the first person in the North given ‘natural life’ imprisonment.”

Livingstone lost his appeal: “I left it at that. The 1970s were crazy. Every day, people were convicted in Diplock courts on little or no evidence. You just knuckled down and accepted it.”

November 16, 2005
________________

This article appears in the November 13, 2005 edition of the Sunday Tribune.

Belfast Telegraph

By Michael McHugh
17 November 2005

The IRA’s punishment attacks have stopped ahead of next year’s crucial Independent Monitoring Commission report, the Chief Constable has confirmed.

Sir Hugh Orde told a meeting of Westminster MPs that IRA punishment beatings and shootings had stopped.

He said this may be because it wants a clean bill of health ahead of January’s IMC dossier, seen as crucial to bring about power-sharing.

Sir Hugh said the “encouraging” cessation of low-level violence was an indication of the power of the IRA high command over its members.

But he warned the select committee to be “realistic” about the likelihood of IRA criminality.

The IRA’s decommissioning of arms last summer has been welcomed in many quarters but some unionists have expressed scepticism and demanded an end to all criminality before going back into government with Sinn Fein.

Sir Hugh added: “I think the word encouraging is probably right at the moment. One needs to be realistic about this. It is an illegal organisation.

“There are limits on how it can lawfully fund-raise, obviously, and we are keeping a very close eye on criminal activity and we will report fully and frankly to the IMC on everything we find in relation to all paramilitary groups in our next report.”

The LVF’s ceasefire, declared earlier this month, is being monitored by police and the Chief Constable said it was too early to assess the group’s integrity.

“In terms of the LVF, it is too early to say, quite frankly.

“I said at the time we would wait and see, and I am still waiting to see what happens next.

“We have got no indications that disarmament of loyalist groups is imminent, so we have to wait and see.”

Sir Hugh said dissident republicans were continuing to target economic targets and added that he expected more activity in the run up to Christmas.

He revealed that he was at Down Royal when the racing event had to be cancelled because of bomb hoaxes.

Sir Hugh said police officers north and south of the border were continuing to disrupt dissidents’ operations.

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
17 November 2005

At least 40,000 people appear to be in danger of falling off Northern Ireland’s electoral register when it closes tomorrow.

People who have not filled out forms for two successive voter trawls will be left off the register, prompting Sinn Fein to accuse the Government of applying “different standards” to the electoral process in Northern Ireland.

A new list of voters is due to be published on December 1.

Earlier this year, the Government pushed through emergency legislation to allow about 70,000 voters who hadn’t re-registered to stay on the list for May’s general and local government elections.

The move was taken amid long-standing concerns about reductions in the size of Northern Ireland’s voter pool.

The introduction of anti-fraud measures three years ago - including a requirement that every voter has to register him or herself - saw the electoral register fall.

This year ministers opted to temporarily return to a measure known as the “carry forward”, which kept voters on the register even if they had failed to fill out a form.

The change allowed about 70,000 people to stay on the register in time for the election.

Electoral officials estimate around 25,000 to 30,000 of those voters have signed up during the current trawl.

That leaves about 40,000 to 45,000 who have not filled in registration forms twice in a row.

Sinn Fein vice president Pat Doherty has accused the Government of deliberately trying to remove voters from the register.

“In the last few years there has been a huge decline in numbers of people registered to vote,” he said. “This has arisen as a result of the introduction of new and restrictive procedures for registration.

“Just eight months ago, in response to this decline in the electoral register, the British Government announced that to maximise the numbers entitled to vote in the May elections 70,000 people who were earlier removed from the register would be placed back on it.

“It is therefore incomprehensible that the British Government are again intent on removing these same people from the election register, and effectively denying them their right to vote in the next election.”

Mr Doherty said he has asked for an urgent meeting with Political Development Minister David Hanson.

BBC

Five people have now been arrested in connection with the murder of Martin Conlon in County Armagh.

Two men, aged 30 and 36, were arrested in the Armagh area on Thursday whilst a 35-year-old man was detained in Dungannon.

A 30-year-old woman and a teenage boy who were detained in the Armagh area on Wednesday are also being questioned.

Mr Conlon, 35, from Railway Street in the city, was found shot at Farnaloy Road outside Keady on 7 November.

Police said a homophobic motive was one line of inquiry. They are also looking at whether he was killed by dissident republicans, with whom he was linked.

Mr Conlon was released recently from prison in the Republic of Ireland where he had served a four year sentence after being arrested at a Real IRA training camp.

Detectives returned to the scene of the shooting on Monday to stage a partial reconstruction in a bid to piece together the circumstances surrounding the murder and identify new witnesses.