Daily Ireland

**Via Newshound

BY Robin Livingstone
11/02/2006

The Love Ulster campaign is going to take part in the upcoming Dublin parade. I’m pleased to pass on a leaked programme of events that arrived on my desk in a brown envelope this morning. I can exclusively reveal that the RTE have confirmed that the rally will be broadcast live and, at the request of their union, cameramen will be provided with helmets and flak jackets with ‘TV’ written on the front in white tape:
11am: Open air prayer service outside Norman’s Bargain Beers & Wines;
11.30am: Blessing of the petrol bombs and swords by Rev Major Simpson Gibson, patron of the Keep Ulster Lit society;
Noon: Proceed to Dublin via Whiterock Road, Suffolk, Ardoyne shops and Short Strand (In keeping with the Love Ulster pledge to keep the parade orderly and responsible (stewards, quartermasters, medics and stretcher-bearers will have easily identifiable armbands);
2pm: Assemble O’Connell Street for speeches…;
i) Grand Lodge Vizier Hamilton Turkington McClurg on ‘How I suddenly turned from a plain-speaking, proud and honest Ulsterman into a pathetic, whingeing, clueless, headless chicken’;
ii) Thompson Wilson, Democratic Official Unionist Party, MP, MEP, LLB, FTP on ‘I’m not delighted that Jim Grey had his brains blown out in front of his old dad, but I can certainly see why some people might be’;
iii) Davy McIlbelcher, Progressive Unionist Party (Upper Shankill Lenny Murphy memorial branch), on ‘Protestants have finally learned that violence pays’;
iv) Sammy Macoinring of the Ulster Political Research Group on ‘Catholics have got everything while we’ve got nothing’ (copies of this keynote address can be had by writing to Sammy at The Gables, 4 Sandy Lane, the Cayman Islands, West Caribbean, or on his website at www.investmentsolutions.com);
6pm: Programme of cultural events;
i) Scottish sword dancing display (PSNI members attend at own risk);
ii) Pipes and drums (Parents should note that means pipe bombs and oil drums);
iii) The Protestant Unionist Loyalist Young Boys True Blue Dolly’s Brae Prod Ulster Defenders will play a medley of tunes including ‘No More Room for Writing on My Grandad’s Lambeg drum’;
iv) The Ulster Scots poet and former UDA brigadier Tommy ‘Knuckles’ Normanson will read extracts from his latest collection (£200 quid from the Chinese, £50 from the wee sweetie shop and £1,000 from a building site). His acclaimed poem, Ulster, Mah Ulster, recently won the prestigious Timberland poetry prize. Here’s a short extract… Shaved heid, muscles, white vests, Titanic, Hoots mon, I’m in a homosexual panic;
v) DJ Stewarty presents techno-trance mix (drugs strictly forbidden, except from franchised outlets)

Newshound

(Sharon O’Neill, Irish News)

The death of a loyalist killer has left many unanswered questions over the persistent allegations of security force collusion in murder, a prominent human rights group has said.

Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) member William McCaughey died at his Lurgan home on Wednesday following a long illness.

He was the PUP’s representative in north Antrim and had played a key role in the loyalist pickets outside a Catholic Church in Harryville, Ballymena.

McCaughey and his former colleague, ex-RUC sergeant John Weir, both members of the force’s Special Patrol group, were convicted of involvement in the 1977 sectarian murder of William Strathearn in Ahoghill.

Mr Strathearn, a father-of-seven who was well-known in GAA circles, was lured to his death in what became known as the Good Samaritan killing.

A UVF gang called to his door claiming a child was sick and urgently needed attention.

McCaughey, a long serving member of the RUC at the time of the killing, was also convicted for his part in the 1976 bombing of the Rock bar in Keady, where he shot at a customer fleeing the scene.

Two other RUC officers were handed suspended sentences for their part in the bombing.

The guns used in the attack were the same ones used in the murder of Co Armagh brothers Anthony, John and Brian Reavey in Armagh in 1976.

He was also implicated in the killings of three members of the O’Dowd family – Barry, his brother Declan and their uncle Joe – targeted 10 minutes after the Reaveys.

However, he never faced any charges in connection with the O’Dowd murders.

Both families suspect the security forces were involved in the killings.

McCaughey was jailed for kidnapping of a Catholic priest in Ahoghill, Co Antrim in 1978.

He refused to cooperate with Mr Justice Barron’s probe into the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

However, the inquiry found that claims of collusion from his former RUC colleague John Weir “must be treated with the utmost seriousness”.

Mr Weir has alleged that members of the RUC and UDR colluded with paramilitaries in the killings.

However, McCaughey insisted in 2003: “What Weir said was 95 per cent fiction”.

Last night (Friday) human rights group the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) said he may have taken vital secrets in relation to security force involvement in murder, to his grave.

“We would sense there are going to be people who were members of the RUC and UDR in the murder triangle of the 1970s who are glad he has passed away,” said a PFC spokesman.

“There were many unanswered questions not only about his activities but about collusion.”

Although McCaughey played a key part in the loyalist protest at Harryville Catholic church, he was later involved in removing graffiti from the church.

Ballymena SDLP councillor Declan O’Loan said yesterday: “There is no doubt that Billy McCaughey was responsible for some terrible things in the past.

“Some of his local contributions were disruptive and unhelpful, even up to quite recent times.

“But I have talked to him at length and I have no doubt that much of his thinking was forward looking and progressive.

“He was way ahead of most unionist politicians in this area. I have no doubt that if he had been entirely consistent he could have been a more influential figure.

“But he started significant movement within loyalism and that deserves to be recognised. He also faced up to his final illness in a way that was very courageous and uncomplaining.”

The PUP said McCaughey “will be greatly missed both for his work in conflict transformation and as a friend and colleague”.

“The party executive would ask that the family’s wishes for privacy be respected at this difficult time.”

February 12, 2006
________________

This article appeared first in the February 11, 2006 edition of the Irish News.

Irish Democrat

The 1916 leaders seized what would have been today the country’s vital telecommunications centre - in a strategic and sophisticated plan close off British lines of command and allow the Irish rebellion to succeed, writes Peter Berresford Ellis

MANY TIMES in this column I have pointed out that ‘revisionism’, which I would preferably call ‘neo-colonial historiography’, is still thriving. It ranges from the blatant to the subtle. (click photo to view)

One of the most bizarre examples of the blatant was when historian Dr Brendan O’Shea justified the murder of Cork’s elected Lord Mayor, Tomás Mac Curtain, in 1920 by the British crown forces because he was a ‘legitimate target’. Additionally, Dr O’Shea explained that the burning of Cork City in December, 1920, by those same British crown forces, was inevitable because the city was sheltering ‘terrorists’. Those who watched Dr O’Shea’s performance on the RTÉ documentary, The Burning of Cork City, broadcast last November, must have been slightly bemused.

As this year the Irish state commemorates the 90th anniversaryof the Easter Insurrection of 1916, the event thateventually brought the Irish state into being, the ‘revisionists’ are out in force.

Many have lauded a new book, Easter 1916: the Irish rebellion by Charles Townshend (Penguin). The University of Keele’s history professor’s work is fairly predictable.

These days the garbage about ‘blood sacrifice’ has been thankfully muted. One remembers the rubbish, so long preached, about the insurgents going out with the purpose to make martyrs of themselves. These days, the ‘revisionists’ have turned to new criticisms to denigrate the insurgent leaders.

Professor Townshend is content to call the strategists of 1916 ‘muddled’ planners and claim they ‘botched’ the insurrection. That they went out fully knowing that they did not have a chance of succeeding and therefore without adequate plans.

The idea that the leaders went out believing they would not be successful does seem to hark back to the ‘blood sacrifice’ rubbish. In April, 1991, the Irish Democrat published its 75th anniversary supplement. This columnist dealt with several of the myths then current and presented the corrective evidence to the myth of ‘blood sacrifice’. The insurgents went out to win not to loose.

This column also dealt with the myth that the people of Dublin booed the insurgents as they were marched off to imprisonment or to their execution. Eyewitness accounts previously ignored put a lie to this. The majority of Dubliners actually cheered them.

It is not my intention to repeat the information in that article. But as to the charge that the leaders had not planned well, we find Professor Townshend claiming that instead of seizing a good strategic symbol like Dublin Castle as their headquarters, they chose the General Post Office in Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) for reasons bestknown to themselves.

Oh dear! To someone claiming to know something about strategy and planning, those reasons should have been abundantly clear.

When one is staging a coup or an insurrection, what is the first objective to seize hold of? No prizes for answering. The first thing to go for is the country’s communications centre - in recent times it would be radio and television stations. In other words, telecommunication centres. In1916 the General Post Office was the centre of communications in Ireland.

But let’s deal first with why Dublin Castle was not a prime target to make it the insurgent headquarters. Dublin Castle may well have been a symbol of British rule in Ireland but it was not strategic. Desmond Ryan, in his book The Rising (1949) recounts that:

“Connolly had rejected the projectof capturing the Castle as not feasible, and not desirable, even if feasible: the place was well-guarded, it was a long and straggling collection of buildings difficult to defend and, moreover, there was a Red Cross hospital inside. The plan was to seal up the Castle by seizing the City Hall, the guard room in the Upper Castle Yard, the Evening Mail office and other buildings facing the gates.”

This was certainly a logical plan from a very sound strategist as, indeed, James Connolly was. One only has to read his articles on revolutionary warfare. So, why make the General Post Office the insurgent headquarters? As I say, it was the centre of communications in Ireland.

I am surprised that in all the books written on 1916 no one seems to have turned toThe Post Office Electrical Engineers’ Journal (Vol. IX, 1916) and quoted from an article by E Gomersall. Gomersall was the GPO’s Superintending Engineer sent to Dublin to re-establish the communications system during the insurrection. He explained that the GPO building had been in the process of enlargement since 1904 and the work had been completed on March 6, 1915. The building housed not only the public offices but the Telegraph Instrument Room, Trunk Telephone Exchange, Sorting Offices, clerical offices of the Secretary Controller (Postal), Controller (Telegraphs) and other support offices. There was only a local exchange in nearby Crown Alley with an automatic exchange, which only have 4000 subscribers.

Reading some accounts of 1916 one would get the impression that the GPO was a simple building in which one bought stamps at the counter or sent off parcels. The communications equipment was vast and modern for its day and Gomersall lists it in fine and technical detail, also pointing out that while there were only 20 carrying wires on the roof, the bulk of the communication cables were brought into the building underground.

The GPO had its own central heating from three boilers in the basement, which housed a pneumatic power room, and there were two electric lifts in the building. Amazingly, the power plant and pipes were still intact when British engineers finally entered the GPO on 2 May but, the day after they took a photograph of the basement, the first floor collapsed due to artillery damage.

Unlike the straggling buildings comprising the Dublin Castle complex, the GPO was compact and more easily defendable, though, of course, not against artillery or heavy guns fired from warships steaming up the Liffey. Here, perhaps, is the one fault in planning, that many thought - perhaps hoped is a better term - that the British would not use artillery with such abandoned concern of civilian casualties, as they then did in what the London government maintained was a ‘British’ city.

However, from the strategic planning viewpoint, there was no building better suited for the headquarters of the insurgent forces. When the insurgents took control of the GPO on Monday, 24 April, just before noon, they immediately expelled the staff, the engineers and replaced them with their own men. Michael Collins himself had worked for the GPO and doubtless knew the systems.

Michael Staines led a detachment of insurgents to the Telegraph Instrument Room which was then evacuated by the female operators whose supervisors was a Scottish lady. Seven armed British soldiers commanded by a sergeant guarded the telegraphs. After Staines fired a shot, they surrendered. Significantly, the historians Caulfield, Foy and Barton all report that the Scottish supervisor asked if she could finish sending out some telegraph death notices before she left. Staines replied: “No. Some of my men will do that.”

Thus it is clear that the insurgents did have trained telegraph operators with them. It is not known who took over the sending of the Declaration of the Irish Republic over the telegraph system. We know that the broadcast was picked up in England and several parts of Europe, also by Transatlantic ships which took the news to the USA.

We also know that Pearse ordered three insurgents, one of whom was a former signaller in the British Army, to assemble another transmitter in the Atlantic School of Wireless situated nearby and attempt further broadcasts.

Thus the primary task of any coup or insurrection was achieved. Communications were in the hands of the insurgents and immediately denied to the occupying forces. The British engineer Gomersall says:

“Telegraphic and trunk telephonic communications was essential for military purposes. New telephone circuits had to be provided for military purposes, and the local telephone system had to be maintained. Many members of the staff could not leave the vicinity of their homes. Many of those who could were unable to reach their normal places of duty.”

The insurgents were in firm control of communications throughout Monday, April 24.

Gomesall continues:

“On Monday night, at 11 pm, when trunk telephonic communication was urgently needed, several men were sent by motor cycle and sidecar, supplied by the Chief Engineer, Irish Command, to points several miles outside Dublin. After midnight one important circuit was cut into on very high poles and diverted by means of subscribers’ circuits into an exchange which was still in communication with the main exchange.”

This was a means of getting military messages through but within a few hours the insurgents, having spotted this, cut the line.

“Linemen who went after the fault were threatened by the rebels and fired upon,” says Gomersall. “The military headquarters were informed of the locality in which the rebels were, and in the evening it was possible to make good the wires. On the next morning, Wednesday, the rebels cut down the line again some miles further away from Dublin.”

It is obvious that the insurgents knew what they were doing and Gomersall admits the telephone and telegraphic services between Ireland and Britain had been severed for a considerable time. Local lines, used for military and official purposes, “had also been cut down at a large number of place - evidently a characteristic feature of the operations of the rebels and the restoration of communication from these temporary offices had necessarily to be preceded by making good the external plant.”

What is clear, dealing with 1916 from this aspect alone, is clear, level-headed planning by the insurgent forces. Certainly it is not that of the amateurish, muddled thinking of would-be martyrs that our ‘revisionist’ friends would like to make out.

Gomersall goes on to list all the damage done to communications. Main lines around Dublin were generally cut in two or three places. Telegraph poles were chopped down, wires cut, telegraph and telephone instruments were removed from offices, block and electric train staff instruments and telegraph and telephone apparatus in signal boxes were destroyed. Gomersall says he personally could name over 60 places where major equipment had been damaged in Dublin and the suburbs.

Even more astonishing, emerging from Gomersall’s report, is the cutting of the underground telegraph and trunk telephone cables by insurgents who clearly knew what they were doing.

Gomersall admits:

“The provision of additional circuits for military purposes was a matter of much difficulty and unusual methods had to be employed… the provision and maintenance of the circuits during the rebellion was both difficult and dangerous…”

He says:

“On Tuesday, May 2, it became possible to ascertain the extent of the damage, to approach the Post office, and gradually to organise the work of restoration. The magnitude of the task was soon apparent. It was clear that a new telegraph office would have to be installed, and that this work would have to proceed simultaneously with the repair of cables and wires, the diversion of the wires to a new office, the diversion of trunk and telephone circuits to the local exchange and the restoration of block signal and telegraph wires on the railways and of the damaged local telephone circuits.”

When Gomersall and his engineers moved into the GPO he found that British artillery had so destroyed it “only the shell of the building remained, and in places the débris was still burning and the surrounding ground was extremely hot”.

It was not until Wednesday May 3 that a new temporary telegraph office had to be installed on the upper floor of the Parcels Office at Amiens Street pending reconstruction and it was not until Thursday, 11 May, that all the temporary systems were finally in place.

It seems there is still much to learn about the 1916 rising, even ninety years after the event.

Irish Democrat

Cork No 3 IRA Commandant Tom Barry led one of the most devastating military actions against the British, but did not execute prisoners during the operation, writes Meda Ryan

THE AFTERNOON of the 28 November 1920 at Kilmichael, County Cork, marks a turning point in the War of Independence when the most decisive ambush was fought. (click photo to view)

Under the command of Tom Barry, thirty-six young Volunteers took on the dreaded Auxiliaries who were stationed in Macroom Castle. When the ambush was over, two Volunteers were dead and another was fatally wounded. Of the eighteen Auxiliaries, sixteen were dead, one thought dead survived, and another had escaped but was killed some hours later.

Controversy has surrounded this ambush because the accepted and established version that the Auxiliaries engaged in a false surrender, which sealed their fate, has been challenged inrecent years.

In 1998 Peter Hart, in Queen’s University, Belfast, now living in Newfoundland, stated that Tom Barry’s history of Kilmichael “is riddled with lies and evasions”. These are loaded words about a man known for his uprightness and courage, and who fought against great odds during the War of Independence.

In November 1920 the morale of the Volunteers nationally was very low, therefore this successful ambush raised the hopes of Irish citizens who had pledged to devote their energies to obtain independence from British rule.

In West Cork, as in areas countrywide, the Auxiliaries and Black and Tans made life difficult for citizens and Volunteers. In mid-1920 the Auxiliaries stationed at Macroom Castle had created terror among local citizens. They had shot dead two innocent men, injured and maimed for life many when they took pot shots at civilians who worked in fields. Their house raids, beating men, taunting women was their method of intimidation in order to dampen the spirits of Volunteers. The activities of these Auxiliaries encroached on the Cork No3 Brigade area. On Sundays they travelled in Crossley tenders as they went on their rampage. According to Tom Barry, there should be no further delay in challenging them. They had to be apprehended within Cork No. 1 Brigade area before they reached Gleann crossroads. (Cork County was divided into three Brigades.)

Barry, Training Officer and Commandant of Cork No3 Brigade Flying Column, carefully chose the location. At two am on the morning of 28 November the Column met at Ahalina (outside Enniskeane). Each man was armed with a rifle and thirty-five rounds of ammunition; a few had revolvers and Barry had two captured Mills bombs.

At three am on this extremely cold, wet night after Fr O’Connell had heard the men’s confessions at the roadside they set out through by-roads and crosscountry, mainly in silence. Locked in their own thoughts as the harsh November rain lashed against them, they trudged on. Pat Deasy, who had been ill during training, had been replaced by another man, but now well again had followed the Column; he pleaded with Barry to participate in the ambush. Barry agreed and sent his deputy home.

It was 8.15 am when the Column men reached the ambush position. They were wet, cold and hungry. Barry gave them their positions. He told them that the terrain allowed for no retreat. He divided the men into three sections with section three subdivided. Clad in an IRA uniform he stood in the open road and was backed by three picked marksmen. Three scouts took up positions, and two dispatch scouts were used as ‘runners’. The day dragged as the men, without food since six am the previous evening, lay in their rain-sodden clothes. As the day wore on it began to freeze so that the clothes froze on their bodies. All the time Barry stood in the open road fingering his Mills bomb.

At 4.05 pm the first lorry came round the bend and began to slow as it neared the uniformed figure. Barry hurled the bomb, blew the whistle and fired the automatic. There was sharp fighting, even hand to hand action. When the first lorry had been dealt with, Barry and the men at the command post moved towards the back of the second lorry of Auxiliaries which was being engaged by Section II. When the men were about half waybetween the two lorries they heard the Auxiliaries shout, “We surrender! We surrender!” Some actually threw away their rifles and the firing stopped. The Volunteers accepted the surrender. In Section II some Volunteers who believed it was over, stood up. But the Auxiliaries again took up their guns; some used their revolvers to open fire. Following this encounter three Volunteers were fatally wounded.

Realising that the Auxiliaries had made a false surrender Barry shouted to his men to retaliate, and commanded them not to stop until his final order. After a tough fight, when all the Auxiliaries appeared dead, Barry blew the whistle and gave the final ceasefire.

The knowledge of the Auxiliaries’ false surrender was in circulation shortly after the ambush, also named participants have confirmed this in interviews. Furthermore, contemporary British supporters - General Crozier (Auxiliary O/C) and Lionel Curtis (Imperial activist and adviser to Lloyd George) acknowledged the false surrender, as did Section commander Stephen O’Neill (The Kerryman) and Jack Hennessy (Bureau Military History) in Section II beside the fatally wounded Volunteers. So also did contemporary writers, Beaslai, O’Malley and MacCann.

Peter Hart has accepted that there was a surrender and says that Barry and his men killed prisoners. He bases his theory mainly on a ‘report’ (Imperial War Museum) alleged to have been written by Barry and captured, and also on anonymous interviews, two of which he conducted himself.

I have analysed the ‘report’ in detail in my book, Tom Barry: IRA freedom fighter and can find no evidence that Barry would have written it in the manner presented; it conflicts with evidential facts in several areas. For instance, there is one vital nugget of ‘evidence’ that Hart omits (for reasons he has yet to explain). After the ambush Barry climbed to where two men (Michael McCarthy and Jim O’Sullivan) had fallen. They were dead, and Pat Deasy was bleeding profusely from bullet wounds. As Barry had to refuse his comrade’s dying wish for water, he turned away. Barry ordered men to get a stretcher and a priest and doctor for him. Later, before they left the ambush scene, Barry halted the column in front of the rock where the two dead Volunteers’ bodies lay, and had them ‘present arms’. Having witnessed this scene, if Barry had composed the alleged report he would not have written: “Our casualties were: one killed, and two who have subsequently died of wounds …”.

Hart personally interviewed two people whom he says participated in the ambush - rifleman AA, 3 April, 25 June 1989, and scout AF,19 November 1989 - one of whom gave him a tour of the ambush site. This creates a logistical problem that only Peter Hart can solve. According to autobiographical details, all scouts and dispatch scouts were dead by 1971, and all after-ambush helpers and riflemen were dead by 19 November 1989.

Rifleman Ned Young, the last known survivor, was 97 when he died on 13 November 1989. Young’s faculties were impaired during his final years, so it would not have been possible for him to travel nor to relate events at the site without the knowledge of his family, with whom he lived for the last years of his life. They are unable to throw any light on this.

The public and interested historians are not well served when anonymous sources are employed to describe an important historical event. There is no material here that requires confidentiality eighty-five years after the event. Hart, insisting that Barry wrote the ‘report’, comes “to the conclusion that there was no false surrender” because it is not mentioned in the ‘report’. Yet he accepts there was a surrender, although this is not mentioned in the ‘report’ either.

After Volunteers accepted the surrender call, and when the Auxiliaries reactivated the fight, fatally wounding Volunteers, Barry, without any guarantee as to the outcome, took up the challenge. Therefore it was a fight to final ceasefire and consequently there were no prisoners. If the Auxiliaries in a military conflict shouted surrender and Volunteers accepted it, and Auxiliaries again used a firearm or firearms, then the surrender call was falsified thereby resuming an open fight. Once the Auxiliaries falsified their surrender call, as military men they had to accept the consequences. Prisoners may be taken after surrender; a false surrender (particularly one that results in fatalities) nullifies that possibility.

Meda Ryan is a former journalist and respected historian. She is author of several books, including The Real Chief - the story of Liam Lynch, and The Day Michael Collins was Shot. A paperback edition of her most recent book, Tom Barry - IRA Freedom Fighter, is published by Mercier Press, price £7.99 (€14.99)

http://uk.geocities.com/osin1776/

**We all know about Geourge Bush and his NSA and how he is spying on Americans, but how does this affect us and our use of the internet? You might want to read this article. Lots of supplemental links onsite

**Via cryptome

By OSIN
Project Quote: “You can tell a good spy by his ominous logo.” -Calvin & Hobbes

A special thanks to the GOP for providing the motivation to finish this project! >:P

During the time I was working on Project 4, the FBI and Infragard project, I kept coming across references about their Carnivore program. For those of you who are not familiar with it, that program was the FBI’s attempt to capture someone’s Internet traffic coming and going from a particular ISP. There are more details about it below, but it caused such an outcry in the US that the FBI changed the name to something more innocuous, like DCS1000. By the time I was coming to the end of the FBI project, the media revealed via a leaked source that the NSA had been spying on Americans within the US and bypassing all Constitutional requirements of search warrants, even bypassing the secret courts that were set up for national security reasons. So, nearly 230 years of the Republic is coming to an end because one beady-eyed prick in the White House rationalized away our Constitutional rights in the name of national security. So, I thought it only proper to take a quick look at the Agency which raped the Fourth Amendment- the NSA.

The NSA is the United States’ premier spy agency when it comes to eavesdropping on communications. I won’t dwell on their Echelon program and their eavesdropping capabilities because that has been done to death. Just look it up on Google. But, there was one particular area I was curious about. What is the NSA’s approach to monitoring the Internet? I can’t imagine they would’ve just left the most extensive communications system in modern times alone.

This project is about an assumption I’m making. And although it is a pretty big assumption, I have no doubt that someone is perusing the Internet traffic from Europe and the Middle East and it makes sense that it be the NSA. Think about it- a huge chunk of the Internet traffic is going through North America and what better opportunities for the NSA to catch that traffic than now! Don’t think you’re going through America to get to another country’s websites? For those of you in Europe, you should try doing a traceroute to a website in Japan and look at the IPs and machine names you go through to get there. Because the Internet was created by the US, they wield a huge control over where much of that traffic is directed, and which is I might add, why the US will probably never relinquish control of the Internet over to an international body.

>>Read on

BBC

Mr Finucane, 39, was shot dead in front of his family

The family of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane is to meet DUP leader Ian Paisley to discuss proposals for an inquiry into his murder.

Mr Finucane, 39, was killed by loyalist paramilitaries at his home in 1989.

His family have said they do not think an inquiry held under the Inquiries Act would be able to get the truth.

Ian Paisley Jnr confirmed the meeting would take place on Monday. He said: “They are entitled to a meeting and put what issues they want to put to us.”

“There are other inquiries that we hope to see proceeding, for example the investigation into the Billy Wright murder. We are prepared to listen,” he added.

Last week the Finucanes met with Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain to discuss the inquiry.

They have also held talks with Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey.

Mr Finucane’s killing was one of the most controversial in 30 years of the Troubles due to allegations of security force collusion.

Retired Canadian judge Peter Cory recommended separate inquiries into Mr Finucane’s murder, and three other controversial killings.

These were the killings of solicitor Rosemary Nelson, leading loyalist Billy Wright and Catholic father of two Robert Hamill.

The Finucane family, human rights campaigners and nationalist politicians, as well as Judge Cory, have expressed alarm at moves by the government to ensure the tribunal into Mr Finucane’s murder is held under the Inquiries Act, which was passed earlier this year.

They have claimed the Act will suppress the truth about what happened, with Amnesty International saying crucial evidence could be omitted from any final report at the government’s discretion.

The human rights group has urged judges not to sit on the inquiry into Mr Finucane’s death.

Sunday Life

Alan Murray
12 February 2006

A major surveillance operation on MI5 spy Denis Donaldson’s home to trap the IRA’s director of intelligence was abandoned - because it cost too much.

Around 40 officers attached to specialist police surveillance and bugging units were involved in the 2002 operation to ensnare veteran republican Bobby Storey.

But after four weeks of round-the-clock surveillance at Donaldson’s Aitnamona Crescent home in west Belfast, the order was given to pull the plug.

One senior officer involved in the operation told Sunday Life: “It was hugely expensive.

“Eventually, a decision had to be made whether to keep it going - in the hope of catching a much bigger fish - or move in and arrest Denis, whom we knew had been working for the (Special) Branch and MI5.”

Donaldson’s home was staked out from the beginning of October 2002, when a satchel containing sensitive Government communications and personal details of civil servants and senior Army officers was stashed there.

Both the satchel and a laptop computer containing the personal details of 1,400 prison officers had been stored at another house in west Belfast and both had been fitted with sophisticated movement-sensitive devices which enabled them to be tracked.

Donaldson - a long-term MI5 agent - hadn’t told his handlers about the IRA’s Stormont spy ring, because he didn’t wish to see close friends receive lengthy jail terms for handling photocopies of the stolen documents.

But when the satchel was moved to his home, he became a surveillance target for the Security Services.

It was hoped that Storey, who was regarded as the IRA’s director of intelligence and was blamed for the theft of a Special Branch contacts book from Castlereagh in 2002, would visit Donaldson to review the documents and maybe move them.

But after nearly a month of surveillance, the Chief Constable agreed to terminate the costly operation and raid Donaldson’s home to recover the copied documents.

Added the senior officer: “It was a worthwhile exercise, but the big fish didn’t turn up and Denis copped it rather than Storey. Donaldson could’ve played it different, but he was protecting someone and effectively ended his career as an agent.”

Sunday Life

Alan Murray
12 February 2006

Security Minister Sean Woodward is considering a report on the economic impact of closing Magilligan Prison.

A report from BDO Stoy Hayward on the impact on businesses in the Limavady area has been passed to the minister by the head of the Prison Service, Robin Masefield.

And while, in the short term, there are plans to build some new units at Magilligan, Mr Masefield confirms in a circular to staff last week that he is considering closing the jail and building a new prison in Ballymena, Antrim, Lisburn, Craigavon, Portadown or Dungannon.

The closure of Magilligan is being planned by the Prison Service despite Mr Masefield’s admission that the prison population here is expected to rise by 6pc year-on-year for the next five years, and by 5pc in the following years.

Currently there are 1,353 people locked up here - compared with 1,277 in February last year.

In the short term, the Prison Service is considering building 60 cellblocks at both Magilligan and Maghaberry to cope with the increasing prison population.

But in the longer term, consultations are taking place with the NIO and the Treasury about building a completely new prison away from the North West and shedding staff.

One senior prison service figure admitted that the fate of Magilligan was virtually sealed - and denied that the service was making the move to exploit the value of the land it was sited on.

Sunday Life

Convicted ‘terrorist’ tipped as Lord Mayor

Joe Oliver
12 February 2006

An IRA bomber is tipped to be the next mayor of Belfast.

Unionists reacted with fury at the news that former republican prisoner Caral ni Chuilin is Sinn Fein’s nominee for the mayor’s chair in the council’s centenary year.

Ni Chuilin was jailed for nine years in 1989 for her part in a Provo bomb-plot to wipe out RUC officers.

One unionist councillor told Sunday Life last night: “We would be implacably opposed to a former republican prisoner representing this council - particularly at a time when we are celebrating the centenary of the City Hall.”

Ni Chuilin (41) has emerged as the front-runner to succeed the DUP’s Wallace Browne when his term ends in May.

She was jailed in 1989 for nine years for a string of terrorist offences - including possession of explosives with intent and membership of the IRA - but served just four years of her sentence.

Ni Chuilin was co-opted on to Belfast City Council in 2003 as the representative for the Oldpark ward following the resignation of Gerard Brophy.

One senior Sinn Fein source insisted yesterday that the party had yet to nominate a candidate for the top post.

But he added: “Caral is a well-respected member of the community and is renowned for her hard work and dedication to human rights.”

Ni Chuilin - who was convicted under her anglicised name Caroline Cullen - also sits as a member of the Belfast Education and Library Board.

The only previous woman to be elected to the post of Lord Mayor was Ulster Unionist Grace Bannister in 1981.

Sitting Sinn Fein councillor Alex Maskey also made history in 2002 when he became the first republican to take the top post.

The 51-member council is virtually split down the middle - with the Alliance Party holding the balance of power.

But both the DUP and Ulster Unionists groups are to meet shortly to draw up a mayoral strategy.

One DUP councillor told us: “As the largest party in the City Hall, I think there would be support for us to take the post for a second term after the great work that Wallace [Browne] has done.”

slnews@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Guardian

Loyalist group is to wind down its paramilitary operations but will not surrender its arsenal

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday February 12, 2006
The Observer

Ireland’s oldest terror group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, is dissolving, The Observer has learnt, marking a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process.

A UVF leader said yesterday: ‘The UVF is going out of business because there is no need for it any more. The IRA’s war is over, republicans have accepted the principle of consent. It doesn’t make sense to go on. If we are not being attacked by armed republicanism any more, then there is no point in having a UVF.’

The UVF leader confirmed that the organisation plans to wind up all its paramilitary units and command structures. However, the UVF would not follow the IRA and decommission an arsenal that could arm up to two infantry battalions, he said. ‘The UVF and its political allies would have nothing to gain from decommissioning. The weapons will be put into deep freeze as a reassurance for those worried about future events.

‘But the UVF as an organisation will be no more. Members have three choices: they can go into full-time politics in the Progressive Unionist Party; they can go into community work in their areas; or they can simply leave and get on with the rest of their lives,’ he said.

The dissolution of the UVF, almost exactly 40 years after it was reconstituted, is a major boost for the peace process. Originally formed in 1912 by Sir Edward Carson in order to oppose Home Rule, the reborn UVF of 1966 fired the first shots of the Troubles.

UVF commanders have spent the past six months discussing its future with several thousand of its rank and file across the north of Ireland. Its leadership estimates that it will be able to stand down all units by the end of the year.

The pace of change within the organisation has quickened since the demise of its smaller rival, the Loyalist Volunteer Force. Last year, the UVF carried out a war of annihilation against the LVF, killing several of its leading activists in the Greater Belfast area.

The UVF leader said: ‘The loyalist dissidents are gone, the republican dissidents are in disarray and heavily infiltrated by the state. And when you realise that even the IRA was penetrated from the top, it only confirms what we have been thinking: the UVF as an army should no longer exist. There will be no more military parades, no firing over bonfires on 11 July, no more displays of arms and militaria.’

The UVF commander said that it was not collaborating directly with the other loyalist movement, the Ulster Defence Association, to end all loyalist terrorist activity. He dismissed claims that both organisations had re-formed the Combined Loyalist Military Command, the umbrella body that helped to bring about the 1994 loyalist ceasefires.

‘We are acting on our own, but I am certain the UDA is thinking on the same lines. The UVF leadership is relieved that it’s going this way. After 40 years, it’s time to go out of business,’ he added.

Sunday Times

DENIS WALSH
February 12, 2006

For Ballygalget, today’s club semi-final is just another chapter in a long tale of thriving on the most meagre resources
Leo Boylan’s house is set back from the eastern shoreline of the Ards Peninsula, high up on ground that slopes down to the Irish Sea. From here, on a clear summer’s day, you can see the Isle of Man to the right and “the rough end of Scotland” away to the left. In the evenings the Dublin to Liverpool ferry swans by and when a Canadian oil company speculated on the contents of the ocean bed in Boylan’s neighbourhood the exploration rig floated in full view, illuminating the night-time horizon “like a 15-storey hotel”.

In hurling’s pocket atlas, this is land’s end.

Between Boylan’s home and the water below is a ruin where Ballygalget hurling club held its first meeting, 67 years ago. Leo’s father-in-law, Willie Johnson, was an innocent witness to the gathering, a boy of eight among the club’s founding fathers. It is recorded in the minutes that Patrick Mason, the newly elected vice-chairman, was mandated by the meeting to “order goalposts, 10 hurling sticks and a hurling ball”.

Those denied a hurley from the club’s stock fashioned their sticks from waste timber or the roots of a furze bush. That was the beginning. Their little world is not a secret anymore. Fourteen years ago Sean McGuinness led Down to their first Ulster title since 1941 and the Ards Peninsula became a new and alternative destination for hurling tourists, like an unspoiled Pacific island; more Trailfinders than Budget Travel. As a county team and a hurling community they were a miracle of self-sufficiency and self-generating morale. Keeping on wasn’t a conscious thought. They hurled, whether anybody noticed or not.

Though the headlines of the story are familiar now the detail has never lost its power. Until you’ve been here you can’t fully appreciate the sense of separation. From Newry there are two roads to Strangford, narrow arteries clogged with the cholesterol of twists and bends. From Strangford the ferry brings you to the southern tip of the Ards Peninsula; just one ferry, over and back, at its own pace, the antithesis of rush hour. For them, every trip is a journey.

Willie Johnston remembers Ballygalget reaching their first junior county final in 1942. The match was played in Newcastle, which meant cycling to Portaferry, catching a bus to Newtownards and completing the journey by train. The three Ards clubs play in the Antrim senior league, which involves 180-mile round trips to north Antrim. A weekend down south for a challenge match? There’s little change from £1,000.

But you would be foolish and vain to think that their survival depended on contact with the greater hurling world. Hurling existed for nearly 60 years in Portaferry without the companionship of another club on the Ards Peninsula. As Willie remembers it, the hurling clubs in Ballycran and Ballygalget were conceived from a row between Portaferry and the county board. Portaferry cut itself off and decided to start an Ards league instead. They divided their club into three teams and donated half a dozen players to each of the fledging sides. By the time the row was resolved the Ards had a robust hurling identity and an independent state of mind.

As a people, they have a history of getting by and making do. For nearly 40 years Ballygalget led a nomadic existence around the parish, moving their goalposts to the land of the next benevolent farmer. At an AGM in the mid-1960s they decided to put down roots. At the same meeting Willie was elected treasurer and he inherited accounts showing a balance of £100. How the hell could they buy a field? One Catholic landowner rejected their approach, so they tried a Protestant, Tom O’Donnell. As Liam Dorrian remembers it, the field was worth £1500, but to turn his head they offered O’Donnell in excess of £2,000. Selling ground to the local GAA club was a big deal for a Protestant landowner in the late 1960s, but O’Donnell did it. He was immediately expelled from the Orange Order, who according to Dorrian tried to block the sale.

Clearly, the club didn’t have two grand but Joe Dynes, a builder and a Ballygalget man to his bone, wrote a cheque and the club paid him back over time. The only condition that O’Donnell imposed was that the tricolour wouldn’t be flown at the field while he was alive. When he died clubmen carried his remains on part of their final journey. According to Dorrian, there were as many Catholics at the funeral as Protestants.

In general, the Troubles didn’t intrude on the daily lives of people on the Ards Peninsula and relations were good between the two communities. Dorrian can remember a couple of Protestant lads from Portavogie playing football for the club. But they were forced to quit after Loyalists threatened them with violence and, occasionally, terror and devastation brushed against all of them.

The first of the clubhouse burnings took place in the early 1970s and over the years the arsonists kept returning. The proximity of the clubs to the loyalist town of Newtownards made them vulnerable and the attacks were in the dead of night, when the clubs were deserted and the chances of detection remote. Ballygalget didn’t suffer as much as the others but their turn came in 1991.

Because the paramilitaries took responsibility the club was entitled to state funding to rebuild the clubhouse and because there was so much voluntary labour from club members they were able to build a clubhouse twice the size of the one razed to the ground. It was a statement of defiance.

They’re a tight crowd — different, they would say, to their neighbours. Portaferry is a town club, Ballycran is a parish with a town at its centre; Ballygalget is distinctively rural. They don’t have a pub, a police station, an Orange Hall or a soccer team. Watson’s shop is the commercial hub of the community, a multiplex of petrol station, supermarket, hardware store and builder’s providers, with parking in the forecourt and the Watson family home overlooking the whole enterprise.

Work is scarce enough in the locality, but emigration has never been an issue. Nearly half of the panel work in the building trade and they commute to sites in Belfast or further afield. The pull of home brings them back. The club couldn’t sustain any population drain. The parish numbers about 700 people, which amounts to a third of Ballycran’s population and a fifth of Portaferry’s. Seamus Bailie remembers in the 1970s when they couldn’t field minor teams but such resource shortages have been rare.

On the field they have punched above their weight, once they got their act together. There came a time in the 1950s when they had to leave Gaelic football to one side. “When I say we played football, I use the term loosely,” says Paddy Branniff Sr. “We were losing too many players, too many were getting the line. If they were playing now they’d be interned for the things they did.”

Football was parked in 1958 but around that time Paddy and seven or eight of his mates dabbled in soccer and were suspended for a year. “When you were young you didn’t give a damn. We all crawled back after our suspension was up.” With everyone back on board Ballygalget won their first senior championship in 1959.

Sixteen years later, when they won their first Ulster title, Paddy was still playing along with a handful of others from the breakthrough team. The 1975 team was old at the time and had been relegated to Division Two of the Antrim League. Selectors were hard to find, an excellent Ballycran team were the reigning Ulster champions and hope was scarce. No matter, they won the Ulster title anyway. Paddy Sr won his last county championship in 1983 when his son, Paddy Jr, was the team’s teenage captain. He was 42. “I’d have played on only the selectors wouldn’t let me. You’ll be sitting by the fire long enough.”

The juniors accommodated him until he was nearly 50 and then he called it quits.

Paddy has a grandson coming up the ranks. So does Seamus Bailie. Willie Johnston’s has already made it: Gareth “Magic” Johnson will lead the attack against Newtownshandrum this afternoon. The team sheet is full of names that echo down the generations: Coulter, Clarke, Dynes, Watson, Johnson: Ballygalget names.

Seamus McGrattan, Ulster hurling officer for nearly 40 years, was in the club field one night last summer looking after a juvenile team. After a while he took stock of all the activity around him. His head-count finished at 90, “from boys of eight to men of 35”. He couldn’t think of a Ballygalget hurler who was absent from the field.

That’s the measure of them. Whatever happens in Portlaoise today, that will still be the measure of them.

AIB All-Ireland club hurling semi-final, Newtownshandrum (Cork) v Ballygalget (Down), Portlaoise, today, throw-in 2.30pm, TG4 4.10pm

Sunday Times

Liam Clarke
The Sunday Times
February 12, 2006

THE family of Gerard Devlin, who was stabbed to death in west Belfast, has accused the PSNI of failing to act when he was attacked in the past.

They have asked the police ombudsman and the chief constable to investigate whether the alleged inaction was to protect a police informer.

Devlin was stabbed to death on February 3 in Ballymurphy in front of at least 10 witnesses. Four members of the extended Notarantonio family have been charged with his murder.

After a week of violence, police have warned Devlin family members of threats to their lives. A campaign of intimidation has also been launched against the Notarantonios.

At midnight on Friday, a house belonging to Charlotte Burns, née Notarantonio, in Divismore Park was attacked by a petrol bomb, but she escaped injury. Burns claims she recognised several local IRA men, including a relative of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, among the attackers.

“We are very scared and we believe the IRA are encouraging this violence to destroy our family,” said Victor Notarantonio, a family spokesman. “The police told us we were in danger. We will have to leave, there is no doubt. At least 20 people will have to leave.”

Devlin’s relatives have condemned the violence, but blame years of police inaction. In a letter to Huge Orde, the chief constable, they state they are “a law-abiding family. We believe in the primacy of the police, but we feel let down by your force.” They ask whether any of the attackers were being protected by Special Branch.

Richard O’Rawe, a former republican prisoner who is married to Devlin’s aunt, Bernadette, believes the murder is a test case for the PSNI in west Belfast. “It goes against the grain for people in areas like this to talk to the police, but members of our family, including Gerard Devlin, were prepared to stick out their necks and make statements, naming names,” he said.

“The fact that no proper action was taken is a blow.”

Statements made to the police by Devlin and other witnesses naming those who tried to kill him in 2003 and 2005 were not included in a file sent to the Public Prosecution Service. In the May 2003 incident, Devlin had his throat cut and required 32 stitches. In 2005, his car was rammed and he was attacked with a pitchfork and spade before being threatened with a gun.

In a letter to Orde, Bernadette O’Rawe asks if the house to which the gunman fled after threatening Devlin is “on a list of houses that cannot be searched without special permission”.

She asks if any of the alleged attackers have “been under protection from the PSNI special branch, and if this is the real reasons why they got away with these attacks”.

The PSNI confirmed that Orde had received the letter from the family. “We take these matters very seriously and we will be keeping in regular contact with the family,” it said. “We are aware that the police ombudsman is investigating a number of complaints and we can assure the family that those investigations will receive our full co-operation.”

Devlin’s body was released by the police on Friday afternoon and his funeral takes place tomorrow.

Sunday Independent

THE GAA has described as “disgraceful” an article in Ireland on Sunday’s parent title the Mail on Sunday, which said that the recent parading of the Sam Maguire trophy at Celtic’s football ground demonstrated links between the club’s fans and the IRA.

The article, which was kept out of the Mail’s Irish editions, claimed the club was “at the centre of the storm after agreeing to allow a football trophy named after an IRA intelligence chief to be paraded around Celtic Park despite the club’s insistence that it ‘condemns’ support for paramilitary organisations”.

The attack on one of Ireland’s most revered and iconic sporting trophies was published after All-Ireland champions Tyrone were allowed to take the Sam Maguire Cup on a special lap of honour of the ground before the SPL match with Dundee United on January 28.

The Mail on Sunday, which shares much of its content with Ireland on Sunday and whose parent company last week launched the Irish Daily Mail, said Sam Maguire’s role in the IRA around the time of the Easter Rising in 1916 was a “major embarrassment for Celtic CEO Peter Lawwell”.

The Mail has a long history of virulent anti-Irishness, but even seasoned observers were surprised by the tone of the story. A GAA spokesman said that Celtic had forwarded the article to the GAA but the two organisations agreed it was so “laughable” they intend to take no further action.

He added: “The Sam Maguire Cup was named in honour of the man’s sterling work as secretary of the London County Board, and not for anything he did for the cause of national independence - however worthy. In short, I consider this a disgraceful piece.”

Guardian

Jo Revill and Ned Temko
Sunday February 12, 2006
The Observer

Details emerged last night of a shocking video which appears to show a group of British soldiers brutally beating and kicking defenceless Iraqi teenagers in an army compound.

The footage is said to show eight soldiers pulling four teenagers off the street following a riot and dragging them into their army base, before beating them with batons, as well as punching and kicking them.

An urgent Military Police investigation was under way last night into the events shown in the video. The Ministry of Defence issued the following statement: ‘We are aware of these very serious allegations and can confirm that they are the subject of an urgent Royal Military Police investigation. We condemn all acts of abuse and treat any allegation of wrongdoing extremely seriously.’

But the emergence of the footage, given to the News of the World by an anonymous whistleblower, will spark a huge controversy about the conduct of the army in Iraq. There were also fears that it could lead to more attacks on the British soldiers currently serving there.

The MoD has repeatedly given assurances that Iraqis who are captured are treated with respect and decency by British troops. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal involving Americans, dating back to 2004, shocked the world but Downing Street was adamant that there could not be any similar scandal involving the UK forces. However, there have been investigations by MoD prosecutors into a series of serious allegations of abuse by its troops in southern Iraq.

The video was apparently shot in secret by a corporal at a time when troops around Basra were dealing on a daily basis with street riots and insurgencies. Taken from a rooftop, the footage is said to show troops engaged in a running battle with youths, who are seen throwing a grenade which hits their compound.

The footage shows soldiers in combat fatigues chasing the men away, but then cuts to eight soldiers who return with four prisoners, who are marched to the compound gate and dragged inside.

In one of the most brutal scenes, a soldier punches one of the prisoners in the head and the stomach. He is then headbutted and kicked further.

Another scene shows a soldier walking up to one of the boys and kicking him hard between the legs from behind. The boy is seen doubling up in pain.

In some of the worst footage, a prisoner is kicked in the back and the body six times by two soldiers. As he struggles on the floor, one of the soldiers grabs him again by the shoulder, kicks him twice and then begins to hit him on the legs with a baton.

According to the newspaper report, the video also shows shocking footage of a soldier drawing back the blanket over an Iraqi corpse to display it close up to the camera as if it is a trophy. Another scene is said to show an Iraqi man being grabbed by three soldiers and forced to kneel behind a wall where he is kicked hard in the chest.

The video, lasting just over three minutes, is said to show at least 42 blows rained upon the four teenagers. The cries of the prisoners can be heard clearly according to the newspaper report.

The News of the World said it had decided not to reveal the unit or regiment of the troops involved in the video for security reasons. A spokesman said they received the video a few days ago and had given a copy to the MoD.

The Attorney General Lord Goldsmith will also want to see that the fresh allegations of brutality are fully investigated. His office, along with the MoD, was made fully aware of the video last Friday when officials held discussions with News of the World over the contents. There appears to be little doubt on the part of officials that it is genuine footage.

The new allegations will put more pressure on the government to hasten the departure of troops from Iraq. At present, there are 8,500 troops serving in Iraq, and officials have said they plan to begin redeployment in the next few months, with a view to bringing some of them back home by the end of the year.

The whistleblower who gave the video to the News of the World told the paper his aim was to try to prevent further abuses. The informant is quoted as saying: ‘These Iraqis were just kids. Most haven’t even got shoes on.’ He said the video had been shown by the corporal’s friends at their home base in Europe.

BBC

Pat Finucane: The picture used by loyalist killers

The killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane by the loyalist UDA/UFF remains one of the most controversial of 30 years of violence.

Loyalist paramilitaries shot Mr Finucane 14 times as he sat eating a Sunday meal at home, wounding his wife in the process. The couple’s three children witnessed the 1989 attack.

In its statement claiming the killing, the UFF said they had killed “Pat Finucane, the IRA officer”. While Mr Finucane had represented IRA members, the family vehemently denied the allegation - and have been supported in this by the police.

But, what has made the investigation into his murder so important to many in Northern Ireland is that it lies at the heart of allegations that some members of the security forces collaborated with loyalist paramilitaries to the extent that they could have stopped the killing if they had so wished.

>>Finucane Murder Timeline

High-profiles cases

Pat Finucane first came to public prominence because of his representation of paramilitary suspects facing charges of trial.

Just like many lawyers in the city, Protestant and Catholic, many of Mr Finucane’s clients came from paramilitary organisations facing terrorism-related charges.

In 1988, One of Mr Finucane’s most controversial client’s was Patrick McGeown, a suspected member of the IRA.

BRIAN NELSON

Recruited 1987
Infiltrates UDA
Becomes active in targeting shootings
Jailed 1992
Died April 2003

>>Stevens inquiry chronology

>>The report in full

Mr McGeown was accused of organising the murder of the two army corporals who had lost their way and got their car caught up in an IRA funeral cortege, an event that was captured on television and remains one of the most terrifying scenes of the Troubles.

Believing they were under attack, mourners dragged the two corporals from the car and took them to a sports ground. The men were shot dead on waste ground by IRA gunmen.

At an early stage of the case, Mr Finucane successfully argued there was insufficient evidence against his client.

During this time, some police officers questioning republican suspects allegedly told them what they thought of their solicitor.

“They told me that my solicitor [Finucane] was a Provo,” said Brian Gillen, a senior republican, in 1999. “‘He’s just the same as you. We’ll have him taken out.” And generally just running him down, at the same time trying to associate him with something he wasn’t associated with.”

Later, a number of loyalist paramilitary suspects who had been questioned at the police’s Castlereagh holding centre left reportedly having being told that Mr Finucane was a member of the IRA.

Family insulted

Mr Finucane’s son, Michael, now a solicitor himself, said the suggestion that his father was in the IRA was a grievous insult.

“It was easy for them to believe that he was a member of the IRA,” he told the BBC in 2002.

THE FAMILY

“I don’t believe the claim that was made by Nelson’s commanding officer that they were unaware of certain things, or that they were kept in the dark by their agent”.
Michael Finucane

“I think their limited mentalities did not stretch to differentiating between the role of the lawyer and the offence suspected of the client. The line between the two was not apparent to them.”

According to BBC investigations, army double-agent Brian Nelson was asked by his loyalist paramilitary chiefs to compile a dossier on Mr Finucane.

That dossier included a photograph of him leaving court with Mr McEwan.

Since the details of the alleged collaboration began to emerge, the question has always been how much did Nelson pass on to his army handlers?

The head of the Metropolitan Police in London, Sir John Stevens, has been investigating wider allegations of collusion since 1989. In April 1999 he launched a specific third inquiry into the allegations surrounding Mr Finucane’s death.

Criminal charges

Shortly after starting the new inquiry, the Stevens team charged former RUC Special Branch agent and loyalist quartermaster, William Stobie, in connection with the killing.

PANORAMA SPECIAL

>>Two-part investigation into collusion (June 2002)

Mr Stobie admitted having supplied the weapons. But he denied he knew the name of the target and insisted that he alerted his handlers that a shooting was imminent.

In November 2001, the case against Mr Stobie collapsed. But he did not live long to celebrate his freedom. Within weeks he had been shot dead outside his own home by loyalist gunmen.

Critically, army officers interviewed by Stevens have denied having knowledge of the plan to kill Mr Finucane.

The family do not accept this and have long campaigned for an independent inquiry.

“I don’t believe the claim that was made by Nelson’s commanding officer that they were unaware of certain things, or that they were kept in the dark by their agent,” said Michael Finucane.

“They trained them, they infiltrated them, they ran him, supported him and monitored his activities very closely. They did it over a long period of time, a number of years, and I am not prepared to accept their story that they only knew the half of it.

“It’s had a huge effect on all our lives, and so many people I think have been asked to swallow so much pain and have done so, my family included.

“But if we are prepared to do that, then we ought not to be expected to put up with lies and deceit as well.”

In September 2004, a loyalist accused of murdering the Belfast solicitor more than 15 years before pleaded guilty to the charge.

Ken Barrett, 41, entered the plea at the beginning of his trial in the Crown Court in Belfast.

At previous hearings, Barrett denied shooting Mr Finucane at his home in the north of the city in February 1989.

Pat Finucane Centre

Beyond Collusion: The UK Security Forces and the Murder of Patrick Finucane

‘This report examines allegations of state involvement in the murder of Patrick Finucane, a prominent Belfast human rights lawyer who was murdered on February 12, 1989. In this report, we piece together the evidence of state involvement that has emerged gradually in the 13 years since Finucane was murdered. We also present new allegations of security force involvement in the killing and subsequent cover-ups. With this report, we hope to force the UK government, by the weight of evidence, to finally carry out a public inquiry into Patrick Finucane’s murder’.

>>Read on

Mural of Pat Finucane

Photo by CRAZYFENIAN (Click >>here for larger view)

Relatives for Justice

The Killing of Pat Finucane

On 3 October 1997 the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Data Param Cumaraswany, having visited Belfast to investigate allegations of harassment and intimidation of defence lawyers by members of the RUC, called for a judicial inquiry into the murder of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane.

Pat Finucane was shot dead by two masked men on 12 February 1989 in front of his wife and three children. His wife, Geraldine, was also injured in the attack.

The killing was claimed by the UDA who said Finucane was an IRA man. This was denied by family members, friends and in public statements by the RUC.

• One of the weapons used in the attack was one of 13 weapons stolen from a British Army barracks in 1987 by a serving member of the British Army’s UDR regiment.
  

• The killing took place a few weeks after British minister Douglas Hogg said to the British parliament: I have to state as a fact but with great regret that there are in Northern Ireland a number of solicitors who are unduly sympathetic to the case of the IRA. Challenged, Hogg said: I state this on the basis of advice that I have received, guidance that I have been given by people who are dealing with these matters and I shall not expand on it further.
  

• The killing of Pat Finucane took place in the context of frequent allegations that RUC officers made regular threats against, or derogatory comments about defence lawyers to detainees. Such allegations have been recorded by Amnesty International, the London based British Irish Rights Watch, Helsinki Watch and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. Included in the allegations is a claim by Loyalist sources that UDA members detained at Castlereagh prior to the killing were told by RUC Special Branch that Patrick Finucane and a few other solicitors were helping to keep IRA gunmen out of prison. Similar allegations, instancing the inquiry by the UN Special Rapporteur continue to the present.
  

However, Brian Nelson, the British military intelligence agent who also served as chief intelligence officer of the UDA, alleged after his conviction on other charges that he had directly assisted in the targeting of Pat Finucane.

According to the journal written by Nelson, and quoted on the BBC Panorama programme on June 1992;

• Nelson was asked to gather information about Finucane some weeks prior his killing.

• He informed British intelligence officers of this request.

• He passed a photograph of Pat Finucane to UDA member Eric McKee just a few days before the killing.

• Loyalist sources claim that Nelson reconnoitered the Finucane home with the killers before the attack.
  

• Despite this warning Patrick Finucane was not informed of this threat to his life. A similar threat at the time, against another prominent lawyer, Paddy McGrory, was not relayed until two months after Pat Finucane’s death.
  

• Nelson was never charged in connection with the killing.

• His claims have never been examined in an open court.

• No one to date has been prosecuted for the murder of Pat Finucane.

• No one has been charged in connection with the murder. Three men were subsequently charged with possession of the murder weapon.

According to Ed Maloney, a journalist for the Sunday Tribune the man who asked Nelson for the photograph of Pat Finucane and who was subsequently brought to the Finucane home by Nelson was the head of the UDAs murder gangs. This man served a sentence for possession of scores of leaked documents along with four others. One of these was UDA leader Tommy Lyttle. All were arrested by the Stevens inquiry team. Like the Nelson trial itself a deal was struck which prevented the full details of collusion between British forces and loyalist murder gangs coming out in open court. In the Panorama programme Nelson names the man as Ernie McKee.

• The Steven inquiry did not interview Pat Finucane’s widow, his partner, Peter Madden pf the Madden/Finucane legal firm, or any of his clients to whom threats had been made against Pat Finucane himself.

• The Report of the International Human Rights Working Party of the Law Society of England and Wales in 1995 states:

There is credible evidence of both police and army involvement. We cite the most significant items below. There is further evidence in the hands of the police which we have not been given access.

The Goverrnment told the UN Special rapporteur that the DPP directed that there should be no prosecution against any officer in connection with Patrick Finucane’s death. Significantly the Government did not deny that there was collusion by the government or the security forces in relation to the murder.

The following threats were made against Patrick Finucane by RUC officers

• death threats by CID officers;

• false allegations by CID officers that he was a member of the IRA;

• threats by CID officers to pass his name and details to loyalist paramilitaries.

Our understanding is that none of these allegations has been investigated by the police, let alone tested in court. DS (Detective Sergeant RUC) Simpson told the inquest that some of them were investigated by the Stevens inquiry. John Stevens told us that as far as he could remember they were not. It is wholly wrong in our view that such allegations should remain unexamined.

Since the inquest two British army officers have admitted army participation in the UDA murder plot that involved Patrick Finucane. The context of each admission is very different; one in a television programme and one on oath in Court. Yet they are both credible. Together they raise serious questions which require further investigation.

(i) Admissions by Brian Nelson

Brian Nelson was a British army intelligence officer who was placed in the UDA in 1987. He is currently serving prison sentences arising out of his involvement, while acting as an intelligence officer, in other terrorist murders. (Note: Nelson is now a free man. This 1995 report predates Nelson’s release in 1996).

His admissions to involvement in the Finucane murder were transmitted in a BBC Panorama programme on 8 June 1992.

He claimed:

• He was asked weeks before the murder of a UDA terrorist what he could find out about the movements of Patrick Finucane;

• He told his army handlers of the UDA interest in Patrick Finucane’s movements;

• 3 days before the murder he handed a UDA terrorist a photograph of Patrick Finucane leaving court with his client Patrick McGeown.

(ii). Admissions by a British Army colonel known as J. Colonel J gave evidence on oath at Belfast Crown Court in mitigation for Brian Nelson. He said:

• Brian Nelson was infiltrated by the army into the UDA

• The army directed Brian Nelson to work in and report on the intelligence structure of the UDA. Nelson learned the identity of UDA assassination targets, sometimes suggesting them himself. He then assisted the UDA by providing it with information, including photographs, on those to be assassinated. Nelson reported this to his army handlers.

• Brian Nelson had provided the UDA with a photograph of a targeted victim leaving court. The army was aware that this individual was a target for assassination.

• The army told the RUC of assassination plots so that the RUC could warn the victims and prevent the murders which Nelson helped to plan.

We received no evidence that Patrick Finucane was warned that he was a target for assassination.

We asked the DPP, his deputy and John Stevens about the Panorama allegations. If Panorama was right, Nelson had admitted to conspiracy to murder Patrick Finucane. How then could there not be sufficient evidence to prosecute him? They said they could not comment on individual cases. However they indicated that the full journal was not in police hands. 

We note that in spite of his admission on oath, Colonel J has not been prosecuted.

John Stevens told us he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who was responsible for the murder. He also said he knows the truth about Brian Nelson and the full facts concerning his involvement in collusion and murders. We do not. The public does not.

While the facts are not disclosed by the police and known to the public only through television, they remain untested, the murderers remain unpunished, the allegations of collusion persist, and a cloud remains hanging, not just over the legal profession, but over the system of justice itself.

A thorough, wider investigation is required!

The British government has yet to [adequately] respond to the call from the UN Special Rapporteur for a judicial inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane.

• The widow of Pat Finucane has issued a civil suit against the Ministry of Defence for damages for allegedly failing to pass on intelligence warnings that he was the target of loyalist gunmen.
  

• Patrick Finucane’s brother, Martin, stated that RUC road-blocks had been in place in close proximity to the Finucane residence up to an hour before the murder; their removal prompted allegations that the RUC had cleared the area so that the gunmen could have unfettered access to and from the house. Reports of police operations on that evening would be one documentary source to be examined in a wide-ranging independent inquiry into collusion.
  

• Allegations of collusion by British forces with loyalist paramilitaries have yet to be the subject of an independent inquiry.
  

• The killing of Pat Finucane and the apparent lack of a thorough investigation into his killing has had wide ramifications for the public perception of the rule of law.
  

• The claims by Brian Nelson, an agent of British military intelligence, of his direct involvement in the targeting of Pat Finucane places him at the centre of the wider picture which needs to be thoroughly and independently investigated. That is allegations of collusion between British forces and loyalists and the South African arms shipment used to re-arm the loyalist paramilitaries in the last 1980s as well as the murder of Pat Finucane.
  

• It also adds to the wider question of the credibility of earlier investigations initiated by the British authorities including the Widgery Tribunal into Bloody Sunday and more recently the Stalker/Sampson inquiry into the shoot-to-kill policy. The credibility of these inquiries are already seriously in question.

Reference to the latter in particular, statements by the British authorities repudiating the existence of a shoot-to-kill policy by British forces are not substantiated by evidence of an official will 

• to investigate fully and impartially such incidents

• to make the facts publicly known

• to bring the perpetrators to justice, or

• to bring legislation concerning such matters into line with international standards.