SAOIRSE32

Troops Out Movement

Irishman Diarmuid O’Neill was born and raised in West London, England.

Six weeks prior to his murder he was put under intensive police surveillance due to his alleged involvement with an IRA active service unit.

Besides producing intensive video documentation, the police bugged Diarmuid O’Neill’s hostel room and searched it on at least one occasion. The surveillance operation resulted in extensive video footage that reportedly covered the whole six weeks except for the night of the raid on the hostel itself.

On 23rd September 1996, Diarmuid O’Neill was shot dead by two officers from Scotland Yard’s tactical firearms group, SO19.

The British Police unit shot the almost naked, defenceless, unarmed man six times whilst he was attempting to surrender.

When the police opened fire on Diarmuid O’Neill, he had already showed both his hands clearly through the door of the hostel room and his friend Patrick Kelly had shouted “We give up - we are unarmed”. The other occupants of the room recall the police shouting “Shoot the fucker” as Diarmiud opened the door.

One police officer was seen standing with his foot on Diarmuid’s head as he lay dying.

He was dragged bleeding and mortally wounded down six concrete steps like a rag doll, the blood from his wounds marking each step.

He was denied immediate medical treatment.

The initial police briefings justified the killing as the result of a gun battle and said that a bomb factory had been discovered in the hostel.

An audio tape of the raid by the police exposed the police version of events as a lie and lead only to the conclusion that Diarmuid O’Neill was murdered.

Throughout the tape Diarmuid O’Neill was clearly complying with all police requests, and was seen by the police to be unarmed and yet was still shot six times.

The murder and subsequent inhumane treatment of Diarmuid O’Neill has been the subject of a Police Complaints Authority investigation.

Despite all the evidence presented to them, the Crown Prosecution Service failed to bring charges against any police officer involved in the murder.

The trial of Brian McHugh and Patrick Kelly, arrested at the same address in Hammersmith, ended in December 1997. The disclosures and evidence presented at that trial clearly exposed Diarmuid O’Neill’s killing as murder.

The policeman who shot Diarmuid O’Neill (who was named only as ‘officer Kilo’ at the trial) gave contradictory evidence in court and should now be made to stand to account for his actions.

The Justice for Diarmund O’Neill Campaign believes that the responsibility for Diarmuid’s death goes beyond the actions of the man who pulled the trigger.

The police, security forces and Home Office must also be held accountable.

Only an Independent, International, Public, Judicial Inquiry can ensure that justice is seen to be done for the family of Diarmuid O’Neill.

Join the Troops Out Movement in demanding an independent public inquiry into the murder of Diarmuid O’Neill.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL - United Kingdom

During a police raid on 23 September 1996 unarmed Diarmuid O’Neill, aged 27, was shot and killed in a hotel by an armed police unit. On suspicion of involvement in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Diarmuid O’Neill had been under intensive police surveillance during the six weeks preceding his death. The observation, carried out by the Metropolitan Police of London, was supposed to culminate in the arrest of Diarmuid O’Neill and his two companions Brian McHugh and Patrick Kelly. In the immediate aftermath of the raid the media suggested on the basis of unattributable briefings that there had been armed violent resistance to arrest by the three. However, evidence, which emerged later, indicated that the three suspects complied with all the police’s demands during the raid. More importantly, in contrast to the media’s version of events, it was revealed that none of them was in possession of firearms or explosives at the time of the raid. A subsequent investigation into the incident was supervised by the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) and conducted by the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Metropolitan Police. After almost two years of investigating, however, it resulted in a report which concluded that there was not enough evidence to prosecute the police officers involved in the killing.

Diarmuid O’Neill was born and raised in West London. Six weeks prior to his killing he was put under intensive police surveillance due to his alleged involvement with an IRA active service unit. Commander John Grieve, then the head of Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Branch, stated that the extent of that operation exceeded that of others carried out in Britain by far. Besides producing intensive video documentation, the police bugged Diarmuid O’Neill’s hotel room and searched it on at least one occasion. The surveillance operation resulted in extensive video footage that reportedly covered the whole six weeks except the night of the raid on the hotel itself.

It was decided that the arrest should be conducted as an armed raid on the hotel, where Diarmuid O’Neill was staying with Brian McHugh and Patrick Kelly at that time, on 23 September 1996. In preparation for the raid the participating officers – members of the Metropolitan Police’s firearms squad SO19 – were shown video footage of the aftermath of the IRA’s Canary Wharf bombing in February of the same year.(1) The officers were informed that the men in the hotel room may possess and make use of hand grenades, explosives and weapons. Furthermore, the officers were allowed to carry ‘Rip’ with them, the most potent form of CS gas available ‘’which had required prior Home Office approval for its use'’.(2) Although officers in court claimed that CS gas was only brought to be used in an emergency, the excessive use of the substance during the raid raises some issues.(3) Amnesty International is concerned that the substance had not been tested appropriately and thus the extent of its effects were not perfectly clear. Thus, the officers involved did not take into account the ways in which the actions of the suspects in the room would be affected, nor did they appear to have drawn conclusions about state of well-being of the suspects, considering the fact that they themselves were incapacitated by the gas seeping into the corridor.

On 23 September at 4.30 a.m. SO19 arrived at the hotel and apparently things went wrong from the start. To get access to the premises, where Diarmuid O’Neill was staying with his companions, and catch the three suspects by surprise the police had been supplied with an electric power key by MI5, which had previously been used on several occasions when police had entered and searched the room. However, that night the key would not fit the lock, leaving the officers unable to open the door. The new situation prompted them to make use of an enforcer. This spring-loaded battering ram, that should have broken down the whole door, merely hit a hole in it. At the same time, the decision was taken to make use of ‘Rip’, which was fired through the rear window into the room.(4) Not only were the suspects affected by the gas, but also the officers were forced to flee the scene to be sick outside as the gas started seeping through the hole in the door into the corridor. Police stated later that it had been left as a voluntary matter as to whether individuals chose to bring gas masks or not. Only two of the officers returned to continue the operation; one of them, who was code-named ‘Kilo’ during the trial against Brian McHugh and Patrick Kelly, would later fire the fatal shots at Diarmuid O’Neill. The officer in charge of the raid, however, stayed outside.

Obviously, by the time the battering ram had been used the suspects were well aware of the presence of the police. The recording device, which had been installed in the suspects’ room, helped to reconstruct what happened. From the beginning the suspects made clear that they were unarmed and would surrender. In the police’s official transcript of the tape one of the persons in the room – supposedly Diarmuid O’Neill – can be heard shouting ‘’We give up!'’, ‘’We’re unarmed!'’, ‘’Okay, we’re down, we’re down!'’ and ‘’They’re up, we’re on the deck!'’ in response to the police officers’ demands. According to the tape, the officers ordered Diarmuid O’Neill to open the door, after they had made sure that Brian McHugh and Patrick Kelly were down on the floor. Diarmuid O’Neill complied with the officer’s demands, confirmed that they were unarmed several times and tried to opened the door as he was ordered to do. It would not open straight away, though, reportedly because it had been battered and broken by the enforcer. However, Diarmuid O’Neill would continue to try and thus follow the police’s instructions up to the time when officer ‘Kilo’ shot him three times in the abdomen and lower chest, hitting his spine and causing him to fall to the ground. He was shot another three times as he was falling. The officers then entered the room. The post-mortem examination of Diarmuid O’Neill’s body would later reveal a ‘’patterned'’ bruise on his scalp which according to the Home Office’s pathologist might have resulted from ‘’an individual treading on his head'’.(5) Heavily bleeding and severely injured, he was then dragged down the steps and outside the building where he was denied vital medical care for 25 minutes despite the presence of an ambulance. He subsequently died in hospital. Patrick Kelly and Brian McHugh were arrested. Directly before the first burst of shots was fired one of the police officers was recorded shouting something, which according to Brian McHugh was a command to shoot; one of the officers commented on the sight of severely injured Diarmuid O’Neill: ‘’Dead as a fucking rat!'’.(6)

Immediately after the incident the media published wrong information regarding the incident on the basis of unattributable briefings. This included the raid having involved a gun battle, explosives being found on the premises and witnesses that talked of exchange of gun fire and cries of ‘’Put down your guns!'’. Although these stories were denied and withdrawn within one day, the British public had been led to believe the previously published lies and – helped by the crude media coverage of the corrections – was thus unaware of the controversies surrounding the killing.

In the aftermath of the above events, the PCA supervised an investigation conducted by the Metropolitan Police. Despite the evidence that was available, including the official recording of the event by the bugging device and the results of the post-mortem examination, after two years of investigation the PCA handed over a report to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which stated that ‘’there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the police officer'’.(7) They reasoned that

‘’[t]he officer who shot Diarmuid O’Neill has said that he did so in the belief that he was acting in self-defence. […] There is no evidence to show that the Police Officer’s account is false or that his belief about the danger he thought he faced was not honestly held.'’(8)
However, the outcome of the investigation is not convincing at all. Several arguments can be put forward to challenge its validity. Firstly, the investigation was conducted by Metropolitan Police officers, initially by one officer, who retired during the investigation, and then another officer, from the same force that had taken part in the raid. Secondly, the officer who shot Diarmuid O’Neill was not interviewed until some 23 months had passed.(9) Thirdly, the report, which was only finished after two years of investigation, thereby exceeding the maximum length of 120 days as stated in the PCA’s own charter, was never made available to the public. Fourthly, the PCA initially appointed an investigating officer who was about to retire. Questioned about the decision to do so by a representative of the Justice for Diarmuid O’Neill Campaign, Alan Potts of the PCA argued that it was convenient as the officer (i.e. of the Metropolitan Police) was nearby and also known as a ‘’capable and good chap'’.(10) The report was finally handed over to the CPS in April 1999. They decided, after six months of consideration, that no further action should be taken and no charges were to be filed against any police officer involved in the raid. Amnesty International considers that the PCA report should now be made public.

In October 1999, Hammersmith coroner Dr John Burton requested that Paul Boateng MP, deputy Home Secretary and Minister of State for Home Affairs, consider setting up a public inquiry into the murder of Diarmuid O’Neill. Moreover, a spokesperson for the coroner confirmed that notice had also been given to Home Secretary Jack Straw, who together with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, would have to decide whether the inquest should go ahead. However, in a subsequent letter to Diarmuid O’Neill’s relatives, junior Home Office minister Charles Clarke stressed that the minister was ‘’not persuaded that the circumstances justify a judicial inquiry'’.(11)

Amnesty International is concerned about the circumstances in which Diarmuid O’Neill, an unarmed man, was shot dead while reportedly fully complying with police orders to surrender. The organization is also concerned about the use of very potent CS gas ‘Rip’ which incapacitated everyone at the scene; the denial of vital medical care to a severely injured man, despite an ambulance being close by; and about the misleading information about the incident given to the media. Amnesty International is also concerned that the authorities failed to carry out an independent, prompt and impartial investigation into the full circumstances of the incident.

Amnesty International therefore urges the authorities to initiate an independent and impartial inquiry into the full circumstances surrounding the killing of Diarmuid O’Neill to clarify these disputed circumstances and establish whether there is enough evidence to bring criminal charges against the officers involved in this incident.(12)

KEYWORDS: POSSIBLE EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTION1 / USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE1 / POLICE / INVESTIGATION OF ABUSES / IMPUNITY / NON-GOVERNMENTAL ENTITIES AS VICTIMS /
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(1) This refers to the Canary Wharf bombing of 9 February 1996. The bombing resulted in a number of casualties and two deaths at the scene.
(2) Tracey Davanna: “Why Was Diarmuid O’Neill Killed ?” in Fortnight, November 1999, p. 12
(3) Patrick Kelly, Brian McHugh and two others were charged with and tried for conspiring to cause explosions and with possessing explosives. It was during this trial that the officers involved in the raid were questioned about the incident in the hotel.
(4) The pathologist carrying out the post-mortem examination of Diarmuid O’Neill’s body even found wounds on the back “that could be the result by the impact of CS gas rounds against the back of the deceased” [cf. footnote 5]
(5) The post-mortem examination was conducted by Dr Iain Eric West at Guy’s Hospital, London. The quotes are taken from his report which was written on 25 September 1996.
(6) Although the latter of these quotations appears in the police`s official transcript of the recording of the incident, the first one caused some controversy during the trial mentioned in footnote 3. According to the police transcript the words said are an order to shut up (“Shut the fuck up!”). Brian McHugh, however, claimed that the words in question were a command to kill (“Shoot the fucker!”).
(7) This quote is taken from the report of the PCA, handed over to the CPS on 11 April 1999.
(8) Ibid.
(9) After Paul Philippou of the Justice for Diarmuid O’Neill Campaign had met the PCA to discuss the report, he summarized their argument to delay the interview with ‘Kilo’ as follows: ”They [the PCA] said it was standard procedure to talk to all the other officers first and then to question him [Officer ‘Kilo’]. That sounds very reasonable but only if the time period is quite short—not if it is two years.” [Tracey Davanna: “Why Was Diarmuid O’Neill Killed ?” in Fortnight, November 1999, p. 13]
(10) Tracey Davanna: “Why Was Diarmuid O’Neill Killed ?” in Fortnight, November 1999, p. 12
(11) “Minister Rejects Inquiry Pleas” in The Irish Democrat, December 1999 / January 2000
(12) Amnesty International has already expressed its concerns in earlier publications: Amnesty International, News Service 170/96, 26 September 1996: “United Kingdom: Killing of Diarmuid O’Neill Raises Serious Questions”, AI Index: EUR 45/12/96; and Amnesty International, 30 September 1996: “United Kingdom: Killing of Diarmuid O’Neill”, AI Index: EUR 45/14/96.

AI Index: EUR 45/014/2000 1 January 2000

Irish Democrat

THE YEAR 2006 is one of important reflection. Irish people in Britain, Ireland and around the world will commemorate the anniversaries of the 1981 hunger strike against Britain’s criminalisation policy and the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland.

Many will also be remembering 27-year-old IRA volunteer Diarmuid O’Neill, a native of west London, shot dead by the London Metropolitan police in disputed circumstances ten years ago this September.

Diarmuid O’Neill’s death demonstrated that the will of the British establishment to execute Irish insurgents remained implacable, 80 years after they executed the leaders of 1916.

In the cases of 1981 and 1916, the sacrifices of Irish insurgents created an emotional dynamic and delivered a political context where the republican social revolution of achieving a free Ireland could be driven forward. They served to reveal the true nature of colonial rule in Ireland.

In the case of Diarmuid O’Neill, the sacrifice of the last IRA volunteer to be killed on active service, created anger at another ’shoot-to-kill’ incident, but revealed as much about the nature of the republican leadership’s Tuas document - the so-called Tactical Use of Armed Struggle - as it did about London’s duplicitous role in Ireland. The two, many would argue, were at this stage inextricably linked. The tuas strategy had no tactical use in terms of political objectives other than of placating a militant armed constituency, while manoeuvring tit into into a position of working with what became the Good Friday agreement and the unionist “principle of consent”. Two years after Diarmuid O’Neill’s death and after assurances of a “no return to Stormont” and “no decommissioning”, the agreement was signed.

Although there were logical reasons for going down the constitutional path taken by republican leaders, the role of British military intelligence in this process remains a disconcerting thought in the minds of many republicans in Britain and Ireland. This has undoubtedly been exacerbated by the means of manipulating the revolutionary collectivism of the movement employed by Sinn Fein leaders to pursue the peace strategy. Many will be remembering Diarmuid O’Neill with this in mind.

No one would attempt to seriously deny a merging of Sinn Fein short-term political strategy and British intelligence objectives took place during the period leading up to the agreement, mediated by British ‘agents of influence’ and high-level informers within IRA departments.

Evidence for this is emerging bit by bit. Although there is no evidence to suggest that Sinn Fein leaders were complicit in this coalescence it would seem beneficial for them to address the issue, particularly after the public support shown for the agent Alfredo Scappaticci.

In commemorating the past we must also seek to learn the lessons of history, so that mistakes made in the past are not repeated. While Britain and many unionists have perennially failed in this respect, republicans too must avoid doing the same. Our problem today is: how can we do so when so much of our recent history is shrouded in self-imposed secrecy? How can we build a British-based campaign to transcend a partitionist arrangement in Ireland when we are denied the facts concerning its historical precedents?

In this year of commemorating our dead, the fact is that the secretary of state for Northern Ireland Peter Hain and Irish taioseach Bertie Ahern have capitulated to DUP demands to form an institutionalised political vacuum in the north, allowing New Labour to further pursue its agenda of imposing neo-liberal reforms.

The social infrastructure of schools, hospitals - and with the introduction of business rates this month, even its private-sector industries - are being destroyed. Irish republicans can do little to strop it.

How did we reach this point? What roles did Alfredo Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson play in it? The two men were debriefed by republicans. A way of disclosing this information would not only be useful in addressing republican concerns and de-mystify the struggle between Britain and Irish republicans, it would be in Sinn Fein’s best interests. If such information was to be disclosed selectively by those hostile to the peace process, the consequences for the party would be significant.

In the wake of Mr Donaldson’s violent death in Donegal and the murky circumstances surrounding it, the need for disclosure has become even more apparent. The current situation, in the absence of armed conflict does offer real, positive opportunities for pursuing a radical programme towards Irish unity and, may be, democratic socialism in Ireland. The war is over and to the benefit of society in Britain and Ireland today. A new range of political opportunities have opened up.

However, it would be foolish to think that agents are not still affecting republican policy objectives in Ireland, and not only within Sinn Fein. Other Irish parties, the civil service, police and military have never been below the sights of British intelligence when recruiting agents.

There is as much need to protect the national integrity of Irish democratic institutions as there is to protect the integrity of a political movement. The exposure of informers is a welcome development. And in commemorating the death of Diarmuid O’Neill, it would be fitting for us to know more.

Derry Journal

26 May 2006

DR. RAYMOND McClean - who attended most of the post mortem examinations of those shot dead on Bloody Sunday - has spoken for the first time of the “emotional distress” he experienced while giving evidence to the Saville Inquiry.

The retired Derry GP claims he was “unfairly treated” during his testimony to the probe in December 2001.
Speaking to the ‘Journal’ this week, Dr. McClean - who told the Saville tribunal that some of the Bloody Sunday dead may have been shot by deliberately tampered ‘dum dum’ bullets - claimed his credibility as a witness had been called into question during his evidence.
“On an emotional basis,” he said, “I left the witness box distressed and totally fatigued.
“I felt that, for the first time in my professional career, my personal integrity had been very seriously attacked. I also felt that I had been left with no adequate means of reply or redress.”
During his evidence, claims Dr. McClean, he endured a particularly “lengthy and arduous cross examination” from Edwin Glasgow QC - senior counsel for most of the British soldiers at the Inquiry.
This cross-examination, says the GP, left him “physically exhausted.”
This, he says, was in direct contrast to his testimony to the Cameron, Himsworth and Scarman probes which took place in the late 1960s.
“In each of these investigations I felt entirely comfortable, in that I was allowed to give my evidence without hindrance and was treated with respect at all times.
“My experience in giving evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry was entirely different.”
Dr. McClean - who had no personal legal representation at the Inquiry - believes he received no “protection” during his evidence to the tribunal.
He added: “My experience at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry is probably best explained by focusing on its logical and emotional aspects.
“Turning to the logical experience, I left the witness box frustrated and with the clear understanding that I had not been given the opportunity to put forward evidence which had come to my attention since I had submitted my original written statement to the tribunal.”
Emotionally, he says, he was treated unfairly with the “major emphasis” being to question his credibility as a witness.
Tribunal chairman, Lord Saville, however, expressed the opinion that the doctor had not been ‘unfairly treated.”
Dr. McClean says he has since written to the Inquiry seeking an apology.
“No apology has, as yet been received,” he said. “However, I shall continue to live in hope.”

BN.ie

26/05/2006 - 14:56:17

A memorial for two teenage victims of a loyalist car bomb is to be built in a small Cavan town, it emerged today.

were killed instantly when the no-warning car bomb exploded in Belturbet on December 28, 1972.
Geraldine O’Reilly, 14, and Patrick Stanley, 16
The Remembrance Commission, which is funding the construction of the memorial with Cavan County Council, said the death of the two teenagers had deeply affected their families.

“As the years have passed there has been no dilution of the grief they have endured and Christmas and the New Year are times of sadness for them and a constant reminder of their loss,” said a spokesman.

Patrick Stanley, from Clara, County Offaly, was working with a gas delivery lorry and was due to leave Belturbet that day. But he had to stay overnight due to bad weather conditions and he was calling his family from a phone box to tell them this when the car bomb went off.

He played as a goalkeeper in soccer, gaelic football and hurling and had been nominated for an under-21 GAA All-Star award before he died.

Geraldine O’Reilly lived two miles outside Belturbet and was travelling to the town to get a bag of chips at the time of the bomb. She was a keen Irish dancer and her mother left her dancing costume and school uniform hanging on her bedroom door for years afterwards.

The new memorial in Belturbet will show the teenagers sitting back to back on a pile of books, with Patrick holding a football and Geraldine a pair of dancing shoes.

It will be designed by the artist, Mel French.

“The memorial will be placed in a central location in the town so that it will serve as a reminder to the community and visitors to Belturbet of the two young people who lost their lives on that awful evening in 1972,” said the Remembrance Commission spokesman.

The Belturbet bombing was one of several investigated on by Judge Henry Barron, who found that loyalists were the most likely culprits. However, no-one was ever charged in connection with the bombing.

The families of Geraldine O’Reilly and Patrick Stanley both gave moving evidence about the effect of the bombing to the Oireachtas sub-committee on Justice in January last year.

His sister Gretta Farrell told how her parents had learnt about the bombing through a television newsflash.

“As it was Christmas, they were all up quite late at home. Mam and dad said to them, “We will say the Rosary now, before we go to bed, for those two people.”

After learning that it was his son involved, her father mounted a 30-year campaign to get justice without success.

“Over the years he has written to every Minister for Justice but has never received any help or any indication of why it happened. One Minister for Justice told him to forget it, that it had happened a long time ago and to move on,” said Mrs Farrell.

The sister of Geraldine O’Reilly, Frances McCann, told the committee how her family had never been able to enjoy Christmas since the December 28 bombing.

“Geraldine was a very happy young girl of 15. Occasionally she would be allowed to go to a dance with a sister or a couple of friends. She had lovely friends and was very happy at school and had everything to live for.”

BBC - Scotland

An automatic pistol and live ammunition have been found at the Fife home of a member of the banned loyalist paramilitary organisation, the UDA.

Moffat pleaded guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh

Steven Moffat, 45, from Buckhaven, pleaded guilty to belonging to “a proscribed organisation”, within the meaning of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Moffat admitted a further breach of the Terrorism Act by possessing handgun ammunition, clothing and other items.

He was remanded in custody until his sentence next month.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard how Ulster Defence Association paraphernalia was found in Moffat’s flat.

First offender Moffat originally denied membership of the banned organisation but when detectives drew attention to the UDA tattoo on his arm he admitted he had been asked to join in a Belfast pub three years earlier.

The charge said that the discovery of the handgun gave rise to suspicion that it was for the purpose of preparing or instigating an act of terrorism.

Moffat also pleaded guilty to two Firearms Act charges relating to the 9mm Browning pistol and two magazines of 9mm ammunition found during the search of his flat on 10 February.

Solicitor advocate Gordon Martin, defending, said jobless Moffat had family connections in Northern Ireland and had been a long-standing member of the Orange Order and sympathetic to the notion that Northern Ireland should remain within the UK.

He said: “He appears to have been a frequent visitor to Northern Ireland to visit family, in particular his son, and met individuals in licensed premises and became involved in conversations with those individuals.

Remanded in custody

“Perhaps in drink and in bravado he was persuaded to join that particular organisation.”

Mr Martin said once a member, the UDA was not the kind or organisation one could easily leave.

“He involved himself in something way over his head,” the lawyer added.

Advocate depute Adrian Cottam, prosecuting, said that in a football boot bag under the mattress they found the Browning wrapped in cling film.

Firearms experts said it was in full working order.

Moffat claimed he had been given the bag to keep for someone else.

BN.ie

26/05/2006 - 12:23:28

The British government is believed to be planning to put the work of the Stormont Assembly on hold just two weeks after recalling the body as part of efforts to restore devolved government.

The move comes amid fears that the SDLP may decide to join Sinn Féin in boycotting debates at the Assembly.

Sinn Féin is refusing to take part in the debates because it claims the Assembly has been established without any real powers to make decisions on the items brought before it.

Pictures of empty nationalist benches are not the message the British government wants the world to see and northern secretary Peter Hain is believed to have planned no business for the Assembly next week.

Letters may shortly be sent to assembly members telling them the body will be on hold for the foreseeable future.

Daily Ireland

Inmate is transferred from England to Portlaoise

By Connla Young
26/05/2006

Campaigners have called for the speedy repatriation of all Irish prisoners serving time in English jails after a Co Louth republican was transferred to Portlaoise this week.
Dundalk man Jim McCormack was flown from England on Tuesday and will now serve the remainder of a 22-year sentence in Ireland.
McCormack was jailed for 22 years in 2003 for causing explosion in England and is one of seven republicans who have applied to be returned to Ireland to see out their jail terms.
In recent months the case of Co Louth man Aidan Hulme has been highlighted by campaigners. The 27-year-old has been told he requires surgery to remove a leg damaged in a motor cycle accident several years ago. Campaigners accused justice minister, Michael McDowell, of stalling on the Louth man’s transfer request.
Michael Holden from the Irish Political Status Committee said his group is concerned about the welfare of the remaining six prisoners serving time in British prisons. The campaigner says the case of Fermanagh man Noel Maguire, who was the target of a murder bid behind bars last year, is of deep concern.
“We are concerned about the case of Noel Maguire who originally had his transfer request turned down. His circumstances have now changed and he has reapplied. His application is well behind the others though and this concerns us.
“Two prisoners are currently facing attempted murder charges after they tried to stab him last year and if he is left on his own in an English prison he will be in great danger.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice, which oversees the transfer of prisoners back to Ireland, said the department does not comment on individual cases.

Daily Ireland

25/05/2006

Moves to designate an annual memorial day for victims of Ireland’s famine received a boost yesterday.
Dublin City Council has unanimously approved a Labour Party motion to officially mark the potato famine — also known as the Great Hunger — of the 1840s. One million people died and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to emigrate at that time.
In 1860, the Young Irelander John Mitchel wrote: “The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine.”
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte has also tabled a parliamentary question on the issue. Arts minister John O’Donoghue will take the question in the Dáil next week.
Councillor Dermot Lacey, who proposed the motion to the city council, said: “Every household in Ireland has ancestors who died in the famine and the memorial day is a fitting tribute to them all.”
The Committee for the Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims is to lead its annual procession from Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square to the famine memorial on Custom House Quay this Sunday. The group is calling on people in all parts of Ireland as well as Irish people living abroad to observe a minute’s silence at 2pm on that day.
Committee chairman Michael Blanch said: “The famine only happened three generations ago and the victims were both Catholic and Protestant, so any commemoration can build bridges between the two communities.”
The committee envisages that the memorial day would also be a gesture of solidarity towards all those around the world who have suffered in famines.
In the Dáil in May last year, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern suggested that the famine could be incorporated into the National Day of Commemoration, an annual ceremony to mark Ireland’s war dead.
The committee said this occasion specifically remembered dead Irish military personnel and not civilians.

Daily Ireland

Updated roll of honour DVD to be launched by MLA

by Eamonn Houston
26/05/2006

The deaths of two IRA volunteers killed 25 years ago by the SAS during the height of the 1981 hunger strike will be marked this weekend with the unveiling of an exhibition.
Charles “Pop” Maguire (20) and George McBrearty (24) were shot dead as they approached a car on the Lone Moor Road in Derry. The car contained undercover SAS members.
The British army’s version of events has consistently been disputed by republicans, who claim that up to two SAS teams may have been involved in the killings.
Both men died after the encounter with undercover British soldiers on the edge of the Creggan estate.
The Derry 1981 Committee will mark the anniversary with the launch of an exhibition compiled by the local republican Charlie McMenamin.
The Derry republican youth group Toirsire has commissioned an updated version of the Derry Brigade Roll of Honour DVD to be launched alongside the exhibition at the Gasyard Centre.
The British army said volunteers McBrearty and Maguire had been killed by a lone British soldier during an exchange of gunfire after the volunteers had stopped the soldier’s car.
Other members of the IRA unit who survived the incident have always claimed to have come under fire from a number of different locations.
Five years ago, this account was given weight by the discovery of a hole from a high-velocity bullet below the position of the car that had held the British soldier at the centre of the shooting.
The bullet hole was lodged in the wall of an elderly man’s house who lives close to the scene of the shooting. He pointed out the strike mark on the 20th anniversary of the deaths.
Joanne McDaid, spokeswoman for the 1981 committee, said: “The deaths of George McBrearty and Charles Maguire sent shock waves through the republican community in Derry.
“At the time, Patsy O’Hara had just been buried. The eyes of the town, the country and indeed the world were focused on the H-blocks of Long Kesh and the hunger strike.
“Despite the upheaval on the outside, the last thing people were expecting in the republican community was a tragedy such as this.
“It numbed the entire community, particularly in Creggan, where two men lived with their families and were well known and very popular,” Ms McDaid said.
The exhibition will document events that took place in Derry at the time.
It is largely a collection of personal photos of local people, who donated them for the exhibition.
It also contains details of other Derry people killed over this period by the British army, street protests and the 1981 hunger strikers.
Sinn Féin assembly member Mitchel McLaughlin will launch the exhibition and updated DVD.
He said: “This is no doubt one of the most significant periods in Irish history that has been collated from a local perspective and through the eyes and memories of those who played a part in it.
“Ordinary people responded in extraordinary ways to attempts by the British to break the republican struggle. It galvanised the nation and produced a new, highly politicised and committed generation of republicans.” The exhibition will be unveiled at the Gasyard Centre on Lecky Road at 7.30pm on Sunday.

Daily Ireland

by Ciarán Barnes
26/05/2006

A strategy document promoting good relations along north Belfast’s peace lines is to be launched by Martin McAleese today.
The Irish president’s husband will be the main speaker at the North Belfast Interface Network event at Cliftonville community centre on Manor Street.
Formed in 2002, the network works to prevent sectarian clashes along the area’s peace lines. There are 17 interfaces in Belfast, 14 being in the north of the city.
Since the outbreak of the Troubles, north Belfast has seen a disproportionate level of violence. A quarter of all Troubles-related killings occurred in the area.
A spokesman for the network said: “The rationale for the project is to carry out community-relations activity on two levels. The first level deals with community relations on a localised-area basis, implementing strategies that are tailor-made to fit the particular needs of each community.
“On the second level, the emphasis is placed on developing collaborative strategies which promote conflict transformation, peace building and reconciliation throughout north Belfast and further afield.”

Daily Ireland

by Ciarán Barnes
26/05/2006

A monument is to be unveiled tomorrow in memory of five people murdered by loyalists in the townland of Bleary, Co Armagh.
The Celtic cross will carry the names of Gerard and Rory Cairns, John Marks, Joseph Toland and Joseph Toman who were shot dead by an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) gang – riddled with RUC informers – that operated in the area.
The gang, led by British agents Robin Jackson and Billy Wright, murdered a total of 11 Catholics from Bleary between 1975 and 1993.
The monument in honour of the dead has been erected in the grounds of St Colman’s church in the parish of Tullylish.
Saturday’s unveiling takes place at 2pm, speakers at the event include campaigning priest Fr Des Wilson and Sinn Féin assembly member John O’Dowd.
Eamonn Cairns, whose sons Gerard and Rory were murdered in 1993, said the memorial was a tribute to the spirit of the community.
He said: “This community has suffered terribly at the hands of loyalist gangs. The UVF men involved in butchering people in this area were working closely with the security services.
“Despite this, they never broke the spirit of the nationalist population of Bleary. This memorial is a tribute to that spirit and to those who were murdered.”

Daily Ireland

by Ciaran O’Neill
25/05/2006

A US-based organisation which monitors parades in the North has described Orange Order marches as ‘anti-Catholic’ and ‘anti-Irish’.
The Irish Parades Emergency Committee (Ipec) yesterday called on Orange Order leaders and the PSNI to ensure that future parades are free from sectarian trappings.
Ipec’s latest report on parades in Belfast last summer has been forwarded to the Irish, British and US governments, as well as political parties in the North.
The report, which was released yesterday, deals with Orange Order parades in the north and east of the city in July.
Among the incidents included in the report were participants in Orange Order parades dressing up as Catholic nuns.
Sean Cahill, a spokesman for Ipec, which was formed in 1997 to monitor Orange Order parades in nationalist areas in the North, described the parades as ‘anti-Catholic political theatre’.
“Once again we documented brazen displays of support for loyalist paramilitary groups in Orange parades through or past Catholic, nationalist communities in Belfast,” he said.
“These displays clearly violate Parades Commission guidelines, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and other laws.
“The British and Irish governments must uphold the Good Friday Agreement’s basic guarantee of freedom from sectarian harassment.”
Mr Cahill said in past years his organisation had been careful to portray the marches as ‘Orange parades with loyalist participation’.
“But the brazen promotion of loyalist terror groups in parades past the Short Strand and through Ardoyne has become so pervasive that we have taken to calling these Orange/loyalist parades.”
Ipec praised the restraint shown by nationalist residents, the PSNI and some Orange Order stewards during last summer’s parades,
It stressed that more needed to be done to tackle the problems associated with Orange Order parades.
“We call on the PSNI to uphold the rule of law and enforce the ban on sectarian displays at Orange/loyalist parades,” said Mr Cahill.
“We also call on Orange and unionist leaders to end loyalist and anti-Catholic displays at Orange Order parades through nationalist and Catholic areas. This is, after all, the 21st century,” he said.

Daily Ireland

**From yesterday

25/05/2006

The family of murdered Sinn Féin Donegal county councillor Eddie Fullerton will mark his 15th anniversary today with the relaunch of a campaign for truth and justice about the killing.
Eddie Fullerton was killed by an Ulster Defence Association death squad that broke into his Buncrana home early on May 25, 1991.
The Fullerton family have consistently demanded a public inquiry into collusion and cover-up by the British and Irish authorities in relation to the killing.
Councils across Ireland have supported the family’s demands. Dublin City Council voiced its support on Monday night. Tragically, the Fullerton family’s spokesman — Eddie’s son Albert — was killed in a road accident on March 8 this year, aged 45.
However, the family are using today’s 15th anniversary to relaunch their justice campaign. Albert’s sister Amanda, who has taken over as the family’s spokesperson, last night told Daily Ireland that the truth about the case had been hidden for long enough.
“It is a year since Michael McDowell, the minster for justice, has given anyone any feedback about the case and even then it was only [after] significant pressure from Sinn Féin TDs,” she said.
“We’re now saying enough is enough. Fifteen years down the road, we’re not going to wait any longer. Yet the questions about the handling of the case by authorities on both sides of the border continue to mount.
“We will be demanding a meeting with McDowell to get answers about the actions of the Irish authorities. We will also be pushing the Irish government to get some sound and solid attempt at an investigation in the North and will be looking for evidence of McDowell’s commitment in relation to that.”
The Fullerton family also hope that a meeting can be arranged with Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan in the coming months.
Calling for continued cross-party support for the Fullerton family’s campaign, Donegal Sinn Féin councillor Pádraig Mac Lochlainn said today’s relaunch would send a strong message to those involved in covering up the 1991 murder.
“One of the key things about the relaunch is to demonstrate that the campaign will continue until the demands that Albert and the rest of the family have pursued over the last 15 years are achieved,” he said.
He described Albert’s untimely death as “a tragic blow” and added: “It is appropriate now after a period of grieving and reflection that the campaign focuses once again on the need for truth and justice about Eddie’s murder in 1991.
“The immediate objective will be to obtain the final report from the Garda reinvestigation, which was supposed to have been completed in 2004.
“There will be significant pressure on Michael McDowell to explain the delay and clarify the co-operation he received from the British authorities.”
Mr Mac Lochlainn said a range of other strategies would be employed to strengthen the campaign.
The campaign relaunch is at 11.30am today in Muff, Co Donegal.

Daily Ireland

Brother of Martin Doherty, who was killed in a 1994 gun and bomb attack on the Widow Scallan’s pub in Dublin, calls for full disclosure
Jarlath Kearney

25/05/2006

Irish government authorities have actively covered up the actions of loyalist death squads that operated in the 26 Counties during the 1990s, a Daily Ireland probe today reveals.
The objective of the persistent, top-level cover-ups has been to protect well-placed RUC/PSNI and British intelligence agents operating in both the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force.
The conduct of the Irish authorities raises serious legal, constitutional and human-rights questions for Irish citizens affected by the attacks.
Among the incidents that involved British agents were high-profile attacks such as the UDA’s May 1991 murder of Co Donegal Sinn Féin councillor Eddie Fullerton at his Buncrana home and the UVF’s March 1997 bomb attack on the Sinn Féin office in Monaghan town.
Daily Ireland can also reveal that a UVF attack on Sinn Féin’s Dublin headquarters was aborted in early 1997 after a death squad conducting a so-called “dry run” encountered an abnormally high Garda presence saturating the vicinity of the target.
It has been established that the aborted 1997 attack in Dublin involved at least one RUC Special Branch agent connected with the UVF’s notorious Mount Vernon unit from north Belfast.
Nuala O’Loan, the North’s Police Ombudsman, was informed about that aborted UVF attack as part of her major investigation into collusion between the RUC and UVF.
That investigation is to be published soon.
Although senior RUC/PSNI members — both serving and former — have been implicated to varying degrees by the investigation, there are profound ramifications for the Irish authorities who acquiesced in loyalist attacks by British agents in the South.
Daily Ireland has also uncovered serious unanswered questions about the May 1994 gun and bomb attack on the Widow Scallan’s pub in Dublin, during which the doorman Martin Doherty was shot dead.
Notably, strong similarities have been established between that UVF bombing and the organisation’s Monaghan bombing three years later, as well as startling “coincidences” in the explanations of the Irish authorities after both events. Martin Doherty’s brother Ben yesterday called for full disclosure from the Irish government about the circumstances and the investigation relating to his brother’s murder.
Sinn Féin justice spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh yesterday announced that he would be demanding detailed answers from the Department of Justice about the affair.
It is understood that the 1997 aborted UVF attack against Sinn Féin’s offices in Dublin took place at around the same time as the failed bomb attack on the party’s Monaghan constitutency office.
It was first reported last year that the Monaghan incident involved a bomb that had been treated to ensure it would not detonate. The bomb was found on the morning of March 3, 1997.
That claim was verified by former RUC Criminal Investigation Department detective Trevor McIlwrath on the BBC’s Spotlight programme this week.
Mr McIlwrath confirmed the attack was connected with the UVF Mount Vernon unit, which had been infiltrated by Special Branch agents.
However, as well as confirming the RUC’s foreknowledge, the Monaghan attack also clearly implicates the Irish authorities.
The Monaghan bomb — which RUC Special Branch had already tampered with — consisted of around 25 pounds (11.3 kilograms) of Powergel commercial explosives and was contained in a holdall.
Initially the Garda claimed in media briefings that the bomb had failed to fully explode because bystanders — who allegedly moved the holdall — had dislodged the detonator. The detonator’s explosion indicated that, while the main explosive charge had been “treated”, the bomb was technically viable.
Despite Special Branch’s foreknowledge, the then RUC chief constable Ronnie Flanagan told The Irish Times on March 18, 1997: “Nobody should be under any illusion that this [attack] is part of a phoney war.”
Whether the Irish authorities were notified beforehand that RUC Special Branch knew of an imminent attack in Monaghan cannot be established.
At very least, forensic tests after the incident would clearly have revealed that the main explosive element had been “treated” so as not to explode.
In that circumstance, the failure of the Irish authorities to actively pursue the issue of direct British collusion with loyalist death squads raises very profound questions.
Not least, it means that the Irish authorities acquiesced in covering up an attack (“phoney” or otherwise) that was mounted — with the assistance of a foreign government — against a legal political party in Irish territorial jurisdiction.
A Daily Ireland probe into pre-1997 loyalist attacks in the South has uncovered striking similarities between the Monaghan bomb and the 1994 Widow Scallan’s bomb.
A litany of unanswered questions also persists in relation to the Garda handling of the attack that resulted in Martin Doherty’s murder.
Mr Doherty was shot several times by a UVF gunman as he confronted the death squad outside the Widow Scallan’s pub on May 21, 1994 — 12 years ago this week.
Another doorman, Patrick Burke, was shot and wounded.
The UVF gang left a holdall containing a bomb outside the pub after Mr Doherty had prevented them gaining entry.
Hundreds of republicans were gathered in the pub for a republican function. The actions of Martin Doherty undoubtedly saved lives.
Three days after the Widow Scallan’s attack, on May 24, 1994, Albert Reynolds, the then taoiseach, told The Irish Times: “We were aware of the possibility of such an attack.”
The following month, June 1994, the then justice minister Máire Geoghan Quinn told the Dáil that the Irish government would seek the extradition of anyone thought to be involved in the attack. She said the RUC had set up a “special unit” to investigate the bomb attack.
Despite the high-profile nature of Mr Doherty’s 1994 killing, an inquest was not held in Dublin until November 2004, a decade later.
However, the comparisons between the Widow Scallan’s bombing and the Monaghan bombing are striking.
Just like the bomb in Monaghan, the Widow Scallan’s bomb consisted of 25 to 30 pounds (11.3 to 13.6 kilograms) of Powergel explosives in a holdall. As in Monaghan, only the detonator exploded, while the main device failed to go off. Just like in Monaghan, the explosion of the detonator indicated that the bomb was technically viable but that, for unexplained reasons, the main explosives had malfunctioned. Just like the Monaghan case, the Garda subsequently claimed in media briefings that a bystander — who apparently had moved the holdall — must have caused the bomb to malfunction by dislodging the detonator.
And just like the case of the Monaghan bombing, the Garda have never released details about the forensic examination of the Widow Scallan’s bomb.
If, as with the Monaghan bomb, the UVF’s main charge of Powergel explosives had been “treated” beforehand, that would explain the failure to explode.
Daily Ireland also understands that, despite some reports linking the mid-Ulster UVF with the actual attack on the Widow Scallan’s, both the 1994 and 1997 bombs were prepared by the UVF in Belfast.
Other aspects of the Garda actions on the night Martin Doherty was killed in 1994 have never been adequately accounted for.
For instance, the Northern-registered gold-coloured Triumph Acclaim car used by the bombers was checked by gardaí in Gardiner Street in the hour before the attack but was allowed to proceed because it had not been reported stolen.
Moreover, two Garda Special Branch cars that were sitting outside the Widow Scallan’s disappeared at about 10pm, some 50 minutes before the loyalists struck.
Questioned about this aspect of events during Mr Doherty’s inquest in November 2004, a Garda superintendent refused to comment on the operations of the Special Detective Unit. The superintendent failed to provide any details about the UVF bomb, except to repeat that it had failed to fully explode.
He also refused to comment on the identity of those responsible for the attack on the grounds that the investigation was ongoing.
“We still have an unsolved murder and the file remains open. To date, no one has been made amenable,” he said.
Even ten years after the event, the Garda refuse to disclose basic details about their investigation.
Martin Doherty’s family are convinced that the Irish authorities are withholding key information about the case.
Photofits were issued of the UVF gang in the immediate aftermath of the attack but, although the RUC arranged an identification parade in April 1995, only two teenage eyewitnesses were taken from Dublin to Belfast. One source has described the witnesses as “vulnerable”. Both witnesses failed to identify any of the loyalists involved.
It was also reported subsequently that the weapon used to shoot Martin Doherty was the same gun that killed the UDA boss Jim Craig in an internal loyalist assassination. This led to speculation that the UDA — also inflitrated at the highest level with British agents — had assisted the UVF gang in the atttack.
No one has ever been apprehended by the RUC/PSNI for involvement in either the Widow Scallan’s or the Monaghan bomb attacks.
No warrants have ever been issued within the 26 Counties for the arrest of any loyalist or Special Branch handler in relation to either incident.
The Irish authorities have never instigated any kind of extradition proceedings to apprehend suspects in either case, despite new European Union legal measures to make the apprehension of serious crime suspects from another EU member state virtually routine.
Ben Doherty told Daily Ireland last night that his family were demanding answers from the Irish government about his brother’s murder.
“There are serious unanswered questions about this entire affair,” he said.
“Our mother died the year before the inquest and it remains a deep hurt for all of us that she was unable to get closure on the circumstances in which Martin was killed.
“Other than going through the motions at the time, the Garda have never kept us informed of any developments up until the inquest in 2004. Even then, they didn’t tell us anything new. It would be nice if we could now get answers.
“If Irish authorities had prior knowledge or subsequent indications that there was even a hint of collusion, then that is a very serious issue,” Mr Doherty said.
Supporting the Doherty family’s demands for truth, Sinn Féin justice spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh pledged to pursue the Irish government.
“Clearly the Irish government has very serious questions to answer about the ability of unionist death squads, led frequently by British agents, to attack and target Irish citizens with apparent impunity in this jurisdiction.
“The Doherty family have been forced to come through the last 12 years with virtually no support from the state and no answers about Martin’s murder. Sinn Féin will be raising this affair directly with the minister for justice in the time ahead,” Mr Ó Snodaigh said.
While much focus will rightly fall on collusion north of the border after the publication of Nuala O’Loan’s report in the coming months, the approach of successive Irish authorities to the assassination of Irish citizens in the 26 Counties remains the big untold scandal of the peace process.
If anyone thought the collusion scandal behind the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in 1974 was ancient history, they need only look at loyalist attacks in the same locations during the mid-1990s to know the spectre of state collusion still haunts the senior ranks of the British and Irish security establishments on this island.

Belfast Telegraph

By Geraldine Mulholland
25 May 2006

FIFA, governing body of world football, today insisted that footballers playing for Northern Ireland must carry British passports, the Telegraph can reveal.

A political storm erupted since it emerged last month that the Irish Football Association (IFA) advised internationals to carry British identification to ensure eligibility, with SDLP Assemblyman for Foyle, Pat Ramsey, threatening legal action and the Northern Ireland team this week receiving an angry reception when they arrived at GAA grounds in Chicago for an official engagement.

Mr Ramsey said the demand was contrary to the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

IFA chief Howard Wells sought clarification from FIFA after facing criticism from nationalist leaders.

But FIFA has made a ruling which, it claimed today, is based solely on “practical sporting reasons”, although it said it is aware of Northern Ireland’s “unique” situation.

A spokesman said: “FIFA has sent a letter to the Football Association of Northern Ireland yesterday on the subject.

“As you know, the nationality of a player is the first and foremost criterion to establish whether he or she is eligible to represent a football association.

“Consequently, it is the match commissioner’s duty to ensure that each and every player on the pitch meets this requirement. In order to do so, the match commissioner is dependent on an official document that proves the nationality of the player.

“The situation of players born in Northern Ireland is, indeed, rather unique, since these players can, as a general rule, be entitled to represent various associations, namely the four British and the Irish Republic.

“FIFA is aware of the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.

“However, the mere fact that a person is a holder of an Irish Republic passport does not constitute a conclusive evidence for a match commissioner to know that this player is entitled to represent Northern Ireland.

“Consequently, FIFA requires players to hold the passport of the association that they are wishing to represent, in order to allow the match commissioner to verify their eligibility.”

Mr Wells said he has received notification of the ruling.

Belfast Telegraph

Orde on the world beat …

26 May 2006

The life of a modern day Chief Constable is bound to be a high-profile jet-setting existence.

However, information released to the Belfast Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed just how much our own Chief Constable gets around.

In the last two years Sir Hugh Orde has been on duty for an impressive 604 days.

However the figures released to this paper show that he was working outside Northern Ireland on 178 of those days.

Last year alone Sir Hugh spent one third of his working days outside the province - he was away 99 days out of 296.

His globe-trotting has taken him to many parts of the world.

In 2004 and 2005 he spent 36 days in the US. Business there included White House receptions, speaking at the FBI Academy and meeting the House of Representatives.

He has also represented the police at events in Australia, Dubai and Iraq. In Dubai he spoke at a conference on Policing and Security and he visited Iraq with other Chief Constables to assess the policing situation.

The former senior Metropolitan Police officer was in England for more than 100 days on duty in 2004 and 2005.

Many of the Chief Constable’s trips outside Northern Ireland relate to his work as a director of the Police National Assessment Centre, speaking engagements, training courses and seminars, meetings with other senior police officers, politicians and officials and the usual range of media interviews.

However, on five occasions he has also represented the PSNI at rugby internationals at Lansdowne Road in Dublin. In the past two years he has watched Ireland play South Africa, Argentina, England, New Zealand and Australia while on duty.

Similarly he also travelled to Dublin in September to represent the PSNI at the All-Ireland football final between Tyrone and Kerry.

Other events which have caused the Chief Constable to leave Northern Ireland have included meetings with Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, engagements at Scotland Yard and with the Stevens team and reports to the House of Commons and the Dail.

He was also in London last December at Buckingham Palace for his investiture.

In response to the Belfast Telegraph Freedom of Information request, police stated that on all the days when Sir Hugh is outside Northern Ireland on duty he is representing the PSNI.

They added: “He also has national responsibilities, including an important role as Director of the Police National Assessment Centre (PNAC) which devise, develop and run procedures designed to identify and select future police leaders.”

When the Chief Constable is away the PSNI is commanded by his deputy, Paul Leighton.

He was on duty for 556 days during 2004 and 2005. He was working outside Northern Ireland on 57 of these days.

His list of trips is less expansive, although he did attend a five day FBI course in Norway in September 2004 and a four day police exchange trip to the US last year.

RTÉ

26 May 2006 11:45

The US Senate has passed an immigration bill that would give millions of illegal immigrants a chance to become American citizens.

The senate voted 62-32 for a bill that couples a guest worker programme with border security and enforcement.

It is potentially the most far-reaching reform of US immigration law in two decades.

It now has to be merged with a vastly different House bill that calls for tougher enforcement measures, including the criminalisation and deportation of illegal immigrants.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, has welcomed the news.

He said: ‘I am very pleased that Senators have passed a comprehensive bill on immigration reform.

‘Crucially, this bill contains provisions that would enable the vast majority of our undocumented citizens in the US to regularise their status, including a path to permanent residency.’

An Phoblacht

Photo: Raymond McCreesh mural unveiled in Camlough by Raymond’s former comrades Dan McGuinness and Paddy Quinn who were arrested and imprisoned with him.

Remembering 1981: Four men dead as crisis escalates

Thursday 21 May 1981 witnessed the deaths of two more Hunger Strikers. Raymond McCreesh passed away at 2.30am. Later that evening Patsy O’Hara died.

A Mass had been celebrated at Raymond McCreesh’s bedside on Wednesday evening by his brother Fr Brian McCreesh. He was semi-conscious and appeared to show some sign of recognition but died just a few hours later. His remains were returned to his beloved Camlough in South Armagh for the funeral the following Saturday.

Leaving the family home in St Malachy’s Terrace, the cortege stopped briefly at the lane outside the house where it was joined by a honour guard of IRA Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and Na Fianna Éireann. Led by a lone piper, the cortege paused to allow Raymond McCreesh’s comrades fire a final salute over the Tricolour-draped coffin.

At St Malachy’s church loudspeakers broadcast the Mass to a huge crowd of mourners. Mass was concelebrated by five priests led by Raymond’s brother Brian. In his sermon Fr Wolsey criticised the British for selectively quoting from the Pope’s 1979 Drogheda speech: “Violent means must not be used, the Pope says, to change injustices. But neither must violent means be used to keep injustices. The Pope has said so. The first passage has been over quoted; the second one rarely heard.”

After the Mass, the funeral procession made it’s way the short distance to the cemetery where, in sight of the family home the coffin was lowered into the grave. Chairing the graveside ceremonies was South Armagh republican, Joe McElhaw. Defying a British exclusion order Sinn Féin President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh delivered the oration. Paying tribute to McCreesh he said: “We are gathered here to perform a last, sad but proud duty for that great Irishman and human being, Raymond McCreesh.” He detailed McCreesh’s progression from Na Fianna Éireann to the IRA and his capture in 1976 after a gunbattle with the British army. He had fought imperialism, which was the “enemy of mankind”

Ó Brádaigh outlined the area’s proud history of resistance to British rule. He accused the British Government of callously murdering McCreesh and his comrades but added that British policy was now in ribbons. “Where now is their Ulsterisation? Where now was their normalisation? Where now is their criminalisation?”, he asked.

“These hungry and starving men in their beds of pain, by superior moral strength, have pushed the British government to the wall and have shamed them in the eyes of the world”, said Ó Brádaigh.

Comparing the Hunger Strikers to Terrence McSweeney, the Lord Mayor of Cork who died on Hunger Strike in 1921, he pledged republicans would continue their resistance to British rule.

Patsy O’Hara

Patsy O’Hara passed away at 11.39pm. By his bedside were his father James, his sister Elizabeth and family friend James Daly. Speaking of his final moments his sister said: “My Father called Patsy! And he sort of, as if he recognised the voice, sort of just tried to move his head, just one last time. And then he died. And as he was dying his face just changed, he had a very, very distinct smile on his face which I will never forget. I said you’re free Patsy. You have won your fight and you’re free. And he was cold then.”

Former leader of INLA prisoners in the H-Blocks, O’Hara came from a staunchly republican family and was much respected in his native Derry. The night of his death saw sustained rioting on the streets of Derry. The RUC replied with volleys of plastic bullets, murdering 45-year-old Harry Duffy in the process. Two days earlier they had murdered 12-year-old Carol Ann Kelly in Twinbrook..

Repeating their actions with the Francis Hughes cortege, the RUC hijacked O’Hara’s remains. Long Kesh Governor, Stanley Hilditch had informed the family that the remains had been taken to Omagh where they could be collected. About 4.30am the RUC phoned Derry with a message. “If you want to collect this thing you had better do it before daylight”. They were determined to prevent a daytime cortege. In a sickening development it emerged, after the body was finally retrieved by the grieving family, that the RUC ghouls had mutilated the body.

The funeral, the biggest in the city since the Bloody Sunday funerals, was addressed by a number of people. Chairing the proceedings was James Daly, husband of murdered anti-H-Block activist Miriam Daly. He offered his condolences to the family before introducing a member of the INLA leadership who read out a statement. Patsy’s brother Seán then addressed the mourners. He compared Charles Haughey to Pontius Pilate and said the Hunger Strikes were an important victory for the cause of Irish freedom as the whole world could now see the callousness of the British.

Gerry Roche of the IRSP detailed the harsh experiences, North and South, endured by O’Hara during his short life. Commending his revolutionary spirit Roche said the attempt to criminalise the prisoners was an attempt to criminalise the entire struggle. O’Hara had recognised this and had resisted courageously. “He believed that it is no crime to fight the British occupation forces, but the duty of every Irish man and Irish woman”, Roche said.

An INLA firing party fired a volley of shots over the coffin in a final salute to their dead comrade.

The deaths of McCreesh and O’Hara in the H-Blocks took place against an increasingly violent backdrop outside the prison. The IRA was mounting increasingly effective military operations against the British army with five British soldiers killed in an ambush at Altnaveigh, South Armagh.

Crown forces attempted to crush rising nationalist anger. In addition to the plastic bullet deaths of Carol Ann Kelly and Harry Duffy, there was a wave of indiscriminate plastic bullet attacks leaving hundreds injured, many of them seriously, including Paul Lavelle (15) from Ardoyne who was left in a coma.

The Hunger Strike was causing a huge outcry in the 26 Counties and Taoiseach Charles Haughey was forced to give the impression of doing something, particularly in light of an impending election on 11 June. He promoted as a serious initiative an intervention by the European Commission on Human Rights which amounted to nothing.

Just two days before her brother died, Haughey met with Patsy O’Hara’s sister Elizabeth, during which he gave the impression that a development involving Europe was imminent and asked her for a contact number at which she could be reached. The following morning she got a call summoning her to Government Buildings. Haughey was still pushing the Commission angle but told Elizabeth that Patsy would have to come off the Hunger Strike to give time for a complaint to be made to the Commission. It was clear at this point that the Commission was just a diversion. Elizabeth O’Hara broke off all contact with Haughey.

There was mounting anger on the streets in the 26 Counties. Although the H-Block committee was determinedly non-violent as a matter of strategy, there was a wave of incidents across the state such as the 23 May torching of a bus belonging to English fishermen in Ballinamore, County Leitrim. In a vain attempt to distract from the real issue a Government summit was called with much fanfare to discuss “escalating violence”.

A statement from the Catholic Cardinal, Tomás O Fiach said: “Raymond McCreesh was born in a community that has always proclaimed that it is Irish, not British. When the northern troubles began he was barely 12, a very impressionable age at which to learn discrimination. Those who protested against it were harassed and intimidated. Then followed Burntollet, The Bogside, Bombay Street and Bloody Sunday in Derry all before he was 15.” The Cardinal went on to say that McCreesh would never have been in jail had it not been for the abnormal political situation. “Who was entitled to judge him?”, he asked.

The 20 May local elections in the Six Counties saw a number of H-Block candidates elected. Amongst them was Raymond McCreesh’s brother, Oliver.

International support for the Hunger Strikers soared. There were daily demonstrations in the United States. Thousands marched in protest through New York on the Saturday after the deaths of McCreesh and O’Hara. Amongst the countries that saw demonstrations, many of them large, were Australia, Norway, Greece, France and Portugal.

The deaths of Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara, who had started the strike on the same day, died on the same day and were born within a fortnight of each other in February 1957, marked a critical escalation in prison struggle as well as the struggle outside the prisons walls.

Despite the constant rain and a blustery wind that dogged their steps on the road from Newry to Camlough thousands of republicans marched on Sunday 21 May, 2006 to remember IRA Volunteer Raymond McCreesh who died in 1981 after 61 days on hunger strike.

The march was lead by a colour party of former republican POWs from the South Armagh area. At the head of the flag bearers was Paddy Quinn and Dan McGuinness.

Both men were captured with Raymond McCreesh in 1976 as they mounted an operation against an undercover British army unit near Sturgan Road not far from Camlough, Raymond’s home village. Quinn was later to follow his friend and comrade on hunger strike.

A colour party from South Armagh Ógra Shinn Féin marched in formation behind the main colour party.

Sunday’s march was the culmination of a weekend of events organised in South Armagh to remember Raymond McCreesh’s sacrifice and celebrate his life and commitment to the republican cause.

On Friday a mural was unveiled on Raymond McCreesh’s House and a well attended discussion on the legacy of the Hunger Strike was held on Saturday night.

Panellists included Bik McFarlane, O/C of the H-Block prisoners during the Hunger Strike and former Sinn Féin Publicity Director Danny Morrison.

As the march set off from Newry the rain tried hard to dampen spirits but with every mile walked more people joined the procession.

Banners carried bore the names of towns and villages throughout South Down and South Armagh- Camlough, Silverbridge, Belleek, Bessbrook, Crossmaglen, Cullyhanna, Mullaghbawn. Newry was well represented with three banners named in honour of fallen IRA Volunteers from the area.

Monaghan, Armagh’s neighbour to the south, sent a contingent while the Harford/Bell Republican Flute Band from Dublin also attended.

In the crowd were members of the Hughes and McElwee families from Bellaghy. Bridie Lynch from Dungiven was there indicating the bond that exists among the families of the H-Block martyrs.

A commemoration was held at the Republican Plot in Camlough cemetery where Raymond McCreesh is buried. Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams gave the main oration. Acknowledging the courage and commitment of Raymond McCreesh he said it reflected the courage and commitment of the IRA in South Armagh in the way it fought the British army to a standstill in the area.

Adams went on to commend the work of republicans in South Armagh who had embraced the republican peace strategy and were working hard to fulfil the vision of the united Ireland for which Raymond McCreesh had died.

An Phoblacht

Collusion: Finucane killer “paid off”

The release from prison last Tuesday of Ken Barrett, the British agent convicted of the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989, has been followed by further revelations from former RUC members concerning collusion with unionist paramilitaries and has exposed the fact that sectarian murderers are being protected by the British state.

Barrett was released from Maghaberry Prison less than three years after being sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2004. It is believed Barrett was immediately whisked away by the British Ministry of Defence to a secret hideout outside Ireland and it is alleged that the killer has been given a generous relocation package in return for his silence on the extent of state collusion. Sinn Féin MLA Alex Maskey said there was every reason to believe that Barret had been given the same generous treatment as fellow British agent Brian Nelson, the UDA intelligence officer who who supplied the information to Barrett that he used to murder Pat Finucane.

RUC Special Branch informer and UDA gunman Barrett was given a life sentence, and ordered to serve 22 years, after admitting his role in Finucane’s murder and told he didn’t qualify for early release under the Good Friday Agreement because he was jailed in England.

However, in February 2005 he was transferred to Maghaberry Prison, County Antrim and it emerged recently that the Life Sentence Review Commission was conducting a review to decide if he should be released. It is thought sensitive intelligence information played a significant part of the evidence examined by the Review Board.

The Finucane family have consistently called for a public inquiry into Pat’s killing and are opposed to the British government’s decision to hold any inquiry under the terms of the controversial 2005 Inquiries Act which gives the British government control over what evidence may be disclosed.

The US House of Representatives has called on the British government to reconsider its position on an inquiry into the Finucane killing. It voted by 390 to five votes to pass legislation demanding a “full, independent public inquiry”, into the Finucane killing.

Barrett’s release was followed on Tuesday evening by further revelations in a BBC Spotlight television documentary in which a former RUC officer revealed how RUC agents within the UVF in Belfast’s Mount Vernon area had carried out sectarian murders and were being protected by Special Branch.

Sinn Féin Justice Spokesperson Gerry Kelly has said that Barrett’s release and the BBC revelations by former RUC member Trevor McIlwrath concerning the involvement of Special Branch Agents in the murder of innocent Catholics with the full knowledge and support of their handlers made it increasingly clear that “there is an agenda at work not just to protect those members of unionist paramilitaries who were working for the British State but more significantly those who were handling them in the ranks of the Special Branch and MI5″.

Ó Caoláin calls for summit on collusion

Meanwhile on Wednesday Sinn Féin’s Dáil leader, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD called on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to organise a Summit with the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, with the sole purpose of getting to the truth about British collusion with unionist paramilitaries. The Cavan/Monaghan TD made his comments during Leaders Questions in the Dáil, which coincided with the 15th anniversary of the murder of Donegal Councillor, Eddie Fullerton by loyalists, and a day after Ken Barrett’s release from prison, the 12th anniversary of the shooting dead of Martin Doherty as he courageously prevented the bombing of the Widow Scallan’s pub. Last week marked the 32nd anniversary of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings in which 33 people died. Ó Caoláin said that it was now widely accepted that the perpetrators were acting as agents of the British armed forces.

Ó Caoláin said collusion was ongoing. “The British are protecting their agents. Isn’t it clear that your efforts to move Tony Blair have so far failed and you need to step up those efforts? An item on the agenda is not enough. This must be internationalised. Will you now demand a special summit meeting with the British Prime Minister solely focused on the issue of collusion and use that opportunity to demand before the world’s media that this inquiry be established? Will you place this issue on the EU and UN agenda?, Ó Caoláin asked.

He also called on the Taoiseach to establish full public inquiries into the Dublin/Monaghan bombings and the murder of Eddie Fullerton.

Focus on Collusion: County Derry, South East Antrim

Collusion victims’ families demand truth

BY LAURA FRIEL

The accounts are remarkably similar. Intense crown force’s activity followed by total withdrawal. Hours of helicopters buzzing overhead, days of foot patrols and roadblocks, then silence. “Everyone knew someone was going to be killed, silence was almost always a prelude to terror,” said a relative of an East Derry collusion victim Tommy Donaghy.

Stretching from Derry City, along the North coast through County Derry to North Antrim is a single UDA brigade area. It includes Derry City, Coleraine and villages such as Castlerock and Rasharkin. It also borders County Donegal.

The territory is as wide and diverse - urban and rural, coastal and land bound. One unifying aspect is that local communities were all subject to the attentions of one organised unionist paramilitary group and state forces who colluded in its reign of terror.

Earlier this year one of the North’s most notorious sectarian mass murderers, Torrens Knight was exposed as an RUC Special Branch agent. In October 1993 Knight was one of a number of masked gunmen responsible for the Greysteel massacre.

Now families of other victims in the area believe members of the same gang were responsible for other murders. They believe collusion was organised and sanctioned by Special Branch and others. The UDR also played a key role, providing weapons and intelligence and willing recruits to the death squads. Many unionist paramilitaries were former or serving members of the UDR.

On Halloween night 1993 UDA killers walked into the Rising Sun Bar, a pub known to be frequented by Catholics and shouted “trick or treat” before spraying the lounge with bullets. Nineteen people were wounded and eight died from their injuries.

Knight later admitted standing ‘guard’ at the door of the pub armed with a sawn-off shotgun during the attack and driving the getaway car from the scene. He also admitted being part of a UDA gang that shot dead four Catholic workmen in Castlerock in March 1993.

Significantly, on the day of the Castlerock murders, two of three possible routes usually taken by the workmen travelling together in a van had been closed by the RUC. At Gortree Place gunmen emerged out of another van, killing one of the front passengers before spraying the rest of the vehicle with gunfire.

Four workmen were killed and a fifth seriously wounded. One of those killed, James Kelly, was later claimed as an IRA Volunteer. It is widely believed that the first gunman to open fire is a former member of the UDR.

Despite the fact that the gun attack took place within view of a RUC barracks, the killers appeared unconcerned about surveillance. After making an initial getaway, they returned to the scene, driving slowly past their victims before driving away again.

Knight, jailed for Greysteel and Castlerock, was released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in July 2000. Sentenced to life imprisonment for 12 UDA murders, he was subsequently paid £50,000 a year through a bogus Special Branch account.

The payments came to light after bank staff noticed the notorious loyalist withdrawing two large amounts and checked his account. A bank official, imagining that Knight must be accruing a fortune through illegal means, informed the PSNI. The PSNI confirmed the payments were legal before transferring the account.

Knight began his criminal career as a teenage petty thief who preyed upon family members including an elderly relative. It is unknown exactly when Special Branch identified him as a potential agent but his predilection for easy money and ruthless disregard for others made him an attractive proposition.

What we do know is that Knight was working for Special Branch at the time of the Castlerock and Greysteel massacres. Earlier this year it was revealed that Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan was investigating claims he was protected as a Special Branch agent at the time of Castlerock and Greysteel.

At the time Ronnie Flanagan was head of RUC Special Branch. He later became PSNI Chief Constable. There have been calls for Flanagan to go public on whether he knew Knight was a paid, protected agent.

According to Coleraine Sinn Féin Councillor Billy Leonard: “Not only was Torrens Knight protected and paid but many believe at least two other, more senior figures involved in the killings, were working for Special Branch. A number of key figures were former members of the UDR.” One was killed in 1994, the other remains at the heart of the local unionist paramilitary group. It is believed he carried out murders and took part in Greysteel and Castlerock. He is implicated in the murder of Donegal Councillor Eddie Fullerton.

Recently exposed secret British government files show that the British Cabinet was aware of large-scale collusion between the locally recruited British army regiment and loyalist death squads as early as 1973.

According to the documents in the early 1970’s up to 15% of the UDR were linked to paramilitary groups and the regiment provided “the single best source of weapons for Protestant extremist groups”.

By the 1980’s the Thatcher regime had developed established wide-scale informal collusion, through MI5 agents like Brian Nelson and Charles Simpson, into a murder machine more finely tuned to British counter insurgency strategy.

Victims of collusion in County Derry and the South East Antrim area include John Davey, Gerard Casey, Tommy Donaghy, Bernard O’Hagan, Danny Cassidy and Malachy Carey.

Davey, a Sinn Féin councillor, was murdered while returning home from Magherafelt Council in February 1989. He was shot several times at close range through the driver’s window of his car. The headlights were switched off and the handbrake was on, suggesting that he stopped at what he believed to be a crown forces roadblock. He had been repeatedly threatened prior to his murder.

IRA Volunteer Gerard Casey was shot dead in what later emerged as a classic collusion style killing. Two gunmen smashed their way into Casey’s Rasharkin home on April 4 1989. He was killed at close range as he lay in bed beside his wife and baby daughter.

Special Branch in Castlereagh Interrogation Centre had threatened Casey saying they would have him assassinated and the killing would be claimed by unionist paramilitaries. Just prior to the attack the RUC removed his legally held shotgun and drew a sketch map of the interior of his home.

Tommy Donaghy, a Sinn Féin worker, was shot dead at close range as he arrived for work at Portna Eel Fishery near Kilrea on 16 August 1991. His family had been threatened by the RUC who told them Tommy would be dead before Christmas. Donaghy had been told by the RUC that his personal details had been passed into the hands of loyalists.

Bernard O’Hagan, a Sinn Féin Councillor was shot dead by a lone gunman as he arrived for work at Magherafelt College on 16 September 1991. O’Hagan was one of a number of Sinn Féin councillors attacked and killed during this period. Others include his Magherafelt colleague John Davey and Eddie Fullerton of Donegal. Fullerton was killed on 25 May 1991. One of the guns used in the murder was later used in the Castlerock massacre.

Danny Cassidy died on 2 April 1992 when his car was sprayed with bullets after he stopped to speak to a neighbour a few yards from his home in Kilrea. Forty eight hours earlier the RUC told Cassidy he would be killed.

A member of the RUC’s notorious DMSU had told Cassidy that there would be “a hole in his head big enough to put a fist into”. Another RUC officer pointed a rifle at the victim’s head. Cassidy’s photograph later surfaced on a crown forces montage in the hands of unionist paramilitaries.

Malachy Carey, a former Sinn Féin election candidate, was shot by a gunman as he walked along a street in Ballymoney on 13 December 1992. He died a short time later in hospital. Carey had been told by the RUC that his personal details were in the hands of unionist paramilitaries.

A number of families, including relatives of Gerard Casey, Tommy Donaghy and Danny Cassidy have cited further aspects of the killings that suggest their family members had been victims of collusion.

When relatives raised the issue of collusion during the inquest into the killing of Tommy Donaghy, the family was subjected to intimidation by the RUC. Later on the same day, an RUC Land Rover pulled up outside their home and an officer fired three shots in the air.

During the inquest into the killing of Danny Cassidy senior RUC officers admitted instructing junior colleagues to harass the victim prior to the killing. Following this revelation the inquest was adjourned and is still pending 14 years later, with no indication when it will be resumed.

The presence of an RUC officer, allegedly off duty, from Ballymoney in a vehicle just two cars behind the killers’ vehicle during the murder of Cassidy has also raised concerns about collusion.

On the day of Danny Cassidy’s murder, the actions of crown forces in the area led a local republican to alert the media, predicting that someone in the area was going to be killed. Later that day Danny Cassidy was shot dead.

The families have also cited suspicions regarding two guns found during this period in a lay-by outside Kilrea. Two people were reportedly arrested, the car was seen being taken away for forensic tests and yet no charges were ever made.

A loyalist who was later charged with possession of a gun used in the killing of Sinn Féin Councillor Bernard O’Hagan in 1991 was not charged with his murder. The loyalist was a relative of one of those convicted of the Greysteel massacre.

One of the guns used in the murder of Tommy Donaghy near Kilrea was described during his inquest as having “a particularly tragic history”. However the RUC refused to detail that history and the suspicion remains that it was the same weapon used in the murder of Gerard Casey.

It is believed that in 1993 Torrens Knight’s Special Branch handlers moved two high powered rifles from Agivey River at Hunter’s Mill, near Aghadowey after local anglers alerted the RUC of their discovery. The weapons were later used by Knight’s gang in the Greysteel massacre.

“There are many more questions to be asked, not only about Knight but also his accomplices and their Special Branch handlers,” said Billy Leonard. “There are other key figures that have roamed free while playing key roles in directing loyalist killers’ activities,” he said.

Dublin City Council calls for Fullerton Inquiry

Fifteen years after the murder of Sinn Féin Councillor Eddie Fullerton in Donegal the Eddie Fullerton Justice Committee (EFJC) says it will be meeting over the next few weeks to agree a strategy for the way ahead. “We will renew our efforts to engage with the British and Irish Government representatives, including Minister McDowell and the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, and will be putting to them our key demands. It is worth noting that Minister Michael McDowell has never responded to our previous request to meet with him.

Meanwhile Dublin City Council has unanimously backed a Sinn Féin motion calling for a full independent inquiry into the Fullerton’s murder.

Speaking after the council meeting last Monday, 22 May Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan said he hoped the vote would give encouragement to the Fullerton family. He said it had long been suspected that the murder took place as a result of collusion between unionist paramilitaries and British Intelligence. “And critically there have also been questions raised about the role played by the Garda in the weeks leading up to his death and in the investigation that followed. There was no proper examination of the scene, crucial forensic evidence was never examined and key witnesses were not interviewed. It is now known that three of the Garda discredited by the Morris Tribunal were centrally involved in the flawed investigation and one of them, Detective Garda Noel McMahon was branded corrupt and a liar”, said Doolan.

He said that for 15 years the Fullerton family had spearheaded a campaign to discover the truth. He paid particular tribute to Eddie s son, Albert, who led the campaign for many years and died in tragic circumstances in March. He urged the Irish government to support the Fullerton family in their demand for a full, public independent enquiry into their father’s murder.