SAOIRSE32

BN.ie

24/08/2006 - 08:00:24

The father of a Belfast man murdered by the Ulster Volunteer Force has been told by the police that his life is under threat.

Raymond McCord has been campaigning for some time for a public inquiry into the killing of his son, also called Raymond, in November 1997.

The 22-year-old was beaten to death and his body dumped in a quarry on the outskirts of Belfast.

Raymond McCord Sr claims some members of the UVF gang behind the murder were also police informers and the case was never properly investigated in order to protect these informers.

Mr McCord has now been told that his life is under threat from the UVF.

He says he is not surprised by the development and expected to be threatened as the time draws near for the police ombudsman to publish what is expected to be a damning report into the case.

Irelandclick

By Evan Short
21 August 2006

A mock H-Block cell was constructed in Andersonstown Sunday to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of hunger striker Mickey Divine, the final volunteer to die resisting criminalisation.

Hailing from Derry, Mickey Devine died after spending 60 days on hunger strike.

He was the third INLA member to perish in the 1981 campaign that saw ten republican prisoners lose their lives.

He died on the day voters went to the polls in Fermanagh and South Tyrone to elect an MP to replace Bobby Sands, the first to die on the hunger strike.

A founder member of the INLA, Mickey Divine was serving a 12 year sentence in the H-Blocks for firearms offences and spent four years as a blanketman before joining the hunger strike which had already claimed the life of his friend, Patsy O’Hara.

Local Sinn Féin councillors, Paul Maskey and Chrissie Mhic Giolla Mhin, took part in the Andersonstown 1980/1981 Hunger Strike Committee commemoration by participating in a 12-hour fast in the mock H-Block cell located on the Andersonstown Road on Sunday.

Speaking before a white line picket along the road, Councillor Maskey paid tribute to the local committee for their work over the last number of months.
“I would like to commend the hard work of this local committee. It is mostly made up of ex-prisoners, who have indeed inspired wide participation in the range of events since March.

“Their consistency and determination to pay tribute to each of the families of the hunger strikers equally must be commended.

“Today we commemorate the sacrifices made by a Derry man 25 years ago, in the heart of Andersonstown.

“This year’s events have meant so much to the families and the ex-prisoners from that period.”

Councillor Mhic Giolla Mhin added: “It was an honour to be associated with many who participated in the prison protests of 1980 and 1981.

“This small token of fasting for twelve hours in a mock cell on the Andersonstown Road was designed to send out support and solidarity to the families.

“Their sons and loved ones most certainly have not been forgotten and last week’s Casement Park concert and activities are a clear indication of that.”

Journalist:: Evan Short

Daily Ireland

By Ciarán Barnes
23/08/2006

Victims group An Fhirinne is to stage a protest this evening against plans by Lisburn city council to erect a monument honouring the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).
The demonstration at Dunmurry chapel on the outskirts of west Belfast, will take place near the spot where Catholic man Michael Power was murdered in August 1987.
The young father was shot dead by loyalists as he drove his family to Mass.
A week before he was killed UDR soldiers told him he would be murdered.
Ten minutes before the gunmen struck, the UDR lifted a checkpoint outside Dunmurry chapel.
Two members of the UDR were questioned about Mr Power’s murder but never charged.
The dead man’s father, Michael Power Senior, has urged Lisburn city council not to approve the UDR monument.
Mr Power said: “The UDR were implicated in my son’s murder. They threatened him several days previously and the road block on that morning was conveniently lifted to allow his killers free access to kill Michael and make good their escape.
“I find it appaling that the Lisburn city council, who claim to be acting on the behalf of all the citizens of the Lisburn area, would consider giving public land over to a sectarian force whose members have colluded with loyalist death squads in the murder of Catholics.”
Mr Power urged as many people as possible to attend this evening’s protest which begins at 5pm.
In a recently publicised document called ‘Subversion in the UDR’ it was estimated that between 5-15 per cent of UDR soldiers were linked to loyalist paramilitaries, and that intelligence services knew UDR weapons were being used to kill Catholics.

Daily Ireland

By Eamonn Houston
23/08/2006

The PSNI yesterday came under fire after it emerged that no charges had been made in connection with an alleged dirty-tricks campaign against the Alliance Party during last year’s general election.
The allegations centred on campaign literature in Alliance colours which was sent to party supporters urging them to vote tactically for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP).
Alliance Party leader David Ford revealed yesterday that he has made an official complaint to the PSNI and has written to Chief Constable Hugh Orde and the Electoral Commission.
He said that police had indicated that there was little or no chance of securing a conviction in connection with the alleged dirty-tricks campaign.
The leaflets were signed by a group calling itself Concerned Citizens for a Shared Future.
The Alliance Party has consistently said the UUP was behind the campaign.
Thousands of the leaflets were distributed at the time.
The PSNI confirmed yesterday that the allegations had been referred back to them in June this year.
“Legal advice obtained by police into the matter was that a successful prosecution would be unlikely,” a spokesman said.
Mr Ford said he had been disappointed at the PSNI decision.
Sinn Féin national director of elections, Pat Doherty, said that the decision taken by the PSNI not to pursue the complaint: “smacked of an attempt by the PSNI to protect parties linked to the new policing establishment”.
“If people are to have confidence in the electoral process it is important that all of the parties stick to the rules,” he said.
Mr Ford said that the PSNI decision had left him bewildered.
He said one of the reasons given by the PSNI for not pursuing the matter was a lack of co-operation by those being investigated.
“This sounds to me an extraordinary reason to drop a criminal prosecution,” he said.
Mr Ford added: “If you compare what used to happen in elections some years ago, you’d frequently hear of one or two people arrested for personation and they would be prosecuted for attempting to steal a vote.
“Here we have a case where it appears tens of thousands of bogus leaflets in defiance of the election spending limits are issued yet the police aren’t intending to do anything.”

Daily Ireland

Probe into the killing of man in Portadown in 1997 is delayed

By Michael McHugh
23/08/2006

An inquiry into the death of a Catholic man battered to death by a loyalist mob in the North was yesterday delayed after police witnesses were given the go-ahead to seek anonymity.
A judicial review is to be launched into the decision to name Royal Ulster Constabulary officers during the Robert Hamill inquiry’s public hearings.
The 25-year-old Portadown man was set upon by a loyalist mob in the main street of his home town in 1997 while RUC officers on the scene allegedly failed to intervene.
Mr Hamill’s death is to be the subject of a public inquiry chaired by retired High Court judge Sir Edwin Jowitt.
A statement from the inquiry team said: “It is inevitable that the judicial review proceedings will delay the start of the inquiry’s public hearings that were scheduled to start on September 5, 2006.”
The team will examine whether the officers did enough to save the victim and if the subsequent investigation was satisfactory.
Officer L and others took their case for anonymity before the Hamill panel to the High Court in Belfast yesterday. The full judicial review was set for August 31, 2006.
Earlier this month the inquiry team had ruled that all officers bar one be identified.
Lawyers for the former policemen at the judicial review are expected to produce evidence showing all serving and former officers were at risk from paramilitaries and that risk would be enhanced if they were named.
Mr Hamill’s murder was one of four in the North investigated by Canadian judge Peter Cory. These included the killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in his home by Ulster Defence Association gunmen in 1989.
One man, Ken Barrett, has been convicted of the murder and since released but there are allegations of security force collusion.
An investigation by Sir John Stephens from the Metropolitan Police in London found a series of flaws in the security force investigation.
Judge Cory also reviewed the death of Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson, who died when a bomb under her car exploded.
Her death in March 1999 was claimed by the loyalist splinter group the Red Hand Defenders. There were allegations of security force involvement because she represented the nationalist Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition, then engaged in a bitter dispute with Orangemen about a parade at Drumcree in Portadown.
The shooting dead of Loyalist Volunteer Force leader Billy Wright in prison in the Maze in December 1997 by three republican INLA gunmen was also examined by Mr Cory. Wright’s father David has questioned how assassins were able to access the prison yard while the notorious loyalist was waiting for a visit.
All inquiries bar Mr Finucane’s have been opened.

BN.ie

23/08/2006 - 11:51:57

Several British soldiers serving at the former Maze Prison in the North have said they believe CR gas was used to quell a riot at the facility 22 years ago.

The soldiers were themselves affected when gas canisters were dropped on the prison from helicopters during the disturbances.

Their comments have reignited the controversy surrounding the incident in which the poisonous gas was allegedly used against republican prisoners involved in setting fire to the prison in 1974.

The British authorities have never admitted using CR gas, which is ten times stronger than CS gas and has been shown to cause cancer.

One-fifth of the 300 republicans who were in the Maze at the time of the 1974 riot have since died of cancer.

A number of former prisoners are already preparing a legal challenge in relation to the matter.

BBC

A hardline former DUP councillor murdered by republicans in Belfast in December 1987 was in the loyalist paramilitary UVF, it has been revealed.

Glasgow-born George Seawright, who was expelled from the party in 1984 for sectarian comments, was shot in Belfast by an INLA splinter group, the IPLO.

He has been named in a new booklet published by the UVF, which lists the details of its members who were killed.

David Ervine, leader of the UVF-linked PUP, said it was a significant move.

“Maybe there’s an optimum moment to do that, when you think that you have completed the list and the likelihood of your list being added to is minimised because of the conditions that operate in our country now,” he told the BBC’s Talkback programme.

“They can speak for themselves but I would like to interpret it that perhaps they are recognising that the war is over.”

‘Incinerator’

Mr Seawright, who was 36 when he was murdered near the Shankill Road, was known for his outspoken sectarian views, which saw him being brought before court a number of times.

He infamously suggested about Catholic schools that the Belfast Education and Library Board should “acquire an incinerator and burn the lot”.

In 1984, he said Belfast City Council should buy an incinerator “to burn Roman Catholics and their priests”.

He was later given a six-month suspended sentence for incitement.

He withdrew from politics in 1987 after being imprisoned for disorderly behaviour.

Irish Examiner

By Jimmy Woulfe
24 August 2006

THE ban on Catholic students travelling on a new bus to a Protestant school in Limerick took a new twist yesterday when it emerged that there are still seats available on the bus.

A Catholic couple, whose son and daughter attend the school were refused passes. Transport liaison officer, Deirdre Frawley, told Bernadette and Harry Gleeson that only children of Protestant denominations have an entitlement to transport on the bus, which will travel from Adare to Villiers School on the North Circular Road.

Ms Frawley disclosed yesterday that places on the bus had not been fully subscribed yet as that process was still ongoing.

She said there is provision in Department of Education guidelines to make concessions if the bus is not fully subscribed.

This could enable Catholic children travel on the bus if there are places.

She said that she will be writing to the Gleesons, who live at Caher Road, Mungret, shortly.

Ms Frawley said: “It would be inappropriate for me to comment on this letter as it has to be cleared by our legal advisers.”

She said the Department sets out guidelines on who is entitled to travel on school buses.

Ms Frawley said: “It is my job to determine eligibility.”

The Gleesons have instructed Limerick solicitor John Devane over the refusal to give passes