SAOIRSE32

Guardian

Families of two men believed killed by the IRA make new pleas to be told where their bodies lie

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday December 10, 2006
The Observer

Even today, while out shopping or socialising in her native Crossmaglen, Anna McShane knows she might encounter the people who kidnapped, killed and buried her father in secret.

As she and her family prepare to spend their 25th Christmas without her father, Anna is still confronted with a wall of fear and silence in south Armagh. ‘It’s chilling to think you could be in a shop and someone who has intimate knowledge of what happened to my father is standing beside you,’ Anna said, while staring at a fading colour photograph of Charlie Armstrong.

In 1981 the 54-year-old vanished without trace after setting off to drive an elderly woman to mass in nearby Cullyhanna. The family and the police have always assumed he was abducted by the local IRA, murdered and buried in a secret grave. He had no connection with the republican movement and there is still mystery surrounding why he was targeted.

Two years earlier the Armstrongs’ neighbours suffered a similar fate. In 1979 Gerry Evans also vanished in mysterious circumstances while hitching across the border to Castleblaney. The 26-year-old, whom the British army listed as an IRA member, was never seen again. It is assumed that the IRA believed he was an informer - a charge his family disputes.

Charlie Armstrong and Gerry Evans are suspected of being among ‘the disappeared’, a group of men that the IRA killed and then buried in unmarked graves during the Seventies and Eighties. United in grief, the two families are now convinced their campaign to get their remains back has entered endgame.

Last week McShane met Gerry Adams to ask him to help locate her father’s burial place. In the same week a new confidential phone line was set up along with a PO box for any republican with information about the disappeared to leave anonymous messages.

Inside the Armstrongs’ home on the Culloville Road, just within sight of the heavily fortified and repeatedly targeted Crossmaglen police station, the two families reflect on this critical stage of their campaign.

‘It’s very frustrating and isolating,’ said McShane. ‘There are still people out there who even to this day won’t even talk to you or ask about what happened to my dad. The fear is so great still that very few people speak out. And, yes, I know for a fact, because Crossmaglen is such a small place, that I have come across the men responsible for what happened to Dad. You can’t escape running into them.’

Neither the Armstrongs nor Gerry Evans’s mother Mary said they wanted retribution. They do not even want to know who was behind the abductions and killings. All they demand is that individuals provide information leading to the discovery of the remains.

Charlie Armstrong’s widow Kathleen, a sprightly and religiously devout 75-year-old, said that the loss of her husband and the subsequent silence about what happened to him is more pronounced at this time of year.

‘Every Christmas it just gets harder and this will be the hardest yet. People think the passage of time makes things easier. In fact, the further away from it, the harder it gets,’ she said. ‘All we want is to give Charlie a Christian burial. Even at this late, late stage I’m appealing to anyone with information to ring the confidential number. Surely after all these years someone’s conscience will work on them.’

Evans’s mother Mary dismissed the idea that the remains of her son and the other disappeared cannot be found because those involved in the abductions cannot remember. ‘How can you forget doing something like that?’ she asked.

‘I can remember quite clearly now the very day Gerry disappeared, what he looked like, what he was wearing, what he said. I don’t believe those involved can’t remember. You would never forget something as terrible as that.’

The families hold out some hope that they will receive more detailed information about a piece of land, 22 acres to be precise, in Co Monaghan where they believe the South Armagh IRA buried Charlie and Gerry. A letter in 2000 located the general area as a burial place but it was too imprecise for those searching for the remains.

‘If that person who sent the letter could ring the confidential line and be more specific it might just help. We don’t give up hope. We don’t have any hatred for those responsible. We just want to bury Dad in the rites of the church. It’s not too much to ask for,’ McShane added.

On the 12-mile journey from the Armstrongs’ home to Newry there are rows of neatly kept memorials and large murals dedicated to the fallen of the IRA’s South Armagh Brigade.

There are no such memorials in remembrance of south Armagh’s disappeared. For the Armstrongs and the Evans there is not even a gravestone they can visit.

Belfast Telegraph

By By Nevin Farrell
Monday 11, December 2006

A 17-year-old Catholic said last night he is “lucky to be alive” after being viciously beaten by a loyalist gang close to where schoolboy Michael McIlveen was beaten before dying in hospital.

Sean O’Hara (17), from Glenravel, eight miles from Ballymena, was in the town with friends in the early hours of yesterday when he was attacked. He underwent surgery in hospital on a finger injury and received several staples to a head wound.

He said he was left unconscious in the attack, which was carried out as he sat with friends in a hut in a back garden close to Garfield Place car park in the centre of Ballymena at around 4am.

He said that people were drinking in the hut when a loyalist gang burst in.

“A lot of Protestants came in and jumped me. I feel lucky I wasn’t killed,” said Sean last night.

One friend said: “Sean was lucky he didn’t become the next ‘Micky Bo’ because that area near the Garfield Place car park is where Michael McIlveen was beat up before he died.

“Loyalists were out in a car last night looking to attack a Catholic and other people said they were approached but got away.”

Police confirmed they are treating a serious assault on the 17-year-old Catholic as sectarian.

Yesterday, the PSNI sealed off a section of alleyway at Garfield Place car park close to the hut. It stands behind houses at Granville Drive, just feet from where Catholic schoolboy McIlveen was allegedly set upon by a baseball-bat wielding loyalist gang in May.

The scene of yesterday’s attack is adjacent to an electricity generator which was turned into a shrine to McIlveen after hundreds of messages of sympathy were written with marker pens.

The shrine was paint-bombed in a suspected loyalist attack.

A PSNI spokeswoman said the serious assault was reported to them around 4am. It is believed a gang of between four to six people attacked the youth.

One male has been arrested.

The police are appealing for information. They can be contacted on 0845 600 8000 or at Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

15-year-old Michael McIlveen died in hospital in May this year after being set upon by a mob.

Several teenagers have been charged with murder.

Belfast Telegraph

By By Stephen Breen
Monday 11, December 2006

The Stormont security guard who disarmed loyalist killer Michael Stone has revealed that she suffered a broken hand in the incident.

In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph’s sister paper, Sunday Life, brave Susan Porter told how she had been treated in hospital last week for the injury to her hand.

The ex-RUC officer, who is back at her work with Federal Security, believes the injury was caused as she attempted to stop Stone from barging his way through the revolving door at Parliament Buildings.

Said Ms Porter: “I know I went back to work the next day, but I now know that I was suffering from shock. I couldn’t sleep properly or properly focus on things.

“It was only a number of days after the incident that the enormity of what happened sank in.

“It’s still hard to believe and my head was up in the clouds.”

She added: “When I was at work my hand was very sore and when I went to the hospital they told me I had broken it. I had no idea I had suffered this injury.

“I have been offered a holiday by my employers and I can’t thank them enough. It will be great to get away and relax.

“I don’t know what people are saying about Stormont now but I just want to forget about it now because I’m no hero. It took a number of us to disarm Stone. It wasn’t just me.”

It has also emerged that Ms Porter, who received a death threat from the INLA while working as a police officer, was a popular good Samaritan while working in Downpatrick.

One local source said: “Susan was great during her time in Downpatrick. She gave gifts to the kids in the local children’s home and also helped local alcoholics.

“The kids at the home loved her and many people in the town immediately recognised her when she was on TV tackling Stone.

“When she was investigating crimes in Downpatrick, she also left money for people but didn’t want any credit for it.

“She was regarded as an angel because of her kind gestures and she served all sections of the community.

“Susan may have been under threat in the past, but there’s no way anyone would threaten her now, because of what she did at Stormont.”

BBC

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has received a warning from police about a fresh attack by dissident republicans.

Sinn Fein believes the threats follow internal discussions on policing

The Police Service of Northern Ireland told him dissidents had intended to shoot him, but called off their attack because of his security arrangements.

The threats follow internal party discussions on Sinn Fein’s strategy on policing.

However, Mr Adams accused the hardliners of using the policing issue as an excuse.

Speaking at Stormont on Monday, he said it was clear that certain elements were opposed to Sinn Fein’s peace strategy.

“The issue of policing is an excuse which is being used and exploited by them,” he said.

“It is clearly an important issue, but it is being manipulated as part of the wider hostility to Sinn Fein’s peace strategy.”

Policing

Mr Adams said the warning indicated that dissident republicans had been planning to shoot him, but were deterred by enhanced security arrangements taken by Sinn Fein once it was alerted to the possibility of an attack.

Disaffected members of the Provisional movement and dissidents in the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and other republican organisations oppose any move by Sinn Fein to endorse publicly the PSNI.

However, Democratic Unionists have made Sinn Fein support for the police a pre-requisite for a new power sharing government next March.

Last month, Sinn Fein said it had evidence that dissidents were planning to attack senior members of the party including Mr Adams, Gerry Kelly and Martin McGuinness.

A police spokeswoman said it was not policy to comment on the security of individuals.

Ulster Unionist party deputy leader Danny Kennedy said the time had come for Sinn Fein to deal with the issue of policing so that party members could receive police help to deal with such threats.

“The right thing to do for the republican leadership is to give their full unqualified support to the PSNI, the lawful authorities.

“They can then expect the full cover and reasonable support of the lawful institutions.”

Mr Kennedy said it was not a question of not accepting that threats had been made, it was about how Sinn Fein should deal with those threats.