Locals will break code of silence on border killing
By Tom Brady and Ciaran Byrne
Friday November 30 2007
Residents of south Armagh have indicated to gardai that they are willing to travel across the border to be interviewed as part of the investigation into the murder of Paul Quinn.
Senior garda officers confirmed last night they were continuing to focus on the suspected involvement of Provisional IRA activists and sympathisers in the savage killing.
And they revealed that a massive community response has boosted their prospects of tracking down the killers of truck driver Mr Quinn, who was battered to death near the border last month.
The 21-year-old victim died in hospital after being beaten with iron bars and cudgels by a gang of up to 10 men. He had been lured to a shed on a farm near the Co Monaghan village of Oram on Saturday, October 22.
Solidarity
Mr Quinn’s father Stephen repeated his belief that the IRA was responsible, as 200 people gathered in the Co Armagh village of Cullyhanna in support of a campaign to bring Paul’s killers to justice on Wednesday night.
“It’s about control. Paul got into fights with two of them, connected to the IRA. There’s no one else who could do such a thing around this area,” he told BBC’s ‘Newsnight’.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said he believes that “criminals” killed Mr Quinn and he has also asserted his belief there was no IRA involvement, a view shared by the British government and Sinn Fein.
But International Monitoring Commission member John Grieve, a former Scotland Yard commander in charge of anti-terrorism, has said he believes the IRA was involved.
It is understood the IMC does not believe the murder was directly sanctioned by the IRA’s leadership, but the body does believe that it involved local people who are members or former members of the IRA.
Report
It has also emerged that the IMC has not, however, been asked to produce an early report into the killing.
The Irish and British governments asked the IMC to produce an urgent report after the murder of Robert McCartney, outside a Belfast pub three years ago, but ministers have not done so this time. Instead, the Quinn family will have to wait for the IMC’s next six-monthly report, due next April.
Since the cross-border investigation began, gardai have been attempting to convince the local communities to break the code of silence imposed on them in the past by the Provisional IRA and help them in their hunt for the killers.
Mr Quinn had been told to leave his native area after he had earlier clashed with a republican and the son of another republican. But he ignored the warnings and continued to live in Cullyhanna in south Armagh.
He was known to have associated with a group of young fuel smugglers along the Armagh-Monaghan border.
Gardai believe some of those associates may be able to provide information, and that some people are prepared to ignore threats.
Senior garda officers said last night they were receiving excellent co-operation from the PSNI and the forces were working together on house-to-house inquiries and on joint checkpoints.
- Tom Brady and Ciaran Byrne
