SAOIRSE32

Yesterday I received an anonymous comment on the livejournal location telling me to post a story on Pat Finucane’s death from the republican viewpoint AS IF I hadn’t a clue. I would like to say once again that I have been doing this for 4 years. The stories are here. The reader has a responsibility to use the archive feature and the Lj search box and the Google site search on Blogsome to find the many articles I have here and the other listed SAOIRSE32 archive sites on all the many subjects. I do not always have the time to re-post everything. This is not my fulltime job. I do it out of love. I have been criticised for not allowing insults to be posted freely, and now the implication is that I cover from a brit standpoint. I am more than a little annoyed. I wish I had all day to post. I used to be able to do so from work. Now I cannot.

Irish News
*Via Newshound
12/02/2008

A JUDGE is expected to announce within days whether he will cross the border to hear evidence from gardai in the multi-million-pound Omagh bomb compensation case.

Mr Justice Morgan confirmed at the High Court in Belfast that he will make a declaration on Friday on how the officers’ testimonies can be taken.

If he decides to go to Dublin, where he has no jurisdiction to preside, it is believed he would operate on commission, with full agreement of the Irish authorities.

Senior counsel for relatives of those killed in the atrocity also told a hearing yesterday that no statements from gardai were available to be disclosed to the court.

The civil action against five men suspected of leading the paramilitary organisation behind the August 1998 attack which claimed 29 lives, including a woman pregnant with twins, is due to begin in April.

At the procedural hearing legal arguments also focused on David Rupert, an American trucking company boss turned FBI spy whose

evidence at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin helped convict Michael McKevitt (56) on a charge of directing terrorism.

McKevitt, Seamus Daly, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus McKenna are being sued for £14 million by the families of some of those killed at Omagh.

Lord Brennan, the London QC heading the legal team representing those bringing the compensation claim, had raised the prospect of taking evidence from gardai at an earlier hearing, saying it was necessary to corroborate what Rupert had disclosed about McKevitt.

But major doubts surround whether the mole, now living in

hiding under a witness protection programme after infiltrating the Real IRA, will testify at the compensation case.

A lawyer for McKevitt told the High Court: “Given the fundamental nature to the plaintiffs case of the evidence of Mr Rupert, if… there’s no prospect of that evidence being admitted to trial that would certainly render quite a large part of the proposed evidence of the gardai redundant.”

After making clear his intention to make a ruling later this week, Mr Justice Morgan also told counsel for the defendants that any arrangements for video-link facilities should be confirmed by the end of the month.

Irish News
*Via Newshound
By Bimpe Fatogun
12/02/2008

A POLICING Board member has criticised the force for “not actively pursuing” two IRA kidnappers who remain free four years after carrying out a vicious attack.

Belfast men Harry Fitzsimmons (39) of Spamount Street and Liam Rainey (34) of New Barnsley Crescent jumped bail with Thomas Tolan (36) of Ballymurphy Parade and Gerard McCrory (35) of Dermott Hill Road in May 2006.

The four had been arrested in the city in February 2004 when police stopped a van close to the city centre.

Inside they discovered dissident republican Bobby Tohill, who had been abducted from a bar and badly beaten.

Their arrest plunged the peace process into crisis.

All four pleaded guilty to offences and were awaiting sentencing when they jumped bail.

McCrory and Tolan were arr-ested in January 2007. However, Fitzsimmons and Rainey remain on the run, although it is understood at least one of them has since been seen in west Belfast.

Sinn Fein has, on a number of occasions, called for the men to hand themselves in.

But the refusal of police to release pictures or even a basic description of the men has led to accusations that they may be reluctant to make a move because of political pressure.

A spokesman would only repeat a statement saying: “Efforts to locate these two men are ongoing and police will continue to take the most appropriate action deemed necessary to execute those warrants.”

SDLP assembly member Dolores Kelly said she will raise the matter with the chief constable at the next meeting of the board.

“It is inexcusable that these men have not been actively pursued. This was a very, very serious assault and to all intents and purposes attempted murder,” she said.

“Given what happened to Paul Quinn what sort of message does it send that these people are free to walk the streets?

“I want to ask Hugh Orde why police are not actively pursuing them.”

Paul Quinn from Cullyhanna, Co Armagh, died in October after being badly beaten. His family have blamed members of the IRA but Sinn Fein deny this.

Tohill had written to the judge sentencing Tolan and McCrory asking that they be spared a prison sentence.

However, Lord Justice Sir Paul Girvan said he could not be sure it was written of his own free will.

He said they had shown they “have very little or no remorse” and described the kidnapping as “an organised crime (with) all the hallmarks of paramilitarism, even if it was not associated with a particular paramilitary organisation”.

McCrory was jailed for seven years and Tolan for six and a half.

By Chris Thornton
Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday 13, February 2008

Heavyweight London lawyers recently signed up by the family of Pat Finucane have vowed to hold the Government to account by the 20th anniversary of the solicitor’s murder.

The Finucane family announced yesterday that international legal experts Michael Mansfield QC and Richard Harvey will represent them in the paralysed public inquiry into the murder.

They are now seeking a meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown to resolve a stand-off with the Government.

Mr Finucane was murdered in his north Belfast home by UDA members 19 years ago yesterday.

After investigating the killing, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens concluded there was collusion between Mr Finucane’s killers and members of the security forces.

A retired Canadian Supreme Court judge, Justice Peter Cory, recommended a public inquiry into the killing in 2003.

The Government agreed but passed special legislation in 2005 before setting one up.

The family have objected to the Inquiries Act - which gives Ministers greater powers over an inquiry - and have said they will not take part in proceeding set up under the legislation.

The Finucanes said their lawyers are requesting meetings with Mr Brown and Secretary of State Shaun Woodward.

Michael Finucane, Pat Finucane’s eldest son, said the exisiting legislation ” gives control of the inquiry to Government Ministers”.

“Our legal team will be briefed to ensure that the inquiry will not become a Government vehicle for suppression,” he said. “Secret justice is no justice at all.”

Michael Mansfield and Richard Harvey are barristers with Tooks Chambers, founded during the 1984 miners’ strike.

Mr Mansfield has represented the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot by the Metropolitan Police in 2005, and Mohammed Al Fayed in the Princess Diana inquest.

Mr Mansfield said: “The significance of the murder of Pat Finucane cannot be underestimated.

“The extent to which collusion existed between Britain and loyalist paramilitaries is deeply shocking and all the more so when employed to murder an officer of the court merely for doing his job.”

Richard Harvey, who worked on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, added: “There can be no whitewash and we will not allow another anniversary of this murder to pass without the government being called to account.”

Belfast Telegraph
Tuesday 12, February 2008

The leader of the Real IRA today launched a fresh appeal against his conviction for directing terrorism claiming the key witness in his trial lacked credibility.

Michael McKevitt was sentenced to 20 years in August 2003 after FBI agent David Rupert infiltrated the terror group.

The dissident republican’s lawyers told Dublin’s Supreme Court Rupert was a lifelong criminal, weapons dealer, fraudster and drugs smuggler willing to do anything for money.

They claimed the former truck driver from New York became an agent for the US intelligence outfit in 1974 and again in 1992 when he was facing a prosecution for fraud.

“He was the lynchpin of the case,'’ Hugh Hartnett, McKevitt’s Senior Counsel, told the court.

“There was the coincidence of his being signed up by the FBI at the time he was being investigated for fraud. We were curious as to whether a deal had been done.'’

Mr Hartnett said it was a peculiar set of circumstances.

He listed a series of criminal enterprises Rupert was suspected of involvement in.

The court was given a FBI file which reported a conversation with a State Trooper from Rupert’s home town and contained a string of crimes the agent was being linked to.

Rupert was believed to be a drugs smuggler, brothel keeper, arms dealer, thief, and adept at hiding behind other criminals to avoid prosecution.