Victim’s family calls for informer probe
Irish News
**Via Newshound
By Barry McCaffrey
14/04/08
THE family of a west Belfast man shot dead by the Real IRA are demanding a full investigation into claims that at least two informers linked to his death are being protected by police.
Father-of-six Danny McGurk was shot dead in front of his wife and children by a Real IRA gang in August 2003.
The 35-year-old was murdered after an altercation with dissident republicans.
However the McGurk family say that new evidence has emerged linking at least two police informers with the killing.
“We want to know the truth about Danny’s murder because we have evidence that at least two informers are being protected by the PSNI,” Danny McGurk’s sister Geraldine said.
“Last year the Real IRA admitted to us that at least one of the three people involved in Danny’s murder was an informer.”
In 2003 one of the weapons used in the McGurk murder was recovered after police stopped a car in Co Derry.
Although one man and two women in the car were arrested, none of them were questioned about Danny McGurk’s murder and weap-ons charges against them were later dropped.
Geraldine McGurk called on one of those arrested in the car, former dissident republican John Brady, to disclose any information he may possess relating to her brother’s murder.
Brady, who had been released under the Good Friday Agreement after being sentenced for the murder of an RUC man in 1991, had his licence revoked after the Derry arrests and is now applying to the Life Sentence Review Commission for release.
His solicitor Peter Corrigan said Brady had severed all links with dissident republicans and had never been questioned in connection with the 35-year-old’s murder.
He said Brady fully supported the McGurk family in their efforts to have the murder properly investigated.
Both Sinn Fein and SDLP politicians have supported calls for Brady’s release.
Pointing to the torment that her family had suffered since her brother’s murder, Geraldine McGurk said: “My father died shortly after Danny’s murder and two of my brothers died prematurely as a result of it.
“We want to know why there was no proper investigation of Danny’s murder and why no one has ever been brought to justice, despite two informers being linked to the killing.
“We will not rest until we get to the truth.”
Responding to the McGurks claims, a police spokesman said: “This case will be re-examined by the PSNI Retrospective Murder Review unit.
“All new information will be considered by this unit and where possible further investigations will be carried out.”
