SAOIRSE32

Derry Journal
05 December 2008

The families of those killed must be the first to receive an explanation for the Bloody Sunday Inquiry delay, a sister of one of the victims has said.

On Wednesday Lord Saville declined to meet the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to discuss the delay, saying he could not do so without divulging sensitive details of the ten-year investigation.

The chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, said he was disappointed at Lord Saville’s response.

Sir Patrick Cormack said the Committee is “extremely disappointed and concerned at this further delay and the consequential costs, and at the inevitable worry that gives to many people.”

“We sincerely hope that this will be the last delay and that the inquiry’s report will be published before the end of 2009,” he said.

But Jean Hegarty, whose brother Kevin McElhinney was killed on Bloody Sunday, said the families ” would have been more than disappointed” had Lord Saville met with the committee.

“Lord Saville has refused to meet with the families to discuss the delay so we would have been more than disappointed had he chose to meet with the committee.

” We would not have been happy if he had chosen to offer explanations to others before us.”

She said the delay remained a source of consternation for the Bloody Sunday families.

“The families remain concerned about the delay. But we are grateful lord Saville declined to discuss it without first explaining it to the families. It restores a bit of confidence in the process,” she said.

Thirteen people were killed on Sunday January 30 1972 when paratroopers shot 27 civilians in Derry. A 14th victim died later.

The Saville inquiry, which has so far cost £185million, began in 1998. Lord Saville’s report is expected in the autumn of 2009.

News Letter
05 December 2008

SDLP MP Eddie McGrady has accused Secretary of State Shaun Woodward of being “weak” on loyalist paramilitaries.

Mr McGrady issued his condemnation of Mr Woodward after his announcement that loyalists will be given until February 2010 to decommission their arsenals.

The Northern Ireland Office denied that the Secretary of State was being weak and said that it was the final time the decommissioning order would be extended.

Mr McGrady said: “The decision by the Secretary of State to give loyalist paramilitaries a further year to continue to hold illegal weapons that threaten the stability of the community smacks of weakness.

“Loyalist paramilitaries did not shy away from use of these illegal weapons in the recent past and the discovery of four blast bombs in south Belfast this week, which police believe were planted by loyalists, is clarification of the free hand that loyalists have in relation to their paramilitary activity and arsenal.

“This continuing paramilitary activity and confidence on the part of the loyalist paramilitaries has in no doubt been attributed to by the farcical situation where the PSNI have stated they are aware of the location of loyalist weapons but choose not to take action and seize these illegal arms.

“It is simply unacceptable, and would be inconceivable, in any other society, that a democratic government knows the whereabouts of paramilitary arms, yet fails to take these weapons out of circulation.”

Mr McGrady urged the Government to rethink this “paramilitary-friendly policy” and to act as “guardians” for the community who “wish to see an immediate end to the last vestiges of the Troubles”.

An NIO spokeswoman said last night: “Northern Ireland has not made the huge progress it has through weakness.

“In Government, there are difficult decisions to be made and in our view this is the right one. Everyone should be clear that this is the final time that the decommissioning order will be renewed.”

05 December 2008
News Letter

THE families of people who lost their lives in the Troubles are being treated like second-class citizens thanks to a decision to cut jobs within the Historical Enquiries Team.

That was the claim by DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson last night as it emerged that 75 of the body’s 190 staff are to be made redundant.

The HET was set up to re-examine unsolved murders from the Troubles, and are axing jobs due to budget restrictions.

The News Letter understands that the current £8.3 million funding allocation for this financial year is to be reduced to £5.9 million next year.

The Commission for Victims and Survivors said the victims would be shocked to hear the latest news.

“We hear weekly from people who have become deeply frustrated at the length of time HET takes to complete its investigations. This news will only make it worse,” commissioner Mike Nesbitt said.

But HET director Dave Cox reassured families that, despite the requirement to scale back operations, the work of the team would continue.

“There is a commitment from all parties that the HET will continue to deliver this crucial work for families. In the current economic environment difficult decisions have to be made and the HET, as with other agencies, is facing financial pressures for the coming year,” he said.

“In view of that we have a responsibility to keep our team advised of the situation.”

He said the HET, set up three years ago, has worked with hundreds of families to date and will continue to deliver a service to them which is both professional and cost-effective.

However, Mr Donaldson said it was apparent there was a “hierarchy of victims in Northern Ireland”, and claimed that thanks to these cost-cutting measures, people who had lost relatives in the conflict were not getting the justice they were entitled to.

He said that the fact that millions of pounds was being spent on investigations like the Saville Inquiry was “clear evidence” of that.

“The families of those who were murdered are entitled to ask the question why they are being treated as second- class citizens,” he said.

“These families are entitled to equality and justice and at the moment they are getting neither as the government has placed a price on this.”

He added that the reduction of staff within the HET would “inevitably mean fewer cases are investigated, and fewer families finding out what happened to their loved ones”.

Markethill-based victims’ rights campaigner Willie Frazer has said he intends to lobby the First Minister over the matter.

“Justice is the most important issue here and they are telling us that they can’t find the money to investigate the backlog of murders, yet they can spend money on independent inquiries,” said Mr Frazer who heads up FAIR.

“In south Armagh there have been hundreds of murders not solved and we are told we must move on.

“It is not good enough.”

By Ciaran Barnes
Belfast Media

The family of a Long Kesh escapee who is facing deportation from the US have appealed to the American government to allow their relative to remain in the country.

Last week Pól Brennan was given the dreaded news that he is to be sent back to Ireland after spending the past 25 years living in the US.

The 55-year-old Ballymurphy man was one of 38 IRA prisoners who escaped from Long Kesh in 1983.

He fled to the US and was arrested a decade later living under a new identity in San Francisco.

Pól was charged with gaining illegal entry to the country, however his problems appeared to end in 2000 when the British government dropped extradition proceedings.

Although confusion existed over his residency status, he continued to live in the US.

However, in January he was arrested in Texas for having a out-of-date work permit.

Pól Brennan has been held in a variety of jails ever since and now the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed he is to be deported back to Ireland.

The decision is a hammer blow for both him and his family – given the fact he has led a trouble-free life in the US.

Pól’s Belfast-based nephew, Colm Brennan, says that although the deportation decision has been “devastating” for his uncle, he has lost none of his fighting spirit.

“He will appeal the decision to a higher court, but is very concerned that Homeland Security will try to deport him before he has a chance to appeal,” said Colm.

“He will now apply for bail to be with his wife and family while the appeals process is undertaken.

“The US authorities know that Pól is no danger to society as they have allowed him to live openly with his family in San Francisco for the past ten years.

“We hope that even at this late stage Pól will be shown clemency.”

An Phoblacht
4 December 2008

ANONYMOUS claims by a Special Branch witness to the Rosemary Nelson Inquiry, that the murdered Lurgan solicitor passed information to the IRA, have been met with outrage from within the nationalist community.
The inquiry is investigating the March 1999 murder of the 40-year-old solicitor and it was established as a result of allegations of official collusion between unionist paramilitaries and official crown forces in her killing.
Describing the latest claims as, “outrageous”, Sinn Féin Upper Bann Assembly member John O’Dowd, speaking to An Phoblacht, accused the former RUC Special Branch operative of making false allegations, “similar to the allegations the RUC bandied about in the run up to Rosemary’s assassination in 1999”.
Nelson was killed, by a car bomb outside her home in Lurgan, County Armagh, in 1999. A unionist killer gang calling itself the Red Hand Defenders, used variously as a cover name for the UDA and LVF claimed responsibility for the killing.
As a result of her defence work, representing clients in a number of high profile cases, including the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition in nearby Portadown in the long-running Drumcree conflict with the Orange Order, Nelson was the target of harassment and death threats from members of the RUC.

CLAIMS

The former Special Branch officer claimed in his evidence to the Nelson inquiry, on Monday 1 December, that Nelson, “was passing sensitive information to [others] engaged in violence”.
Hiding behind the cloak of anonymity the former RUC man went further and claimed that the Lurgan-based human rights advocate was, “having an affair” with a client, Colin Duffy.
Nelson successfully represented Duffy when he faced false charges of killing two RUC members in Lurgan in 1997. The charges against Duffy were eventually thrown out of court.
The officer said he had received intelligence that Nelson and Duffy had met in at Demesne Avenue, which was described as a loyalist area.
Under the terms of the inquiry the Nelson family’s legal representative cannot cross-examine the witnesses. However, Barra McGrory, the family’s solicitor, in a statement issued to the media, said of the Special branch allegations:
“There is no evidential basis for this belief which is apparently held on the strength of unnamed and unidentified sources who for all we know could have been from the loyalist community who were deliberately spreading these malicious rumours about Rosemary Nelson.”

RUC DEATH THREATS

Rosemary Nelson was a solicitor who saw her primary objective as that of upholding the law and representing her clients.

CAR BOMB: Scene of Rosemary Nelson’s murder

The residents of Garvaghy Road, the family of Robert Hamill, beaten to death by a loyalist mob in Portadown in 1997 and the family of Sam Marshall, shot dead by the UVF, were among her clients.
She was targeted for special attention by members of of the RUC and the then Ulster Defence Regiment of the British Army who threatened her life on numerous occasions.
Many of Nelson’s clients were told while they were being interrogated by the RUC that Rosemary would be killed. She continued her advocacy until, eventually in March 1999 she was assassinated.
Prior to her death the UN sent a Special Rapporteur, Param Cumaraswamy, to examine the allegations of crown forces harassment against Rosemary Nelson and her clients. Cumaraswamy viewed the evidence he gathered as to be so serious that he wrote in his report to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in April 1998 –11 months before Rosemary was killed – “the RUC has engaged in activities which constitute intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference”, with solicitors.

FACELESS SECUROCRATS

Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd this week voiced what most nationalists believe when he said of this latest attempt by the RUC to vilify a woman who stood up to them, “the British State directly and through its pseudo gangs planned and carried out the murder of Rosemary Nelson. Having been widely exposed by the evidence being given at the inquiry their defence now seems to be that, not satisfied with murdering Rosemary, they are now trying to assassinate her character.
“It is telling that the individual who made these allegations without producing a shred of evidence is cowardly for hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. That says more about his lack of character than anything else.”
O’Dowd concluded saying, “while it is unusual to comment on ongoing legal proceedings the attempt by a faceless British securocrat to slander the memory of a much loved wife, mother, daughter and sister cannot pass without a robust challenge”.

BBC

The daughter of IRA murder victims has failed to bring Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness to court for appointing NI’s four victims commissioners.

Michelle Williamson wanted the former first minister and deputy first minister to face questioning as part of her ongoing judicial review case.

She is seeking to have the commissioner appointments quashed.

Mrs Williamson’s parents were killed in the 1993 bomb attack on Belfast’s Shankill Road.

She is seeking a judicial review of the appointment of Patricia MacBride, whose brother has been described as an IRA volunteer killed on active service, RUC widow Bertha McDougal, former broadcaster Mike Nesbitt and Brendan McAllister, director of Mediation Northern Ireland.

Alleges

She claims there was no legal authority to bring four people into the role.

She also alleges that Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness based their decision on religious belief or political opinion rather than merit.

Following the refusal of Mrs Williamson’s subpoena application in August, her lawyers went before the Court of Appeal in a bid to have the ruling overturned.

It was claimed the appointment process was cloaked in secrecy, with no notes or records kept of assessments of candidates before it was announced to the Stormont assembly in January that four commissioners had been identified.

A three-judge panel dismissed her appeal because it was not clearly shown what material Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness would be cross-examined on.

BBC

The chief witness in a murder trial has denied suggestions that he made up his version of events at the behest of the UVF.

Mark Burcombe was giving evidence against his former friend Steven Brown, also known as Steven Revels.

Mr Brown is accused of killing Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine near Tandragee in February 2000.

Belfast Crown Court heard the UVF was was holding an investigation into the deaths when Mr Burcombe came forward.

Mr Burcombe, of Castle Place in Castlecaulfield, has already admitted being present on the night of the killings.

He was originally charged with murder but agreed to act as a prosecution witness and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiring to cause grievous bodily harm.

He said Steven Brown and another man, Noel Dillon, who is now dead, killed the two teenagers in a shockingly violent knife attack.

During the fourth day of his cross-examination, he explained how he came to the point in 2005 where he decided to give himself up to the police.

This was via a complicated process involving a series of intermediaries including his father, two Christian community workers and Paul McIlwaine, the father of one of the victims.

It happened just days after the BBC broadcast a reconstruction on the killings on its Crimewatch programme.

Mr Burcombe insisted he had not seen the programme, only heard about it, but revealed that he had a series of meetings and conversations in the week following its broadcast, culminating in him handing himself over to the police just under a week later.

In court, it was put to him that this was a version approved by the UVF.

He agreed that, by the time he actually met the police, he had been made aware that the UVF was carrying out its own investigation into the murders and that they “wanted this sorted”.

However, he insisted he had decided to come forward without knowing anything of this and that his version of events was the truth and not - as has been suggested - a “pack of lies” approved of by the UVF and designed to frame Steven Brown.

The trial continues.

By Ciarán Barnes
Belfast Media

An award-winning singer who has sold almost 30 million records worldwide has incorporated lyrics from a famous Irish rebel song on to a track on her new album.

On ‘Let’s Do the Things We Normally Do’, Dido sings: “Armoured cars and tanks and guns, came to take away our sons, but every man must stand behind the men behind the wire.”

Dido – who has scored number one hits in Europe and the United States – lifted the lyric from the famous The Men Behind the Wire song.

The ‘Let’s Do the Things We Normally Do’ track is on her new album, Safe Trip Home, which was released last month.

‘The Men Behind the Wire’ was originally written by Paddy McGuigan of the Barleycorn folk group.

It is an anti-internment song that deals with homes being raided and nationalists being jailed without trial.

Proceeds from the original 1971 record, which went to number one in the Irish charts but was banned on RTÉ and BBC, went into the kitty to help launch the Andersonstown News.

Dido spent part of her early childhood growing up in Co Clare.

By Roisin McManus
Belfast Media
Andersonstown News Thursday

A group calling itself Action Against Drug Dealers (AADD) has threatened to kill or severely punish drug dealers who don’t heed their warnings.

In a statement from the ‘Belfast Leadership’ of the AADD sent to the Andersonstown News this week, the group says its aim is to eradicate the ‘drug epidemic’ that has ‘infested’ communities across the North.

The group claims that ‘activists’ have been targeting and punishing drug dealers in recent weeks and months in several areas in Belfast.

“Over the last number of years these vermin have been poisoning young people and adults alike, openly and without fear of challenge,” said the statement.

“It is clear that some of these well known parasites obviously work as police informers and operate with impunity. Not any more.

“It is also clear that several of the drug dealers in question secretly use the names of republican organisations to intimidate their victims and pretend to be members of organsations to collect money and carry out their own form of punishment against penniless and fearful drug addicts and their families.

“We call on all republican military organisations to make public statements against this type of behaviour and reassure our communities that the parasites don’t operate for, on behalf of, or in conjunction with you.”

The group goes on further to warn drug dealers: “We will do our best to eradicate this poison from the communities that we all come from.

“If the vermin don’t heed the warnings then they will suffer an early grave or severe punishment.”

Independent.ie
Friday December 05 2008

A judge who jailed 22 members of the IRA for more than 4,000 years in Belfast in 1983 has died.

Basil Kelly who was aged 87 died after a short illness at a hospital in Berkshire, England.

Lord Justice Kelly had to wear a bullet-proof vest in the 1980’s and was guarded by SAS men because of IRA threats on his life.

He was a former Attorney General in Northern Ireland and also a former Ulster Unionist MP in the old Stormont parliament.

By Dave Burke
croydontoday.co.uk
**Via Newshound
Friday, December 05, 2008

In September 1971 Maria McGuire was one of the most wanted terrorists in the world.

Armed with a .38 automatic weapon and carrying £20,000 in cash, she was being pursued by security forces from several countries over her role in a huge arms deal.

More than 160 crates containing bazookas, rocket launchers and hand-grenades had been seized at an airport in Amsterdam, and a warrant had been issued for her arrest.

McGuire found herself on the run with a member of the Provisional IRA’s ruling council – with whom she was having an affair.

In Ireland, plans were afoot to kidnap the Dutch ambassador if she and David O’Connell were arrested.

But despite a massive media frenzy, she and O’Connell were able to escape the Netherlands through Belgium and France before returning to Ireland to a hero’s welcome.

Even though their mission had failed, the pair became - for a brief period - the golden couple of the Irish Republican movement.

In her book To Take Arms: My Year With The IRA Provisionals, published in 1973, McGuire wrote candidly: “The press had made great play of the fact that we had escaped the British secret service; we had achieved another glorious failure.

“It was better even than if we had been successful, because then the public would have had to confront reality.

“Why did we want the guns? To kill people.”

She learnt two months later that she faced three years in prison if she re-entered Switzerland, where she had exchanged currency.

In the space of just one year, McGuire became a close confidante of many of the Provisional IRA’s top leaders, before disillusionment set in over the group’s methods.

She had signed up after seeing the Provisionals’ publicity officer, Sean O Bradaigh, on Irish television.

So keen was McGuire to talk to him that she rang the TV studio straight away and left a message.

Within weeks she was put forward to the British press as an example of the new middle-class membership the movement was attracting.

But as violence escalated in Belfast following a failed ceasefire in July 1972, McGuire decided she could not support the sectarian killing, and fled to England.

There she gave extensive interviews in the British press and published her book hoping to lift the lid on IRA brutality.

Her defection prompted the Provisional IRA’s chief of staff, Sean MacStiofain - who she described as “narrow minded” - to warn that if she ever returned to Ireland she would face a court martial and possibly execution.

Her book - which caused a storm on its publication - revealed her thoughts on one of the most intensive bombing campaigns ever carried out.

Following an IRA bomb in Donegall Street, Belfast, which killed six men and injured 146 in March 1972, she wrote: “I admit that at the time I did not connect with the people who were killed or injured in such explosions.

“I always judged such deaths in terms of the effect they would have on our support – and I felt that this in turn depended on how many people accepted our explanation.”

*Maria McGuire on her affair with Provisional IRA ruling council member David O’Connell, which started in Amsterdam…

“It just happened, and seemed perfectly natural, even though our situation was very unnatural.

We were under considerable stress together, and became very close, depended on one another, because of that.

Possibly it meant more to Dave than it did to me; but when we managed not to worry about the outcome of our mission and our own chances of escaping, we were very happy.”

*Maria McGuire on meeting the Provisional IRA chief of staff, Sean MacStiofain…

“He seemed short and squat, and lacked Dave’s physical presence: only later did I realise he was in fact over six feet tall.

He appeared a little taken aback by me too; I knew he had heard about me, but possibly he wasn’t expecting someone wearing hot pants to be interested in the Provisional IRA.”

*Maria McGuire on the IRA’s bombing campaign in Northern Ireland….

“The intention behind the bombing campaign was to cause confusion and terror.

In 1971 bomb explosions averaged three a day throughout the six counties, and it was very easy to create confusion in the centre of Belfast ….

Sometimes the Belfast Provisionals would give a succession of false alarms, and then just as the city was enjoying the lull, plant half a dozen bombs on the same day.

We believed that the bombing campaign had a greater psychological effect in this way.

By causing such terror we demonstrated that whatever steps the army took, the Provisionals could continue the military campaign; half a million people in Belfast would be kept wondering where the Provisionals would strike next, and would be forced to tell the British to make peace with us.”

*Maria McGuire on killing British soldiers….

“I agreed with the shooting of British soldiers and believed that the more who were killed the better.

I remember occasions where we heard late at night that a British soldier had been shot and seriously wounded in Belfast or Derry - and we would hope that by the morning he would be dead.”

*Maria McGuire on killing civilians…

“I accepted too the bombing of Belfast, and when civilians were accidentally blown to pieces dismissed this as one of the unfortunate hazards of urban guerrilla war.”

*Maria McGuire on being banned from entering Switzerland…

“I happened to hear a television news item that two Irish citizens had been excluded from Switzerland - Dave O’Connell and myself.

We had done nothing illegal in Switzerland that I could recall…

Then the Swiss Embassy in Dublin telephoned Dave and asked us to call at the embassy to collect our exclusion orders.

We naturally refused.”

*Maria McGuire on becoming disillusioned in the face of escalating violence….

“I could not avoid the conclusion that the probability of civilian casualties had been accepted, and perhaps even planned.

Whenever such casualties had occurred before, there had always been the pressure of events to take my mind off them.

But now, almost for the first time, I wondered about the crippled and the widowed and the lives that had been changed forever.”

dave.burke@essnmedia.co.uk

Irish News
04/12/08

A CONVICTED IRA murderer is to be allowed to give evidence against alleged dissident republican leader Michael McKevitt at the Omagh bomb civil action, a judge ruled yesterday.

Sean O’Callaghan will be called to try to prove claims that he and McKevitt attended a meeting with other senior Provisionals in the mid-1980s to discuss buying deer hunting rifles to kill soldiers and policemen.

O’Callaghan, an informer who says he was once in charge of the IRA’s southern command, has made a series of claims in a statement to the High Court.

Lawyers for victims’ relatives who are suing McKevitt and four other men over the Real IRA attack on Omagh in August 1998 which claimed 29 lives, including a woman pregnant with unborn twins, wanted permission for O’Callaghan to be allowed to testify at the trial in Belfast.

Ruling on his admissibility, Mr Justice Morgan said there was no evidential value to his “assumptions” about McKevitt’s rise within the IRA after Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy was allegedly appointed chief of staff.

But the judge added: “The remainder of the evidence in my view, if true, might assist the plaintiffs in seeking to prove that Mr McKevitt was a relatively senior and important member of the Provisional IRA during the mid-1980s.

“That fact, if proved, together with the other facts might contribute to a case that Mr McKevitt held such a senior position until the late 1990s.

“All of this may have a bearing on the issue of whether the third named defendant [McKevitt] held a leadership position in the Real IRA at the time of the Omagh bomb as alleged by the plaintiffs.

“I consider, therefore, that the relevance test is passed except for the material by way of supposition about what might have happened when Mr Murphy became chief of staff.”

As well the circumstances surrounding the alleged rifle procurement meeting, O’Callaghan can give direct evidence on claims that he instructed his security officer to tell McKevitt to stop taking vehicles from a Provisional IRA car pool without permission.

The court was told a further issue he can address centres on his allegations that the IRA’s chief of staff

in 1985, Kevin McKenna, told him he wanted McKevitt voted onto the paramilitary organisation’s executive.

O’Callaghan, a Special Branch agent originally from Tralee, Co Kerry, is now believed to be living in London and will travel to give evidence at a later date.

He was sentenced to two life terms and 529 years imprisonment for terrorist offences including the murders of a soldier and police officer but was later released from jail under a Royal prerogative.

The court heard that his statement contained allegations that McKevitt was ‘Slab’ Murphy’s “right hand man”.

In it he also claims to have been told that McKevitt was kneecapped in 1975 following a dispute between the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. He further alleges that McKevitt was involved in a militarist coup within the Provisional IRA in 1984.

But Mr Justice Morgan ruled that these claims relied on accounts given by others.

However, the trial judge refused to allow allegations contained in a book written by Tony Blair’s former aide Jonathan Powell that McKevitt was a long-time PIRA quartermaster general and had founded the Real IRA.

Mr Justice Morgan said that the claims, contained in Mr Powell’s book Great Hatred, Little Room could not be substantiated as there was no source to back up either claim.

“This is a serious allegation which, if proved, would significantly assist the plaintiffs’ case.

“The credibility and reliability of these assertions is, however, impossible to evaluate,” he said.

Meanwhile a handwriting expert told the civil trial that “rogue” interview notes were made during the questioning of one of those suspected of involvement in the atrocity.

Forensic document examiner Kim Hughes gave his assessment to the High Court in Belfast as lawyers for Colm Murphy opened their defence against claims that he can be held

responsible for the attack.

Murphy (54) a building contractor from Co Louth, is one of five men being sued over the bombing.

He denies liability along with McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Seamus McKevitt and Seamus Daly.

In separate criminal proceedings Murphy is challenging a decision to retry him on conspiracy charges connected to the Omagh attack.

His original conviction was overturned after it was found the Special Criminal Court in Dublin failed to give proper regard to altered interview notes by investigating Garda detectives.

By Barry McCaffrey
Irish News
04/12/08

A CONVICTED IRA killer turned Special Branch informer was paid more than £80,000 in money from the Omagh Victims Legal Fund, it emerged yesterday.

In 1988 self-confessed killer Sean O’Callaghan walked into a police station in central London and confessed to the May 1974 murder of UDR soldier Eva Martin and the murder of RUC Special Branch officer Peter Flanagan at a bar in Omagh six months later.

It later emerged that throughout the 1980s he had worked as an agent for Garda Special Branch foiling many planned PIRA attacks.

In 1990 he was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released six years later.

After being released from prison he worked as a special adviser to Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and as a pundit on the Provisional IRA.

However, it has now emerged that convicted killer Mr O’Callaghan was paid more than £80,000 in money by the Omagh Victims Legal Fund between March 2001 and August 2003 to assist with media and fundraising.

Mr O’Callaghan’s employment came at a time when the Omagh families were attempting to raise £1million to launch a civil action against five men who it is claimed were leading members of the Real IRA.

Mr O’Callaghan’s employment by the group ended at the same time as the British government agreed to provide £800,000 in funding to the civil action. Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among the 29 people and two unborn children killed by the 1998 Real IRA bomb, confirmed that Mr O’Callaghan had been employed by the victims’ fund for a two and a half year period.

“I know that Sean worked for H2O

solicitors firm for a period and dipped in and out of the victims fund,” he said.

“As far as I am aware he did mostly media things.

“I know that he has a horrendous past and that it may be hard for some people to accept that he was employed by the fund but he publicly apologised for the terrible things that he did and went to prison for it.

“Like many of the people in government today he was given a second chance despite the terrible crimes he committed.

“We believe the only way we will get to the truth about what happened in Omagh is when the British and Irish governments allow a cross-border inquiry to take place.”

Irish News
04/12/08

THE Continuity IRA has posted leaflets around doors in a west Belfast neighbourhood warning bogus callers that they will be ‘severely’ dealt with.

In the leaflet, which was delivered to homes in the Beechmount area of the Falls Road, the dissident republican group also calls on residents to be “vigilant when answering the doors to strangers”.

The development is being viewed as an attempt by CIRA to portray themselves as an alternative policing force within the nationalist area offering punishment attacks on criminals as a form of justice.

A full statement on the leaflet said: ‘The CIRA wish to inform the residents of Beechmount and surrounding areas that bogus callers have been reported calling on the elderly.

‘We call on everyone in the district to be vigilant when answering their doors to strangers.

‘We would also warn anyone found taking advantage of people in this and indeed any other areas will be severely dealt with.’

SDLP assembly member for West Belfast and Policing Board member Alex Attwood described the leaflets as “sinister”.

“The Continuity IRA is using public anxiety in order to advance its own agenda and to portray themselves as guardians of the community and threaten people with violence,” he said.

“The community needs to report to police any suspicious activity including bogus callers and help police identify and pursue those involved.”

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor
Irish Times
Friday, December 5, 2008

RESEARCH FOR a number of public inquiries in Northern Ireland is costing the police more than £5 million each year to carry out, PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde has told the policing board.

The demands of assisting the Bloody Sunday and other inquiries comes as the PSNI faces a budget shortfall of £130 million over the next three years.

Sir Hugh said it was costing the PSNI £100,000 each week to conduct work for the Bloody Sunday, Rosemary Nelson, Robert Hamill and Billy Wright inquiries.

This was in addition to the £250 million estimated cost of these investigations.

The chief constable in the past month was forced to find £15.3 million in savings to help meet a deficit of £24 million in the police budget for this year.

This week he was allowed draw down the remainder of the shortfall from next year’s budget by the North’s direct rule minister for security, Paul Goggins.

The chief constable said there was an urgent need for so-called legacy or issues of the past to be financed separately and in a manner that did not cut into the policing budget.

Coincidentally, it was disclosed yesterday that Lord Saville, chairman of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, has informed the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that he was not in a position to explain why publication of the inquiry’s findings was postponed to next year. To do so would risk revealing sensitive details of the 10-year-old investigation, he told the committee.

The policing board yesterday released details of a survey which showed public support for the PSNI was just short of 70 per cent, the highest figure recorded so far.

Ninety-three per cent of those surveyed felt very or fairly safe in their communities, and 86 per cent had some, a lot or total confidence in the PSNI’s ability to provide a day-to-day service for everyone in Northern Ireland. “Overall these results are very positive and it is good news that people are feeling safer,” said the board’s chairman, Prof Sir Desmond Rea.

BBC

A independent loyalist councillor who has past links with the UDA has been nominated high sheriff of Belfast.

Frank McCoubrey’s nomination will only be confirmed if Secretary of State Shaun Woodward agrees.

As deputy lord mayor he was criticised for wearing his official robes to an event where he shared a stage with Johnny Adair and Michael Stone in 2000.

In a statement, the Northern Ireland Office said it had only received one nomination.

The current high sheriff, Bob Stoker, was asked by the NIO for the names of three suitable candidates for 2009. However, as in previous years, only one name was submitted.

Mr Stoker proposed Councillor McCoubrey and the council approved, while Sinn Féin abstained.

Mr McCoubrey, who is a former member of the now defunct UDA-linked Ulster Democratic Party, was elected as an independent councillor but for voting purposes is part of the Ulster Unionist council group at Belfast City Hall.

The high sheriff represents Belfast City Council at civic functions.

**This is important. Please read.

Trojan.PWS.ChromeInject.A, which registers itself in Firefox’s system files as ‘Greasemonkey,’ collects passwords for banking sites

infoworld.com

Breaking News.ie
04/12/2008

Four suspected Real IRA men were arrested following a tip-off that the dissident republican terror group put on a show of strength for TV cameras, a court heard today.

Armed police swooped on a car carrying the four-man gang from Derry as they travelled south of the Irish border hours after four BBC journalists were detained in the area.

Alleged Real IRA members Gary Donnelly, (aged 38), of Kildrum Gardens, Michael Gallagher, (aged 29), of Sackville Court, 40-year-old Martin Francis O’Neill, of Colmcille Court, and Patrick John McDaid, (aged 38), from Marlborough Street, all in Derry city, have pleaded not guilty to membership of the paramilitary group.

Dublin’s non-jury Special Criminal Court heard that two of the four accused - Donnelly and O’Neill – could be positively identified in a press conference staged for the BBC and later admitted assisting documentary makers.

An FBI agent will also give expert evidence that Gallagher was the third masked man on tape, Patrick Marrinan SC said.

Opening the prosecution’s case, the barrister said a major garda operation was launched by local officers and Dublin’s crime and security branch after a tip-off that the Real IRA planned to meet journalists in Donegal.

Three masked men, one armed, posed for the cameras.

Mr Marrinan said gardai posted at Bridgend, near the Donegal and Derry border, on March 15 saw four men – later identified as BBC journalists – enter a pub at 8.15pm.

It was claimed that within 45 minutes two of the accused, Donnelly and O’Neill, joined the group in McIntyre’s The 19th Hole.

Mr Marrinan alleged the six men then got into a white Transit van, which had just crossed the border from Derry, and returned to Northern Ireland.

Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding, was told that the van was next seen when it returned to Bridgend two hours later.

Armed gardaí from the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) intercepted the vehicle, believing it was carrying firearms. Seven occupants – including the four reporters – were arrested and questioned.

A balaclava and gloves, four notebooks, voice recorder, cameras, memory cards, tapes and tripods were among the items seized from the vehicle.

The court heard that the four accused were arrested the following day when a silver Volkswagen Passat was stopped in Bridgend.

Mr Marrinan said that, when questioned by detectives, Donnelly and O’Neill admitted they were assisting the makers of a BBC Spotlight documentary and all four denied membership of an unlawful organisation.

The barrister said 53 photographs, recovered from a memory card, of a press conference “speak for themselves”. He said the images, which had been taken between 9.50pm and 10.45pm on March 15, featured three men in paramilitary-style uniforms and balaclavas, with one holding a firearm.

He also alleged that a voice recording of the press conference on a voice recorder would “put beyond any doubt about that was transpiring at the time”.

Two video cameras also showed footage of the event, he maintained, one focused on the paramilitary and one on a plain clothes interviewer.

“The prosecution’s case would be that two of the accused are identified positively as being present in the background and are seen in a doorway in stills that were taken from a digital camera,” continued Mr Marrinan.

“These accused are Gary Donnelly and Martin O’Neill.”

Almost 80 witnesses are expected to be called at the trial, which is listed to last 20 days.

BBC
4 Dec 2008

The director of the special police team set up to investigate murders during the troubles has said it will continue its “crucial work”.

Staff at the Historical Enquiries Team found out on Thursday that 75 posts were to go due to a funding shortage.

They received emails informing them that the budget for next year was not sufficient for the team to operate at current staffing numbers.

The HET was set-up in 2005 with a budget of £34m over six years.

“In the current economic environment, difficult decisions have to be be made and HET, as with other agencies, is facing financial pressures for the coming year,” said Dave Cox, director of the Historical Enquiries Team.

“In view of that we have a responsibility to keep our team advised of the situation.”

It is understood that the budget allocation for the next financial year is about £2.5m less than it cost to operate the team during the past 12 months.

The news comes just two weeks after job losses seemed to have been avoided when the Northern Ireland Office announced that it would provide an additional £1.5m for the rest of this financial year.

The DUP MP, Jeffrey Donaldson said it will impact on families who are relying on the Historical Enquiries Team.

“It seems that there is a hierarchy of victims here,” he said.

“We’ve got on the one hand, somewhere approaching £200m spent on the Saville Inquiry, but we have hundreds of unsolved murder cases being reviewed by the HET and yet the amount available to them is much less.”

Staff were told that the 75 jobs would go early in 2009, and have been asked to register expressions of interest in taking voluntary redundancy.

It is understood that the team will lobby the government for additional funding.

The Commission for Victims and Survivors challenged the government to prove its commitment to dealing with the past.

“We hear weekly from people who have become deeply frustrated at the length of time HET takes to complete its investigations. This news will only make it worse,” said Commissioner Mike Nesbitt.

A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Office said the government was “fully committed” to the work of the HET.

“A total budget of £38.3m which includes a substantial budget of £5.9m for 2009/2010 clearly demonstrates this,” she said.

“It is a matter for the Historical Enquiries Team how they structure and staff their work.”

The trial of four Derry men charged with membership of an illegal organisation has begun at the special criminal court in Dublin.

They were arrested in County Donegal in March by gardai investigating alleged Republican dissident activity.

The trial is taking place at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court

The three judge non-jury court was told officers acted on information that a paramilitary group was about to put on a show of strength for the media.

All four pleaded not guilty at the court on Tuesday.

Gardai said they put in place an operation that monitored the movements of various people in the Bridgend area on 15 March.

Prosecution council said detectives stopped a white transit van, in the back of which they found a dictaphone, four notebooks, a digital camera, two camcorders, two tripods and a camera memory card.

Analysis of two videotapes saw a news conference recording in which media members questioned three masked men with balaclavas and one with a firearm.

The court heard that an examination of 53 recovered photos showed two of the four accused in the background, and an expert suggested another defendant was one of the three masked men.

The court also heard the four refused to answer “material questions” whilst in custody, but two said they were helping Spotlight documentary makers.

The accused are 38-year-old Gary Donnelly from Kildrum Gardens, Michael Gallagher, 28, from Sackville Court, 39-year-old John McDaid from Marlborough Street and Mark James O’Neill from Colmcille Court.

The trail continues.