SAOIRSE32

Posted via email by Dawn Michele Duarte
republicanarmy@yahoogroups.com

By Brenda Norrell
narcosphere
January 22, 2009

___________________________________________________

CANAAN, Penn. — Leonard Peltier was jumped and severely beaten by a gang after being transferred from a prison in Lewisburg to Canaan on January 13. The family, however, was not notified by the prison and received the information by way of a letter from Peltier. Peltier, 64, was placed in solitary confinement.

“Once Mr. Peltier arrived at the Canaan prison facility, he was jumped by younger inmates, severely beaten, put in solitary confinement and placed upon meal restrictions despite his having diabetes and other medical conditions,” the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee said in a statement.

“The family has requested copies of the video tapes of that incident to no avail. It is as if the whole scenario was contrived to detract from the fact that Mr. Peltier has been a model prisoner having more than enough points to qualify for parole,” LPDOC said.

Peltier called his neice, Kari Ann Cowan, from the prison on Jan. 22. During the live online NAMAPAHH Blog Talk Radio hosted by Robin Carneen, Cowan relayed the information. It was Peltier’s first phone call since the transfer and prison beating.

During the call, Peltier said he will not be allowed “out of the hole” and in the general population. Peltier said Canaan is a tough place, where gangs are being brought in. “He is one of the oldest ones there,” Cowan said. “He will not be allowed back in the general population or he will be jumped.” Cowan said the FBI did tell Peltier that he was the victim in the attack, which she said was filmed on camera.

Peltier said he was set up in the attack. “It was a cold blooded setup,” Cowan said. She said he did not know his attackers. “He has never seen his attackers before.” Peltier said he will be allowed only one phone call every 30 days.

Cowan said she is hopeful that President Obama will work “nation to nation” with the Turtle Mountain Chippewas to bring Peltier home to North Dakota. “We have to push for his transfer, he is not safe there.”

During the NAMAPAHH Radio program tonight, Peltier’s attorney was called by the prison. The prison will not allow his attorney to speak to him tomorrow. “It is outrageous,” said attorney Michael Kuzma of Buffalo, N.Y, concerning the co-counsel the prison has denied entry to speak with Peltier.

“What are they hiding?” Kuzma said they have hidden documents before, but not Leonard. “Now they are hiding Leonard Peltier.”

Earlier, the report of the beating came by way of a letter from Peltier.

“Once Mr. Peltier arrived at the Canaan prison facility, he was jumped by younger inmates, severely beaten, put in solitary confinement and placed upon meal restrictions despite his having diabetes and other medical conditions,” the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee said in a statement .”The family has requested copies of the video tapes of that incident to no avail. It is as if the whole scenario was contrived to detract from the fact that Mr. Peltier has been a model prisoner having more than enough points to qualify for parole,” LPDOC said.

Recently, the amount of hate mail circulated on the Internet regarding Peltier and appeals for his release has increased and could have played a role in the attack on Peltier.

The LPDOC said, “Retired, former and actively employed FBI agents have taken action against the release and parole of Leonard Peltier time and again. While it is their right to speak their opinion, it is not right to do so on federal time and at the taxpayer’s expense. Their letters, writings, articles, books, protests, outcries and interviews concerning Mr. Peltier are a conflict of interest and tip the scales against him unfairly. In addition, it is certainly questionable as to the timing of a letter written by a former FBI Agent to Representative John Conyers and the beating Mr. Peltier received at Canaan.”

The LPDOC said the attack on Peltier comes on the heels of the FBI’s recent letter, prompting this attack by FBI supporters as an attempt to discredit Peltier as a model prisoner. “Anyone who has been in the prison system knows well that if you refuse to name your attackers or file charges against them, then you lose your status as a victim and/or given points against your possible parole and labeled as a perpetrator. It is not uncommon, in fact is quite common for the government to use Indian against Indian and they still operate under the old adage “it takes an Indian to catch an Indian,” LPDOC said.

In 1978, the US government made an attempt to assassinate Peltier, offering another Indian inmate at Marion prison with Leonard Peltier a chance at freedom. The man was Standing Deer. Standing Deer befriended Peltier in prison and exposed the plot to assassinate him. Standing Deer was murdered in Houston after his release from prison.

LPDOC said, “Standing Deer chose to reveal the plot to Leonard instead of taking his life in exchange for a chance at freedom. When Standing Deer was released in 2001, he joined the former Leonard Peltier Defense Committee as a board member. He also began to speak on Leonard’s behalf until his murder six years ago today. Prior to his murder, Standing Deer confided with close friends and associates that the same man who visited him in Marion to assassinate Peltier, had come to Houston and told him that he had better stay away from Peltier and anything to do with him,” the LDPOC said. (An interview with Ben Carnes on Standing Deer and Peltier can be heard at Censored News Blog Radio or at Earthcycles on Longest Walk.)

As of December, Peltier is eligible for a full parole hearing. The hearing will likely occur this year, but no date has been announced.

Micheal Kuzma, an attorney for Leonard Peltier’s defense, described the attack on Peltier in prison during an interview with American Indian Airwaves on Wednesday, Jan. 21. Kuzma said Peltier’s sister Betty Peltier-Solano, executive coordinator of the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee, received a letter from Peltier, but was never notified by prison officials of the attack. Peltier was transferred from Lewisburg to Canaan prison during the week of Jan. 12th and attacked on the 13th, by other inmates.

Kuzma said, “According to the letter, he thinks he might have a concussion. His middle finger on his left hand is either broken or badly injured. He has a large bump near his right wrist. The right side of his rib cage and chest are in pain. He also has a bruise on the right side of his chest. He also has a bruise on his left knee, and is suffering from headaches. These headaches are a direct result of the Jan. 13 beating.”

Listen to Robin Carneen’s NAMAPAHH First People’s Radio on Blog Talk Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/NAMAPAHH_Radio

Listen to American Indian Airwaves (last 20 minutes of program) on Jan. 21 at:
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/xml/americanindian.xml

AIM West plans a protest in solidarity with Peltier to draw attention to the attack and call for his release on Friday in San Francisco. http://www.aimwest.info/

For more information: LPDOC: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

Updates at Censored News: http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

—————————————————————–

President Obama must free Leonard Peltier

By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
freepress.org
January 23, 2009

The welcome news that President Obama is taking steps to shut Guantanamo and right other Bush-era human rights abuses must quickly be joined by a proclamation of freedom for Leonard Peltier.

Peltier is the nation’s best-known native activist and has become a global symbol of abject injustice and prison abuse. Imprisoned in the late 1970s for allegedly murdering two FBI agents, Peltier has never been given a fair trial. Federal authorities have quashed or destroyed thousands of pages of evidence that might have freed Peltier decades ago.

The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee points out that “Amnesty International considers Leonard Peltier to be a political prisoner whose avenues of redress have long been exhausted. … Amnesty International recognizes that a retrial is no longer a feasible option and believes that Leonard Peltier should be immediately and unconditionally released.”

The committee adds that “Documents show that although the prosecution and government pointed the finger at Peltier for shooting FBI agents at close range during the trial in 1976, for three years the prosecution withheld critical ballistic test results proving that the fatal bullets could not have come from the gun tied to Leonard Peltier. This trial also denied evidence of self defense.”

The committee further states that: “the U.S. Prosecutor, during subsequent oral arguments, stated: “we can’t prove who shot those agents.” And that the Eighth Circuit found that “There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to them in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government’s case.”

The committee also says that “Judge Heaney, who authored the denial, now supports Mr. Peltier’s release, stating that the FBI used improper tactics to gain Mr. Peltier’s conviction.”

Now 64 years old, Peltier is suffering from diabetes and a series of other serious ailments brought on by his decades in prison. He has great grandchildren he has never seen. His case is the centerpiece of the book IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE by Peter Matthiessen.

Reports from Betty Peltier-Solano, Leonard’s sister, now assert that Peltier was severely beaten during a recent transfer to the Canaan Federal Penitentiary. According to Peltier-Solano, he has been held in solitary confinement and limited to a single meal a day, a serious threat to his health due to his diabetes.

Over the decades, Peltier has been a model prisoner, concentrating on his art and writing. His commitment to Native American rights has been consistent throughout the years, though he’s been repeatedly denied media access.

Peltier is eligible for parole in the near future. His supporters fear this latest round of abuse may be designed to discredit him. The FBI recently sent a letter accusing Peltier of prompting this latest attack. Given Peltier’s age, poor health, imminent parole status and long-standing political commitments, this can be viewed as a calculated absurdity. His sister writes that “currently, the FBI is actively seeking support for his continued imprisonment.”

The political involvement of the FBI is itself an issue the President must address. At very least Peltier should be freed on bail pending a new trial, with a concerted effort on the part of the new Department of Justice to unearth all suppressed evidence in this case.

Leonard Peltier has languished unjustly in prison far longer than those held in Guantanamo. It is time to set him free!

To find out more, contact the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee at
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info.

—
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four books on election protection, which appear at http://freepress.org, along with Bob’s FITRAKIS FILES. Harvey’s HISTORY OF THE U.S. is at http://harveywasserman.com. This article was originally published by http://freepress.org .

Forwarded on behalf of the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
Posted on 32CSM’s Message Board

URGENT! Leonard Peltier’s Safety in Jeopardy!
Call Canaan Federal Prison
570-488-8000

Dear LP Supporters,

I am so OUTRAGED! My brother Leonard was severely beaten upon his arrival at the Canaan Federal Penitentiary. When he went into population after his transfer, some inmates assaulted him. The severity of his injuries is that he suffered numerous blows to his head and body, receiving a large bump on his head, possibly a concussion, and numerous bruises. Also, one of his fingers is swollen and discolored and he has pain in his chest and ribcage. There was blood everywhere from his injuries.

We feel that prison authorities at the prompting of the FBI orchestrated this attack and thus, we are greatly concerned about his safety. It may be that the attackers, whom Leonard did not even know, were offered reduced sentences for carrying out this heinous assault. Since Leonard is up for parole soon, this could be a conspiracy to discredit a model prisoner. He was placed in solitary confinement and only given one meal, this is generally done when you won’t name your attackers; incidentally being only given one meal seriously jeopardizes his health because of his diabetes. Prison officials refuse to release any info to the family, but they need to hear from his supporters to protect his safety, as does President Obama. His attorneys are trying to get calls into him now.

This attack on LP comes on the heels of the FBI’s recent letter, prompting this attack by FBI supporters as an attempt to discredit LP as a model prisoner. Anyone who has been in the prison system knows well that if you refuse to name your attackers or file charges against them, then you lose your status as a victim and/or given points against your possible parole and labeled as a perpetrator. It is not uncommon, in fact is quite common for the government to use Indian against Indian and they still operate under the old adage “it takes an Indian to catch an Indian”. In 1978, they made an attempt to assassinate him through another Indian man who was also at Marion prison with LP. But Standing Deer chose to reveal the plot to him instead of taking his life in exchange FOR A CHANCE AT FREEDOM. When Standing Deer was released in 2001, he joined the former Leonard Peltier Defense Committee as a board member. He also began to speak on Leonard’s behalf until his murder six years ago today. Prior to his murder, Standing Deer confided with close friends and associates that the same man who visited him in Marion to assassinate Peltier, had came to Houston, TX and told him that he had better stay away from Peltier and anything to do with him.

We are aware that currently, the FBI is actively seeking support for his continued imprisonment of Leonard Peltier and also also seeking support from Native People. So please be aware, and keep Leonard in your prayers. The FBI is apparently afraid of the impact we are having. If they will set him up to blemish his record just before a parole hearing, what will they do when it looks like his freedom will become a reality? We need to make sure that nothing happens to him again!

Please write the President, send it priority or registered mail. Email to Change.gov or email President Obama. Call your congressional representatives and write letters, not email, to them. Do what you can to get the word out to insure that LP is receiving adequate medical attention for his injuries.

I am asking you, supporters of Leonard and advocates of justice at this time to help. I don’t know what else to do. Please Help!

Thank you,
Betty Peltier-Solano
Executive Coordinator Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee

Also call and request Leonard be treated with dignity and respect.
Canaan Federal Prison
570-488-8000

Leonard’s prisoner number is 89637-132.

Warden Ronnie R. Holt, Warden
USP-Canaan
U.S. Penitentiary
3057 Easton Turnpike
Waymart, PA 18472
Phone: 570-488-8000
Fax: 570-488-8130
E-mail address: CAA/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

D. Scott Dodrill, Director
Northeast Regional Office
Federal Bureau of Prisons
2nd & Chesnut Streets., 7th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Phone: 215-521-7301
E-mail: NERO/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Harley G. Lappin, Director
Bureau of Prisons
U.S. Department of Justice
320 First Street, NW, Room 654
Washington, DC 20534
Phone: 202-307-3250
Fax: 202-514-6878

Ask President Obama to investigate this incident:

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Fax: 202-456-2461
E-mail: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

—–

Time to set him free…Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier http://www.FreePeltierNow.org

32 County Sovereignty Movement
[Posted on the 32CSM Message Board]
25/01/2009

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement are calling on the 26 county government to clarify its position regarding British Army and police activities in the 26 county jurisdiction following the latest incursion by Crown Forces.

It has been reported that a British military spotter plane circled over the town of Clones in County Monaghan on at least three occasions between 10.00am and 1.00pm on Saturday 24th January 2009.

A large deployment of Crown Forces has been just over the illegal border for the last number of days in the nearby village of Newtownbutler following warnings that the IRA have left a rocket in the area.

Republicans in Counties Fermanagh, Cavan and Leitrim have been aware of RUC/PSNI patrols straying over the border on numerous occasions recently and this latest incursion is another blatant affront to Irish Sovereignty.

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement would like to know if this incursion has been sanctioned by the 26 County administration as part of their war on Irish Republicanism and if so where does that leave their own claims to having sovereign integrity over their own jurisdiction and where does it leave their claims of neutrality given that a heavily armed occupation army and police force may be allowed to use their territory.

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement not alone condemn the military wing of the British government for continuing these deliberate incursions but we also condemn the 26 county administrations failure to protect its sovereignty in 1998 and again in 2009 when attacks on that sovereignty are ignored , encouraged or even facilitated.

Breaking News.ie
24/01/2009

The mother of a man beaten to death by republicans today broke down as she appealed for justice.

Brid Quinn’s son Paul was murdered by a gang at an isolated shed in Co Monaghan in October 2007.

While the authorities have blamed republicans for the killing, they have ruled that IRA leaders did not sanction it. The victim’s grieving mother today rejected that.

Mrs Quinn was one of a number of victims of violence and miscarriages of justice who addressed a fringe event at the SDLP party conference in Armagh City.

“It was a year ago in October that Paul was murdered by the IRA,” she said, fighting back tears.

“They lured Paul to a shed. Twelve men with iron bars were there to break every bone in his body.”

Mrs Quinn recalled how members of the SDLP had arrived at the hospital to offer comfort.

“But the doctor said Paul was so badly beaten they couldn’t do anything for him,” she said.

Mrs Quinn shared a platform with Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four and Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six – both wrongly jailed for IRA bombings in Britain.

They sat alongside Raymond McCord, whose Protestant son was killed by loyalist paramilitaries.

Campaigners from West Belfast were also at the SDLP event to raise the murder in 1971 of 11 people over a three-day period by British troops.

The SDLP’s Alex Attwood said securing justice for the wrongs of the past, as well as recent crimes, were equally as important.

Mrs Quinn told the event her son had been murdered after becoming involved in a dispute with two republicans.

She hit out at Sinn Féin, condemning them as the only party who did not accept the IRA was to blame.

“Our youngest son is gone at 21 years of age,” she said.

She said police on both sides of the border were doing their best to catch the killers but amid emotional scenes she appealed for justice.

“We live in an area where those that murdered Paul live around us,” she said.

Mrs Quinn was applauded by the conference when she called for her right to justice as well as the rights of other victims of violence to be respected.

Liam Clarke
Sunday Times
25 Jan 09

Bereaved insist money for those killed must not go to families of terrorists

The father of a child murdered in the Omagh bomb attack has called for payments to relatives of terrorists killed in the Troubles to be withheld until paramilitary groups have made a full disclosure of their actions.

Victor Barker’s son James was 12 when he one of the 29 people killed by the Real IRA car bomb in August 1998. The Surrey solicitor is angry at proposals to be made by the Consultative Group on the Past that the families of all who died in the Troubles should receive £12,000 each even if their relatives were terrorists.

The controversial idea is part of a 200-page report which has been presented to Gordon Brown, the prime minister, by Lord Eames, the former head of the Church of Ireland, and Denis Bradley, a writer and commentator. Their report will be published on Wednesday. The total cost of measures proposed in the report would come to £300m, £40m of which would be payments to families of all who died in Ireland, Britain and Europe.

The proposal is based on a €15,000 (£14,100) payment made by the Irish government to each family resident in the republic who were bereaved by the Troubles. This payment was made not only for innocent victims, but also for IRA members killed in Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Eames/Bradley scheme is more controversial because it will cover far more terrorists. According to figures maintained in the University of Ulster’s Conflict Archive, 3,525 people died between 1969 and 2001 as a result of the conflict. Of these 547 were members of illegal organisations (394 republicans and 153 loyalists), 1,854 were uninvolved civilians and 1,114 were members of the security forces (10 of them Irish and the remainder British).

Barker points out identifying terrorists, to exclude their families from the scheme, would be relatively easy, since paramilitary groups such as the IRA usually claimed dead members, erecting memorials and publishing “rolls of honour”.

Many other victims have reacted with anger to the proposal. Raymond McCord, whose son, also called Raymond, was killed by the UVF, said it was as if the American government had set up “a fund for the victims of the 9/11 atrocities and made sure that the families of the suicide-hijackers who also died on the crashed jets get compensation as well”. He believes some relatives will refuse the payment if it also goes to families of dead terrorists.

Paula McCartney, whose brother Robert was stabbed and beaten to death by a republican mob four years ago, said the idea was absurd. “Throwing money at the situation won’t resolve anything. What is needed is action to restore faith in the criminal justice system,” she said.

The angry reaction has overshadowed other aspects of the Eames/Bradley report, which took 19 months to prepare. The central proposal is for a legacy commission. Its three members would be appointed by the British and Irish governments in consultation with the Office of First and Deputy First Minister in Stormont.

This body would sit until 2015 with a budget of £160m. It would have the task of developing material on themes such as sectarianism and reconciliation as well as reviewing all the Troubles killings. It would subsume both the work of the PSNI’s Historic Enquiries Team (HET) and the police ombudsman’s role in investigating accusation of wrongdoing against the RUC. It would also put an end to more public enquiries into the Troubles, although those currently under way would be allowed to run their course.

Where prosecutions were impossible, victims’ relatives would be given the option of granting immunity to the killers in return for information.

Another proposal is for a £100m bursary to which groups dealing with trauma and reconciliation could apply for funds.

The bulk of the funds would come from the British government, though the Irish government would also be expected to make a substantial contribution.

Henry McDonald and Gaby Hinsliff
The Observer
Sunday 25 January 2009

A conservative government would scrap proposals from a key working group to award what terrorist victims’ families have labelled “blood money” to the relatives of paramilitaries killed in Northern Ireland’s Troubles, amid signs of growing reservations within government over such compensation.

The Tories told the Observer they would not support recommendations from the Consultative Group on the Past, which include offering £12,000 to the families of everyone who died in the conflict, because it would include IRA and loyalist gunmen and bombers.

Downing Street sources declined to comment on the report before it is published this week. But it is understood that while Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland Secretary, will study the findings, there is concern in government about the difficulty of securing agreement for such a plan and about its cost during tough economic times.

“A lot of questions will be asked including: is there a consensus?” said a senior Whitehall source. “And with the best will in the world, we want to do the right thing, but anyone has got to think about the economic climate now: taxpayers would expect it.”

Relatives of some of those murdered by paramilitary groups have described the compensation idea, in the report written by the former head of the Anglican Church of Ireland Dr Robin Eames and ex-Policing Board deputy Denis Bradley, as “dirty blood money”.

Seamus Mallon, Northern Ireland’s former Deputy First Minister, said there was “something really wrong” with the concept. “It really cheapens the whole thing,” he added at the SDLP party’s annual conference in Armagh yesterday.

Responding to reports of the group’s findings, the Tories’ shadow Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson said: “I look forward to reading the full report next week, but I cannot support this proposal to reward all victims indiscriminately. Those people who used quite vicious violence against innocent civilians and members of the legally established security forces cannot be put on the same level as other victims.” Paterson confirmed that if the scheme was about to run when the Tories took power, they would scrap it.

Activist Raymond McCord, whose son, also called Raymond, was murdered by the UVF in 1997, has described the Eames-Bradley plan as “a deep insult to the real, innocent victims of the Troubles”. McCord, whose campaign to bring his son’s killers to justice exposed a web of collusion between the UVF gang and RUC Special Branch, said at the SDLP conference he would refuse the money if it meant that families of killers received the same compensation, adding: “This is the equivalent of the American government setting up a fund for the victims of the 9/11 atrocities and making sure that the families of the suicide-hijackers get compensation as well.”

However, SDLP leader Mark Durkan declined to condemn the proposals. “We appreciate the work of their group on such a vexed and sensitive area,” he said. “We encourage all other parties to give it honest and honourable thinking space.”

By Rosetta Donnelly
Ulster Herald
**Via Newshound
Thursday, 22 Jan 09

A REPORT published yesterday claiming that British intelligence services could not have stopped the Real IRA attack on Omagh has been rejected by the families of the victims.

Sir Peter Gibson, Intelligence Services Commissioner, had been asked to investigate whether the vital intelligence was deliberately held back and he announced in his report that information on the bombers was shared with police, but could not have stopped the 1998 attack. But in typical government-investigating-government style he found nothing amiss. The commissioner said details from telephone intercepts were passed on ‘promptly and fully’ and in accordance with proper procedures.

A BBC Panorama programme had claimed that intelligence officers based at GCHQ had monitored the bombers’ phone calls, but had failed or refused to pass information to the RUC.

Following the programme last September, Gordon Brown asked Mr Gibson to conduct a review of all intelligence material stemming from the bombing. Gibson dismissed the programme’s claims that intelligence officers had tracked the movements of the bombers’ car, saying technology was not advanced enough in 1998 to do that.

He said, “The portrayal in the Panorama programme of the tracking on a screen of the movement of two cars, a scout car, and a car carrying a bomb, by reference to two ‘blobs’ moving on a road map has no correspondence whatever with what intercepting agencies were able to do or did on 15 August 1998.”

He added, “On the basis of evidence from an independent expert witness from a mobile communications service provider, I am satisfied that in 1998, it was neither possible to track mobile phones in real time nor to visualise the location and movement of mobile phones in the way that was shown in the Panorama programme”, said the commissioner.

Michael Gallagher, Chairman Omagh Support and Self Help Group said he always felt a report should never be carried out by Mr Gibson as he was too close to government. He said he made contact with Mr Gibson as soon as the report was initiated asking him for his terms of reference and to meet with the families. “But we never got so much as an acknowledgement much less a meeting.”

Mr Gallagher said it enraged him that the report questioned the credibility of the Panorama programme. “I have worked with John Ware (the journalist) for 10 years and I have found him be always accurate and methodical. He has uncovered more things about the bomb than the police ever did.”

Mr Gallagher said he will be raising the matter with the Prime Minister, when the families meet him at Downing Street on February 11.

News Letter
24 January 2009

AN end to public inquiries into controversial killings in Northern Ireland would deny the Omagh bomb families the chance to ever find out the truth, it has been claimed.

The Eames-Bradley Report is believed to recommend no more public inquiries of the type of the Saville, Rosemary Nelson, Billy Wright or Robert Hamill investigations.

It is thought it will not oppose these cases being seen through to their end.

Relatives of those killed in the Real IRA outrage in Omagh, in 1998 have reacted angrily to speculation that the group examining ways to deal with the legacy of the Troubles would recommend that no further hearings were instigated.

But Michael Gallagher from the Omagh Support and Self Help Group said a full cross-border judicial inquiry was the only way to find out what really happened at Omagh.

“We have been very badly treated by all politicians across the board who have not supported us, so this won’t put us off,” he said.

The families are to meet Gordon Brown next month to again call for the inquiry.

Liam Clarke
The Sunday Times
Times
January 25, 2009

A Legacy Commission to be set up in Northern Ireland could act as a “bad bank” to process the island’s poisonous history

On Wednesday, Northern Ireland will be offered the equivalent of a “bad bank” to carry the unpaid debts of history. A Legacy Commission will be proposed to take care of the toxic inheritance of the Troubles and to allow the other institutions of state to get on with business.

The cost of dealing with the past will be borne by central government. That is why Gordon Brown, who must sign the cheques, was briefed on what was involved last Thursday by Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, whose consultative group on the past will publish its report this week.

The two have impressive credentials. Eames is a former Church of Ireland primate and an able negotiator who has acted as a troubleshooter for church and state for many years. Bradley is a multi-faceted former priest from Donegal; a former deputy chair of the Policing Board and a mediator between the British government and the Provisional IRA.

The “bad bank” idea helped Sweden through a financial crisis in the 1990s.

It required all of the country’s banks to own up to the full extent of their dodgy loans. Then the state put these debts in a “bad bank”, allowing the others to be refloated on the market. It wasn’t cheap but it was worth it, because while the bad bank processed the poison, the rest of the financial system was able to carry on with virtually a clean sheet.

In Northern Ireland the weight of the Troubles resembles a toxic debt. It cannot be wished away and it is poisoning everything. It didn’t leave a legacy of suffering only for those who were bereaved or injured. The bitter, disputed narrative is a drag on everyone. It is a blight on young people who must make sense of the uncertain myths handed down to them. It is a black hole of money and resources.

So far the means of dealing with it have been expensive, time-consuming and ineffective. Often they have revolved around the courts and police, whose methods, now that the trails on the 2,000-plus unsolved murders have grown cold, are producing diminishing returns. At one stage judicial inquiries were assumed to be the gold standard, giving victims their day in court and ripping aside the mask of official and paramilitary secrecy. The Bloody Sunday tribunal, impeccably conducted as it was, ended that theory.

When he announced it in 1998, Tony Blair set aside more than £10m (€10.6m) to cover the costs and thought it would be over in a few years. A decade later it still hasn’t reported and has racked up costs approaching £200m as it struggles to reconcile the differing accounts of 2,500 people who witnessed half an hour of mayhem 36 years ago.

Three ongoing inquiries into the disputed murders of Rosemary Nelson (a human rights lawyer), Robert Hamill (battered to death near a police van) and Billy Wright (a loyalist terrorist killed in prison) are supposed to be cheaper and more effective but so far have cost more than £70m. The Historical Enquiries Team (HET), a police unit reviewing over 3,200 Troubles deaths at a cost of £34m, has laid off staff due to a £1.5m funding shortfall.

The HET is a massive drain on the police budget at a time when there is a shortage of detectives and more and more current crimes go unsolved. The Police Ombudsman has also complained about the huge slice of financial resources and investigators’ time it must assign to researching historic cases where security-force collusion is alleged.

Not only is there no equity or fairness in this piecemeal treatment of the past, there is often precious little to show for it either. Money doesn’t bring results. In fact, the cheapest outfits — the HET and Police Ombudsman — have been the most productive. Yet the disparity in spending and attention between different cases has left many of the bereaved believing that there is a hierarchy of victims and they are at the bottom of it.

The problem is that the vast majority of killings and non-lethal attacks during the Troubles were unsolved. Security forces who colluded with terrorists have covered their tracks and destroyed the records. From the early 1970s onwards, paramilitary groups were well schooled in the police’s forensic and interrogation strategies. They had good alibis and left few clues. Proof to the level that will satisfy the criminal courts is seldom available, especially at this remove in time.

That doesn’t mean we can never know what happened at a level that would be useful to a historian. Dave Cox, the head of HET, says his team has filled a warehouse the size of a B&Q superstore with records of every murder. The information is all coded on databases so that, for instance, all sightings of red-haired gunmen in mid-Ulster can be turned up at the click of a mouse, and the forensic records of weapons used cross-references with thefts of arms.

The secret Stevens report into collusion is in that warehouse, as are the records of MI5 and military intelligence, the statements that paramilitary prisoners made to the police, and every journalistic or historic record of the conflict. It’s not complete, but that warehouse holds most of the answers we need and it could be supplemented by other information. The question is: how can it all be processed and presented to society?

Bradley laid down the ground rules at a conference at Queen’s University last November. “If dealing with the past has not got reconciliation as its ultimate goal, then what is the point?” he asked. He estimated that each year the unresolved legacy of “sectarianism and segregation” costs more than £1 billion.

It is clear that, if the judicial route will not provide a full solution, simply drawing a line is not the answer either.

Eames and Bradley are likely to suggest a three- to five-strong Legacy Commission with an international chairman and separate divisions to deal with truth recovery and investigation. The body would sit for a fixed period — but no more than five years, it is hoped — and it will have the power to conduct hearings in private. If a prosecution seems impossible, then victims will have the option of authorising an offer of immunity to perpetrators who are prepared to own up about what happened.

A similar tactic was used when paramilitaries were guaranteed that decommissioned weapons could not be used as evidence for their prosecution. Later, special legislation was passed in London and Dublin offering immunity to those who gave information about the burial places of the disappeared. The basic formula of trading the hope of justice for information is not a new one.

The new body needs sticks as well as carrots, though. It should have powers to penalise those who refuse to co-operate, both by naming and shaming and by imposing penalties for contempt.

A victim-centred approach is welcome but victims and perpetrators are not always distinct categories and the whole of society is, to some degree, both victim and aggressor. Not having a hierarchy of victims means greater openness than Eames and Bradley may be ready for. Bradley, for instance, has suggested society is not ready for the truth. He gave the example of a mother mourning her son as a paramilitary martyr without knowing that he was also an informer.

There are no easy choices or pat solutions, but hard cases make bad laws. A system of private conversations after which information is passed on only where it is affirming and comforting would be a travesty of truth recovery. Such a sanitised, fairy-tale version of reality would, in the long term, perpetuate prejudice and division. We need an ambitious scheme to publish information that is now withheld. Reconciliation cannot be built on lies or half-truths. Even a bad bank has to settle its debts some day.

Irish News
24/01/2009

Lenny Murphy was gunned down outside his home by the IRA in 1982. Under proposals made by the Eames/Bradley group, he is a victim of the Troubles.

But it is not that simple – he was also the leader of the notorious Shankill Butcher gang, which was responsible for around 30 deaths during its reign of terror in the 1970s.

The gang members’ families, as well as relatives of those who carried out some of the Troubles’ most heinous murders, would be eligible for a one-off payment of £12,000.

Diana Rusk looks at some of the killers whose families could be compensated for their deaths.

• The Shankill Butchers

The notorious loyalist gang was given its name because of the sickening way the gang members brutally killed their victims.

Led by Lenny Murphy, pictured, the gang is thought to have killed 30 people during its reign of terror in the 1970s including 10 in a single year.

The gang was known to torture its victims – mainly Catholics – by beating them up before slowly slicing them with knives.

During the Shankill Butcher trials the court was told how gang members would socialise before leaving their drinks to “go out and kill a Taig”.

On some occasions they publicly tortured and killed their victims in front of an audience.

The gang’s leader Lenny Murphy was later killed by the IRA while another member, Bobby ‘Basher’ Bates, met his end when he was shot by loyalists at a drop-in centre for loyalist ex-prisoners.

• The Shankill bomber

Thomas Begley was the victim of his own bomb plot as the device he planted detonated in a chip shop on Belfast’s Shankill Road on a busy Saturday in October 1993.

In the carefully planned operation, he and another IRA man, Sean Kelly, had dressed up as delivery men and walked into Frizzell’s chip shop carrying the bomb on a tray.

They intended to leave the bomb and walk away but it exploded, killing Begley along with nine Protestant civilians – two children, four women and three men.

During the trial of the surviving bomber, Sean Kelly, the judge described the bombing as “one of the most outrageous atrocities perpetrated on the people of this province over the last 25 years”.

• Billy Wright

Nicknamed ‘King Rat’, the loyalist paramilitary was reputed to have been involved in more than a dozen killings before he was shot by the INLA in the Maze prison in 1997.

He was a figure of fear among the Catholic population in the Co Armagh town of Portadown but his reign of terror spread further afield.

One of the killings to which he was linked was that of the 19-year-old Catholic Denis Carville, shot dead by the UVF as he sat with his girlfriend at a Lurgan beauty spot in 1990.

His girlfriend said the gunman had asked her boyfriend his religion, the chapel he attended and the name of his priest before shooting him dead.

Wright was also linked to the killing of Catholic mother-of-five Kathleen O’Hagan, who was seven months pregnant when she was shot dead in 1994.

• Dominic ‘Mad Dog’ McGlinchey

Dominic McGlinchey was a republican gunman who admitted being responsible for up to 30 deaths during the Troubles.

He was also said to have ordered the attack in 1982 on the Droppin Well Bar at Ballykelly, Co Derry, in which six civilians were killed along with 11 British army soldiers socialising at the disco.

He gave an interview in the 1980s with The Sunday Tribune in which he admitted killing around 30 members of the British army and police in shooting and bomb attacks.

“I don’t think a town wasn’t blown up. They all got a touch – Kilrea, Bellaghy, Porglenone, Magherafelt, Maghera, Castledawson, Ballymena and lots of others,” he said.

McGlinchey was shot by loyalists near his home in Drogheda, Co Louth, as he left a telephone kiosk at around 11pm on February 10 1994.

• Joe ‘Chinkie’ Bratty

The loyalist gunman was suspected of being behind 15 murders during the Troubles including a deadly attack on a Belfast bookie’s.

Nicknamed ‘Chinkie’ because of his supposedly Chinese features, he was shot dead by the IRA along with a close associate in July 1994.

In February 1992 he was linked to the shooting of five civilians at a bokkie’s on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast.

Four of the victims died at the scene while the youngest, 15-year-old James Kennedy, was pronounced dead when he arrived at hospital.

Bratty, a member of the UDA and UFF, was also questioned about the killing of Theresa Clinton, whose husband Jim was a Sinn Fein member.

The mother-of-two died after being shot 23 times by gunmen as she sat in the living room of her Balfour Avenue home in south Belfast.

Irish News
24/01/2009

THE son of murdered INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey was yesterday convicted of assaulting a police officer during anti-Iraq war demonstrations at Stormont.

However, two others who took part in protests in May 2007 as former prime minister Tony Blair visited Parliament Buildings in Belfast were cleared of similar charges.

The case against one of the accused was dismissed by District Judge Harry McKibben after video footage played in court showed that an officer had been kicked in the head by his own colleague.

Dominic Joseph McGlinchey (31), of Gulladuff Road in Bellaghy, Co Derry, was found guilty of assault on police and disorderly behaviour.

McGlinchey, who is out of Northern Ireland on holiday, will be brought back before Belfast Magistrates Court for sentencing on his return.

A co-accused, Cormac Ryan (28), a student and taxi driver of Stillorgan Heath in Dublin, was cleared of disorderly behaviour and common assault.

His father, barrister Gerry Ryan, was in court to hear him give evidence that he had attended the peace protest to take photographs and express opposition to the war in Iraq.

Mr McKibben said that although a constable claimed that Mr Ryan had struck her on the face, it was possible this had been an involuntary action during the melee.

“I cannot say contact between the defendant’s elbow and the officer’s nose – very suspicious as it was – was, beyond all reasonable doubt, deliberate,” the judge said.

“Therefore I must give the defendant the benefit of the doubt in this case.”

Video footage played to the court led to the case against the third defendant, Scott Masterson (25), of Carrickmore Drive in Tallaght, Dublin, being abandoned.

Mr McKibben dismissed the charge of assault on police after defence barrister Sean O’Hare argued: “The prosecution evidence is not supported by the video so the proper course is for no further evidence against Mr Masterson.”

The case centred on alleged clashes as up to 80 protesters gathered at Stormont on the day of a ceremony to mark the re-establishment of the power-sharing executive.

Mr Blair was there with ex-taoiseach Bertie Ahern and US political dignitaries.

The police inspector who was allegedly kicked in the head while being dragged along the ground during the disturbances was brought back to court to view the footage.

Although the officer challenged the sequencing of events depicted on screen, he accepted that it appeared to be another officer – and not Mr Masterson – who had kicked him in the head.

However, he insisted that McGlinchey – whose father Dominic ‘Mad Dog’ McGlin-chey was murdered in 1994 – had assaulted him despite claims by the defence that up to five officers had first detained the accused.

Mr McKibben said there was enough evidence to show that McGlinchey had struck the inspector during the course of his duties.

“I think he should be brought before the court for sentencing,” the judge said.

Irish News
24/01/2009

“My mum and dad had shopping bags – their son had a bomb. The funding should be given to innocent victims only.”

These were the words yesterday of Michelle Williamson (42) who lost both her parents in the 1993 IRA Shankill bombing.

She spoke of her astonishment that paramilitaries killed during the Troubles would also be eligible for the same £12,000 payout as innocent victims of the conflict if controversial proposals are backed by the British government.

The payment is expected to be recommended by the group set up to advise on how to deal with the past. The Consultative Group on the Past, which is co-chaired by Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, is to publish its report next week.

The group is expected to say there should be no hierarchy of victims and that everyone should be treated in the same way.

If the government accepts the recommendation, the payouts to victims’ families would total an estimated £40 million.

THE MAIN POINTS

The Consultative Group on the Past is due to present its recommendations on Wednesday. It is believed these will include:

• payouts of £12,000 for families of those killed during the Troubles

• ‘legacy commission’ to run for five years at a cost of £160 million

• that the commission should take over investigations into Troubles murders from the Police Ombudsman and the Historical Enquiries Team, thereby saving about £100m

• a £100m bursary for legacy issues

• no further public inquiries into the past

• use of security-force and paramilitary contacts to gain information on killings if victims’ relatives do not pursue prosecutions.

Irish News
24 Jan 09

LESS than a mile from where the Consultative Group on the Past put forward their proposals yesterday, Alice Rooney watched the coverage on her television bringing her painfully back to the night her nine-year-old son Patrick was shot dead.

Patrick Rooney was the first child to be killed in the Troubles on August 14 1969 setting a grim new benchmark in the tense situation.

The young family, who lived in the Divis Tower on the Falls Road, huddled in their flat as a gun battle between the RUC and the IRA raged outside.

Mrs Rooney remembers bringing her six young children, of whom Patrick was the eldest, into the back room of their flat where she thought they would be safe.

Her youngest child Felix was just two years old.

As they heard the bullets whizzing around the building and through its thin walls she saw Patrick suddenly slide down the wall where he had been standing.

She had been getting a coat from the built-in wardrobe to put on him and thought he had just fainted.

“I put my hand below to lift him up. When my arm came away I saw it was covered in blood. His hair was sticking to the wall,” she said.

“I put him on the bed. The wall was just riddled with bullet holes.”

Mrs Rooney and her husband Cornelius were themselves lucky to escape with their lives after bullets grazed their faces leaving burn marks.

Mrs Rooney said her memories of that night are still vivid.

“People say I must have a good memory because I can remember every single thing about that night clearly,” she said.

“The hurt never goes away.

“We never got any satisfaction. That policeman will never be brought to justice for what he did.

“The other children never recovered from seeing Patrick die in front of them.

“I think when something like that happens you will never be the same again.”

However Mrs Rooney, whose sister Mary Shepherd was shot dead by the UFF in 1974, says she believes all victims should be treated the same.

“It doesn’t matter who you are when it comes to your door. It is always someone’s child or someone’s mother or someone’s sister,” she said.

“The one thing I always thank God for is that none of my children ever shot anyone or killed anyone.

“I couldn’t live with that. I think I’d go crazy if one of mine ever hurt anyone.”

Jamie Doward and Henry McDonald
The Observer
Sunday 25 January 2009

Contentious changes in law spark outrage among human rights groups and opposition parties

Under new laws, key parts of inquests into the deaths of people killed by British security forces in Northern Ireland during the Troubles will be held in secret, without the scrutiny of juries.

The revelation has prompted outrage among human rights groups, who have accused the British government of seeking to suppress evidence of collusion between paramilitary organisations and the security forces.

The proposal that some parts of inquests held in England and Wales should be behind closed doors has already been hugely controversial. The plan has been dropped once before, but the government is determined to reintroduce it - despite opposition from the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the House of Lords and its own backbenchers, who are expected to vote against it in the coming weeks.

But it has now emerged that the new powers will also apply to outstanding inquests involving those killed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. According to a series of clauses inserted in the Coroners and Justice Bill, which receives its second reading tomorrow, the justice secretary in England and Wales and the Northern Ireland secretary will both have the power to order that some parts of inquests should be held in secret and without a jury to “protect the issues of national security, the relationship between the UK and another country, and to help prevent or detect crime”. In these cases a special counsel will be appointed to represent the families of the dead, but they will not be allowed to see or hear sensitive evidence. A judge, rather than a coroner, will oversee the inquest.

The revelations have alarmed lawyers and human rights groups, who fear that troubling questions about MI5, the army and the police in Northern Ireland could go unanswered. Jane Winter, director of British Irish Rights Watch, said she believed the new law would apply to a backlog of inquests into the deaths of at least 50 people killed in Northern Ireland, and claimed that it represented a return to the controversial Diplock courts system introduced during the Troubles.

“There are instances when we need to protect people who are trying to protect people’s lives,” Winter said. “But it shouldn’t be for politicians to decide when this is.”

Many of the inquests still to be scheduled involve known paramilitaries. Pearse Jordan, an IRA member, was the last person to be killed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland when he was shot dead in November 1992. “He was hemmed in by police vehicles and shot in cold blood,” Winter said. “There was no doubt he was under surveillance at the time of his death. Why didn’t they just arrest him?”

Another death awaiting an inquest is that of Roseanne Mallon, a 76-year-old woman shot dead by members of the UVF in 1994 after her house had been under army surveillance because it was believed she was harbouring an IRA member. Videotapes of the shooting exist but have not been made public. Winter said she feared they never would be if the new laws were introduced.

It is understood that government officials have already decided that sensitive evidence submitted to forthcoming inquests into the fatal shootings of two men in London, Terry Nicholas and Azelle Rodney, should be kept secret. Nicholas, a black man, was shot dead in Hanger Green, west London, in May 2007. A gun was recovered at the scene.

Rodney, who was unarmed and also black, was shot dead in April 2005 in Burnt Oak, north London, in the back seat of a car that had been tailed by the police. It is believed police are concerned that the inquests would make public sensitive information involving their use of informers and intercept evidence.

Supporters of the jury system point out that the jury in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest were far more critical of the role of the police in the shooting than the presiding coroner.

“There’s no doubt the De Menezes inquest would have been held in secret if these laws had been in place at the time of the hearing,” Winter said. “I imagine the 7/7 inquests will be subject to these new rules. They [the bombers] were under surveillance.”

The chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Monica McWilliams, said it had strongly advised the government not to go ahead with secret inquests. McWilliams said: “The European Court of Human Rights has already established that an effective investigation under the European Convention on Human Rights must, among other things, involve the next of kin… and also be open to public scrutiny.”

Helen Shaw, co-director of Inquest, which investigates deaths in custody, said it was “deeply concerned about the secret inquest proposals”. A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said the new laws would ensure the rights of the bereaved were respected during inquests when sensitive material was submitted, and would apply to only a small number of cases.

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor
Irish Times
24 Jan 09

THE EAMES-BRADLEY Consultative Group on the Past has proposed a £12,000 payment to the next-of-kin of those killed during the Troubles, even if the fatalities were involved in paramilitary shootings and bombings.

The compensation package is part of a blueprint aimed at promoting peace and reconciliation, which will cost £300 million (€319 million) and is to be financed by the British and Irish governments.

The proposals will address such matters as providing information for the bereaved on how and why their loves ones were killed, tackling sectarianism, providing support for victims and bereaved, and investigating past killings.

The proposal to pay £12,000 to all the families of the 3,700 people killed in the conflict, regardless of the circumstances of those killings, has generated huge anger from unionist politicians in particular.

DUP First Minister Peter Robinson portrayed the proposal as a “betrayal of innocent victims”.

The so-called “recognition payment” will alone cost £40 million.

Unionists complained that there could be no moral equivalence between republican and loyalist paramilitaries killed while attempting to carry out killings themselves and “innocent victims” of the conflict.

DUP junior minister Jeffrey Donaldson queried how could there be a comparison between Thomas Begley who was killed planting the Shankill bomb and the nine people he killed in that attack.

Former Church of Ireland primate Lord Eames and former vice-chairman of the policing board, Denis Bradley who head the group are determined to press ahead with their proposals. They discussed them with British prime minister Gordon Brown on Thursday. They argued that the £12,000 payment was justified because the issue of a “hierarchy of victims” must be put aside.

Under the Eames-Bradley plan, all current inquiries will be concluded, and there will be no future inquiries. This, if accepted by the British and Irish governments, would undermine the campaign by the Omagh families for a cross-Border tribunal of inquiry into the 1998 Real IRA bombing.

Eames-Bradley also propose the creation of a Legacy Commission, costing £160 million, headed by an international commissioner and two other members, which would oversee a reconciliation forum designed to address the legacy of the past. The commission, which would be wound up after five years, would be appointed next year by the British and Irish governments in consultation with Mr Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

Eames-Bradley also proposes the creation of a £100 million fund for “bursaries” which would be used for major strategic projects such as tackling sectarianism and devising a plan to bring down the so-called peace walls.

News Letter
23 January 2009

SDLP leader Mark Durkan poured scorn on the DUP-Sinn Fein partnership government at his party’s annual conference.

Addressing party members in Armagh on Saturday, the Foyle MP was critical of the five month logjam which ensued between the two parties last year over policing and justice, meaning the Stormont administration was rudderless during a time of economic peril.

“In this new regime, they (the DUP and Sinn Fein) strut and boast their power status, only to plead that they are powerless on the issues besetting our economy,” he said.

“They are giving a screensaver government.”

Mr Durkan condemned both parties for campaigning at the last election on a ticket of opposing water charges.

Deferring them for one year was an admission they would be imposed, he said.

SDLP candidate for the forthcoming European election, Alban Maginness, also addressed delegates.

The party is looking to reclaim the seat once held by former leader, John Hume, which it lost in 2004 to Sinn Fein.