SAOIRSE32

Sinn Féin
July 5, 2009

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has criticised the actions of the Israeli government in boarding the ‘Spirit of Humanity’ boat, arresting international peace activists including Mairead Maguire, and preventing the cargo of goods and medical supplies reaching the people of Gaza. He called for their ‘immediate release’.

Mr Adams who has recently visited the region and published a detailed report on the situation facing the people of Gaza said:

“The passengers and crew of the ‘Spirit of Humanity’ boat are peace activists, human rights workers and journalists from 11 countries. They include local Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire. She is currently being held in a high security prison in Tel Aviv along with former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

“The purpose of their mission is very clear. They were intent on bringing much needed humanitarian supplies to the people of Gaza. There is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Israeli government need to open the crossings immediately and allow the free flow of aid.

“I call on the Irish government and on other EU states to demand the release of Irish and other citizens illegally arrested in international waters, that the confiscated humanitarian aid on board, which had been cleared by the customs of another EU country, Cyprus, be returned and that the boat be released and allowed proceed on its way.” ENDS

BBC

DUP MP William McCrea has said police have warned him of a death threat from the Real IRA.

Mr McCrea criticised the “clumsy” way in which police delivered the note last week while he was in Westminster.

He said his wife was handed a letter marked confidential “stating they had received information that ‘the Real IRA is plotting to kill you’”.

“There was nothing confidential about this note as it was completely open for my wife and family to read,” he said.

“This, understandably, caused my wife and family considerable distress.”

He added: “It is not the threat that I find so alarming, for republicans have always hated my determined stand against them, but I am shocked to have been informed by the police in such a clumsy and unprofessional manner.”

A police spokesperson said they did not discuss the security of individuals.

“However, if we receive information that a person’s life may be at risk, we will inform them accordingly.

“We never ignore anything which may put an individual at risk.”

BBC

Members of Portadown Orange Lodge held a prayer service at police lines

The annual Orange Order parade at Drumcree in Portadown has passed without incident.

Orangemen have been banned since 1998 from going down the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown after their annual march from Drumcree church.

After a service at Drumcree Church, about 300 Orangemen and two bands walked to a police gate at the bottom of the hill.

Incoming Parades Commission chairwoman Rena Shepherd watched the march.

Ms Shepherd, who replaces Roger Poole later this month, said she hoped to resolve the dispute by next year.

She crossed the police line for an impromptu meeting with the Orangemen and promised to discuss the situation with them.

Police chief inspector Jason Murphy said it was welcome that the parade had passed without incident.

“That reflects the responsibility shown by the parade organisers and marchers,” he said.

He added: “I look forward to a time and circumstances when even this type of scaled-down policing operation is no longer necessary.”

First Minister Peter Robinson is due to hold talks with the Garvaghy Road Residents Group and the Portadown District Lodge this week.

Mr Robinson said he had invited both groups to separate meetings aimed at “enabling progress to be made, leading to a resolution of this matter”.

Before 1998, attempts to ban the parade from going down the road resulted in loyalist rioting both in Portadown and across Northern Ireland.

However, when the 1998 march was forced through the Garvaghy Road it sparked republican rioting.

DUP man claimed for dozens of films while he stayed in top London hotels

Sunday Life
Sunday, 5 July 2009

The DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson has repaid £555 after charging the taxpayer to watch dozens of pay-to-view films in London hotels. The Lagan Valley MP used his House of Commons second home allowance to pay for films almost every time he flew to London on parliamentary business between 2004-2005.

The revelations were published in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, the newspaper which has been going through every MPs’ expense claims during the last two months after paying £150,000 to a source.

It’s understood Mr Donaldson submitted second home claim forms, including receipts, relating to 68 pay-to-view movies.

The paper quoted hotel sources saying the films Mr Donaldson put on his expenses during 2004 and 2005 were in the highest price category offered to guests, a category which covers the latest blockbusters and adult movies.

In a statement, Mr Donaldson said he had not watched any content of an adult or pornographic nature, saying: “Such material was not viewed on the date alleged, or at all.”

All of the claims were paid by the Commons fees office.

According to Commons rules, MPs were only allowed to claim for items “wholly, exclusively and necessarily” relating to their parliamentary duties.

After being approached by the newspaper, Mr Donaldson and DUP sources confirmed he would repay costs relating to room service, mini-bars and “entertainment” from his hotel stays, totalling £678.90.

During 2004 and 2005, the MP stayed in London for two or three nights a week.

In 2005, he bought a flat in south London with fellow DUP MP Sammy Wilson and his hotel claims stopped.

Prior to the purchase his receipts showed that the films he claimed for ranged in price from £7.50 at the Marriot, County Hall, to £14.95 at the Renaissance Hotel, Heathrow Airport.

He was also billed for 30 films during his stays at the Jolly Hotel St Ermine near Westminster, at a cost of £7.95 a time and he put the £9.95 cost of watching films at Hilton Hotels on his expenses on four occasions.

When asked by the Daily Telegraph to explain the references to “Room Service 2” on his hotel bills, Mr Donaldson’s solicitor, John McBurney, said: “Clearly it is impossible to be precise in relation to each and every item. However, it would have been common practice to have used pay TV, including internet access and other media services.”

DUP leader Peter Robinson (left) said: “Mr Donaldson has been asked to pay back any expenses which have not been properly incurred and I understand that he intends to do so.”

Belfast Telegraph
Friday, 3 July 2009

The break-in at the Castlereagh police base in east Belfast was a major embarrassment for police and put the developing peace process in Northern Ireland under severe pressure at the time.

That someone could waltz into what was supposed to be one of the most secure police stations on the planet and make off with hugely sensitive files stunned security analysts, who immediately speculated on it being an inside job.

Coming three weeks before the IRA put the second trance of its arsenal of weapons “beyond use” and with the political peace at Stormont uneasy, it was the last thing the Government wanted.

It was a Sunday evening, March 17 2002 - St Patrick’s Day - when Special Branch secrets were removed from an office - room 2-20 - in the complex where top terrorist suspects were interrogated down the decades.

The room contained A-Z files on Special Branch officers, their phone numbers, code names of their agents and their handlers.

As always the office was manned. The officer on duty, a Special Branch detective constable, was assaulted, tied up and had his mouth and eyes taped up by three men who suddenly entered the office and then made off with the masses of sensitive information.

In the months that followed more than 100 Special Branch officers had to move home and others had to fortify their properties.

Hundreds of police officers were put to work investigating the robbery. Initially the then Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan - a former Special branch chief - said he would be “most surprised” if paramilitaries were responsible.

But before the end of March 2002 police said the investigations led them most strongly towards believing the IRA was behind the break-in.

The IRA insisted it was not involved and blamed elements of British intelligence. A review later carried out by Sir John Chilcott - the man now heading the Government’s inquiry into the Iraq War - later concluded there was no evidence of involvement by the intelligence services.

However, six months after the break-in Larry Zaitschek was firmly in the PSNI cross-hairs.

The American had been a chef in Castlereagh and was interviewed twice by police before returning home soon afterwards.

A few months later, after a detailed investigation of his activities, finances, travel and examination of the people he associated with in Belfast, detectives decided he was their man and prepared the extradition case which was finally abandoned today.

One of those he was associated with was Denis Donaldson, the key administrator in the Sinn Fein offices at Stormont after devolution.

In October 2002, police raided the Sinn Fein offices and unmasked what was claimed to be a republican spy ring at the heart of government.

What became known as Stormontgate led to the suspension of devolution and the reintroduction of direct rule when the then First Minister David Trimble threatened to collapse the administration.

Donaldson was arrested and remanded in custody charged with having documents likely to be of use to terrorists.

However in 2005 prosecutors said they were dropping the charges citing “the public interest”.

That public interest became clear days later when in a scene straight out of a spy novel, Donaldson admitted being a British agent in the heart of the republican movement.

He made a public statement admitting he had been a British agent at the time of the Stormontgate raids and the Castlereagh break-in.

He said he had worked for British intelligence and Special Branch since being recruited in the 1980s after “compromising myself at a vulnerable time in my life”.

Donaldson was expelled by a stunned Sinn Fein and disappeared from Belfast.

In December 2005 he was tracked down and interviewed by a Sunday newspaper journalist who found him living in a run-down cottage across the border in Co Donegal.

In March 2006 he was shot dead outside the cottage. The IRA, which was on ceasefire, was suspected of being responsible - despite its repeated denials.

This year however the dissident Real IRA claimed responsibility for murdering Donaldson in an interview with another Sunday newspaper journalist who received their claim of responsibility for the murders of Sappers Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, who were shot dead outside Massereene Barracks in Antrim in March.

The PSNI took Suzanne Breen to court seeking notes and telephone records of her interview, but last month a Belfast judge ruled she need not hand them over.

Recorder Tom Burgess said her right to life - she said she had been warned she would be under sentence of death by the Real IRA if she revealed her sources - outweighed any other public interest.

As it stands there will be no prosecution over Castlereagh, no prosecution over Stormontgate, and so far, no prosecution in the Irish Republic over the murder of Denis Donaldson.

Belfast Telegraph
Saturday, 4 July 2009

Castlereagh Police station where American chef Larry Zaitschek worked from November 1998

The New York chef who was to be charged in connection with a break-in at Castlereagh Special Branch offices in Belfast in 2002 has told the Belfast Telegraph of his relief and anger after authorities said he would not be put on trial.

Larry Zaitschek (41), who lives in the US, had been accused of aggravated burglary, assault and imprisonment of a police officer following the robbery that shook the peace process. Mr Zaitschek was also accused of having information of use to terrorists.

But the PPS yesterday said it had decided to drop the case against him because he would not receive a fair trial.

It took the decision after the police said they could not make all relevant material available to the PPS. The police said this new material did not originate from either them or the security services.

Mr Zaitschek told the Belfast Telegraph: “It’s a tremendous weight off my shoulders. But at the same time I’ve known from day one that they’ve not had a case against me. I know I didn’t do it,”

Zaitschek said he’s most angry about how the case has impacted his relationship with his son Pearse, whom he hasn’t seen since his estranged wife entered a witness protection program with the boy in the summer of 2002.

“I’ve been deprived of my son since March 2002 for a case that never existed,” said Zaitschek, “My son is about to turn 11, and the last time I saw him he was not even four. And that the PPS expects people now, after seven years, to swallow this line that there was new evidence that they can’t disclose, so I can’t get a fair trial, is just an insult to people’s intelligence,” he added.

Zaitchek, who got the cook’s job at Castlereagh in November 1998, said his relationship with IRA informer Denis Donaldson had been “blown way out of proportion by the media”.

He said that he had met Donaldson in New York in the early 1990s, and later saw him a few times socially after moving to Northern Ireland in 1995. He last saw Donaldson in 1997.

When Donaldson admitted to being a British spy within the republican movement in December 2005, Zaitschek says he wasn’t sure what that revelation meant for his own case.

“Because as far as I knew, Denis would have had no knowledge that I was working at Castlereagh. I hadn’t spoken with Denis for a year-and-a-half prior to me even starting that job,” he said.

Does he think Donaldson could have set him up as a fall guy for Castlereagh?

“I don’t believe that. The fact of the matter is apparently Denis was apparently on the Brit payroll, but I can’t believe that Denis would ever do me any harm.”

He said he would love to return to Northern Ireland, “but I’m going to take the advice of my lawyers on that. All of my energies will be focused at, getting direct contact with my son.”

The reaction came after the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said that the “test for prosecution is no longer met” in respect of Larry Zaitschek for his alleged role in the break-in at Castlereagh Police Station on March 17, 2002 and in respect of two offences of collecting information. He has always denied having anything to do with it.

DUP Assembly member Ian Paisley Jnr, a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, branded the decision “a disgrace”.

TUV leader Jim Allister said he was not satisfied with the police explanation.

Nadia Gilani
Times
July 5, 2009

**Photos at the >>Daily Mail Exposé

The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.

Lady Sawers had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it visible to any of the site’s 200m users around the world who choose to be in the open-access London social network on Facebook.

Sawyers

The extraordinary lapse exposed the couple’s friendships with senior diplomats and well-known actors, including a leading character in The Archers, the BBC Radio 4 drama, and revealed that the intelligence chief’s brother-in-law, who holidayed with him last month, is an associate of David Irving, the controversial right-wing historian.

Once the Foreign Office had been informed of the faux pas all the material was removed from the internet. The move suggests that MI6 or the Foreign Office had not vetted the information the Sawers family shared over the internet.

Foreign Office staff are warned about using social networking sites when they join but MI6 advises its agents to maintain even tighter secrecy, telling them to reveal their true role only to their closest family.

Last night Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, told The Mail On Sunday: “This type of exposure verges on the reckless. The prime minister should immediately commission an internal inquiry as to whether this has breached the security of the incoming head of MI6 too seriously to allow him to take up the post.”

The Tory MP Patrick Mercer said the MI6 chief had left himself open to blackmail. A Foreign Office spokesman was unavailable for comment last night.

David Leppard
Times
5 July 09

A network of suspected far-right extremists with access to 300 weapons and 80 bombs has been uncovered by counter-terrorism detectives.

Thirty-two people have been questioned in a police operation that raises the prospect of a right-wing bombing campaign against mosques. Police are said to have recovered a British National party membership card and other right-wing literature during a raid on the home of one suspect charged under the Terrorism Act.

In England’s largest seizure of a suspected terrorist arsenal since the IRA mainland bombings of the early 1990s, rocket launchers, grenades, pipe bombs and dozens of firearms have been recovered in the past six weeks during raids on more than 20 properties. Several people have been charged and more arrests are imminent. Current police activity is linked to arrests in Europe, New Zealand and Australia.

Police are examining allegations that many of the guns were manufactured or reactivated, then sold over the internet to viewers of a right-wing website. Details of the previously secret operation were disclosed by Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire, to security officials.

Police sources say that in a recent case not linked to the current arrests, detectives seized maps and plans of mosques from the homes of suspected far-right supporters. A senior Whitehall official said MI5 was monitoring the police investigation. While the security agency did not have a brief to probe right-wing terrorism, that position was constantly under review, said the official.

Fears have been heightened by the discovery of an alleged plot involving ricin, a lethal poison; two men have been been charged with offences under the Terrorism Act.

Concerns that this might be part of a global trend have been reinforced by the case of James Von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist charged with shooting dead a security guard at the Holocaust museum in America last month.

Bettison said 32 people had been arrested in the investigation, although the counter-terrorism unit in Leeds said this figure was in fact the number of people questioned. At least 22 properties have been searched.

The operation had thrown up evidence that suspects were communicating online.

“The internet gives it reach and scope,” said Bettison. “The big bad wolf is still the Al- Qaeda threat. But my people are knocking over right-wing extremists quite regularly. We are interdicting it so that it doesn’t first emerge into the public eye out of a critical incident like an explosion.”

Several alleged right-wing extremists have been charged with terrorism offences in the UK in the past year. In one case, a jury convicted Martyn Gilleard, 31, a neo-Nazi forklift truck driver, who wanted to “secure a future for white children” and kept explosives at his flat in Goole, East Yorkshire. He built small hand-held bombs, and among the material seized were membership cards for the National Front, the British People’s party and the White Nationalist party. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

In 1999, David Copeland, the so-called London nail bomber, carried out a campaign against black, Asian and gay communities. His home-made devices each included up to 1,500 4in nails. In his final attack Copeland killed three people, including a pregnant woman, after nail bombing a Soho pub. He got a life sentence for murder.

Far-right parties across Europe are growing in popularity. In last month’s European elections, the BNP won two seats for the first time in Yorkshire and the northwest and took 6.2% of the national vote.

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
The Observer
Sunday 5 July 2009

The leader of the largest loyalist terror group in Northern Ireland has urged his members and all other loyalists to inform on racists attacking migrant workers.

Jackie McDonald, head of the Ulster Defence Association, said loyalists should hand over the names of anyone they believed was behind the recent wave of racist attacks in Belfast.

In an interview with the Observer, McDonald also said that even a large terrorist outrage by dissident republicans would not halt the UDA’s progress towards disarming. Last weekend, the UDA confirmed it had started decommissioning its weapons.

Talking about racism and the recent intimidation of more than 100 Romanians who were driven out of Belfast, McDonald said: “If they [loyalists] know anything about any crime - racism, sectarianism, drug-dealing - then tell the police.” Asked if that meant the UDA was instructing its members to inform on racist gangs to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, McDonald replied: “Yes, certainly, tell the police.”

The former UDA prisoner, who has played a central role in pushing the paramilitary movement towards disarmament, said he believed many of those behind the racist attacks were teenagers seeking publicity. “It has to be understood that these are kids. I don’t see any evidence they are being directed by people in any structured way.

“If we had been asked by authorities to sort this problem out, we would have gone to these young people and explained the folly of their ways, to tell them they were doing wrong and not to do it any more.” He attributed much of the problem to the changing nature of events in Northern Ireland. “All of a sudden, these young people went from being nobodies to being world famous. So they are saying to themselves: ‘We were world-famous last week, am I nobody this week? What can I do to be world-famous next week?’ It’s the media frenzy that’s going to make them cause more problems.”

The UDA’s overall commander lives in south Belfast, which includes the epicentre of the latest racist attacks. Last weekend around 100 Roma men, women and children left Northern Ireland via Dublin airport and returned to Romania. They said they had no choice, because of repeated intimidation and attacks on their homes in south Belfast.

McDonald said he did not want to see far-right groups filling the vacuum left by paramilitaries in loyalist areas.

On the subject of decommissioning, McDonald said he wanted to see all UDA weapons put beyond use so “everybody can get to some sort of normality, and the police can get on with their job”.

Sir Hugh Orde, the former chief constable, has warned that the threat of dissident republican terror remains high within Northern Ireland. However, McDonald said he believed the UDA would continue to decommission ahead of the British government’s August deadline, even if the Real IRA and Continuity IRA intensify their terror campaign.

“The UDA has started this process with General de Chastelain [head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning] and they have honoured what they said they would do. I would hope we will see full UDA decommissioning by the end of August.

“I don’t know if it [a republican attack] would put us off our path. It would severely test attitudes in the street because there was an awful lot of effort had to go in to not reacting after the two soldiers were shot, and the policeman was shot in March.”

North Belfast News
3rd of July 2009

Relatives of people killed by loyalists from North and West Belfast have given news of a major decommissioning move by the UVF and Red Hand Commando a mixed reaction.

At the weekend the leadership of the two organisations, who were responsible for almost 1,000 deaths during the 30-year conflict, revealed that all arms under its control had been decommissioned.

The paramilitary command staff said it had “completed the process of rendering ordnance totally and irreversibly beyond use”.

The UDA has also given up some of its weapons and it is understood that the process will be completed before the deadline of February 2010.

North Belfast man JJ Magee tragically lost his 15 year old sister Anne in a UDA/ UFF gun attack in 1976.

For him the move towards complete decommissioning of all arms especially those brought in by the Ulster Resistance, should happen sooner rather than later.

“I do welcome the move and hopefully we see a more substantial move by the UDA in the future. I look forward towards a society where all guns are gone and we have a police force that isn’t armed like there is in the south.

“I do have concerns about weapons smuggled in from South Africa to the Ulster Resistance. Where did they go? “They killed a lot of nationalist people and I would want to be sure all those weapons were decommissioned.

“I want to see those who were involved in setting up the Ulster Resistance play their part by releasing information about the weapons or going to find out where they are now, or encourage people to give them up.”

The UVF said the decommissioning process began last autumn but was suspended after dissident republicans killed two soldiers and a policeman in Antrim and Craigavon, in March.

Former UVF prisoner Billy Hutchinson helped negotiate with the IICD led by General John de Chastelain who four years ago witnessed destruction of the IRA’s arsenal of guns, ammunition and explosives.

Josephine Larmour whose mother Sadie was murdered in 1979 by a UVF gunman said the news was extremely emotive, “especially for someone who has lost a loved one to the UVF,” she said.

“It is a very welcome statement and I hope it is true they have decommissioned all weapons. My focus is on the truth because the UVF and UDA were armed by the State. We need to know why our loved ones were targeted in the first place.”

Maureen Rafferty’s 14-year-old son Philip was abducted close to his home at Tullymore Gardens and shot by the UDA/UFF. The same day 17 year old Gabriel Savage was murdered in the same area, by what is believed was the same gang.

She said she didn’t believe the outlawed organisation had fully let go of all its weapons.

“They will never give up all their arms, I just don’t believe them and I would be very sceptical about what they’ve said.

“I do believe there was collusion in my son’s case, because not for love nor money could you find a soldier on that road the night Philip was taken but yet this gang had the freedom to come in and snatch my Philip and then come back and grab Gabriel Savage outside the Busy Bee and murder him. The hurt is very deep for me about this and I find it very hard to take it in.”

The day after Philip Rafferty’s murder, Eugene Heenan’s father Paddy was murdered as he made his way to work. One man Albert ‘Ginger Baker’ was jailed for his part in the killing.

“Yes there’s less guns on the streets but the big issue is why were innocent Catholics killed? The man who killed my father was trained by special forces, he was an informant and he was the first supergrass to give evidence against the UDA.

“The British government has to decommission their weapons which are their agents because together they stand accused of state murder. I think that is the far bigger issue than any sort of decommissioning by the UVF.”

The public inquiry into the 1999 murder of a Belfast human rights lawyer is now preparing its report. It’s findings could be explosive, says Beatrix Campbell

The Guardian
Saturday 4 July 2009

The public inquiry into the assassination a decade ago of the human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson was about to open its doors in a blank Belfast office block to witnesses last year when a new and eccentric story began to circulate. It abandoned the theory accepted by virtually everyone close to the case - that Nelson’s killers were probably a Belfast bomb-maker and veteran mid-Ulster loyalists, including people who had been British agents and a serving member of the British army. Instead, the inquiry, chaired by Sir Michael Morland, was encouraged to believe that one of Nelson’s own clients, a former IRA prisoner called Colin Duffy, had in fact been responsible.

People who had campaigned for the inquiry began to wonder whether they’d made a mistake - was Nelson herself going to be impugned for the company she kept, the clients she represented in several high-profile cases that allegedly attracted police death threats? Was she going to be blamed for her own death?

This new theory - promoted by a high-level police source - offered an attractive alternative to collusion. The inquiry seemed obsessed by Nelson’s motives and morals. But by the time the inquiry closed last month - it is now preparing its report - the focus had shifted away from the rogue republican killer and on to a police culture which could have made her murderers feel safe to kill.

Everybody knew Nelson’s life was at risk long before a bomb exploded under her car in 1998. She had had many death threats, but had been refused police protection. She was murdered a week before the publication of a report into allegations that police officers had told her clients she’d soon be dead.

What no one had known, however, was that while the RUC itself was under scrutiny, special branch, MI5 and the security service had been spying on her. Between 1994-1998 security reports on Nelson’s private and public life accelerated until, in the summer of 1998, an application for a warrant to put a bugging device in her property went to Mo Mowlam, then Northern Ireland secretary. It troubled Mowlam, but she sanctioned it.

Nelson, it appeared, was perceived as an enemy of the state rather than a citizen entitled to its protection. The evidence has stunned the three previous inquiries - costing millions of pounds - into alleged collusion in Nelson’s killing. They had all been told lies, that no intelligence file or files exist on Nelson.

“That was an untruth,” says a furious officer close to the murder investigation headed by Colin Port, now chief constable of Avon and Somerset police.

During her inquiry into complaints that the state had failed to act on death threats, Nuala O’Loan, Northern Ireland’s first police ombudsman, asked for intelligence files on Nelson. She had “absolutely no doubt” that they never saw those files.

In 2003, in his report into emblematic cases, Peter Cory, a retired Canadian supreme court judge, concluded that there was prima facie evidence of collusion. He asked, but was given no “documents pertaining to the request for a warrant or the intelligence file on Rosemary Nelson”.

Nelson was one of scores of lawyers in Northern Ireland who endured police harassment but, according to Rory Phillips, counsel to the current inquiry, none had transformed that occupational hazard into a protest. Nelson, “unusually if not uniquely” lodged formal complaints, taking her case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), the UN and the US, and encouraging her clients to do the same.

By the summer of 1998 Nelson was already a hate figure as a result of her involvement in three cases: Duffy’s; that of Robert Hamill, a Catholic kicked to death by loyalists while RUC officers watched; and her work as legal adviser to the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Association which opposed the Orangemen’s annual Drumcree march.

Then the security services went on the offensive. On 10 July 1998, the IPCC had warned Mowlam that the RUC’s own inquiry into its officers’ alleged death threats against her was unsatisfactory. This was unprecedented - Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan was incandescent.

Special branch drafted the warrant to install a bugging device. In a bullish testimony, the assistant chief constable, Chris Albiston claimed that Nelson fabricated IRA alibis, worked to a paramilitary agenda, and used her position to gather evidence about RUC officers. However, Phillips noted that the RUC had provided no evidence to all this.

By the end of July the security services were warned of dire risks attached to the warrant: there would have been a backlash if it ever got out that special branch was spying on Nelson while it was accused of threatening her. And Mowlam’s approval of this breach of lawyer-client confidentiality could damage her position in the peace process.

What was Chief Constable Flanagan’s role? During the Drumcree crisis, he described Nelson as an “immoral woman”, David Watkins, the Northern Ireland Office director of policing and security told the inquiry. Flanagan denied this. Indeed he denied knowing - or believing - that Nelson was anything other than a lawyer doing her job, until he was confronted by the warrant. His denials have confounded many observers, “either he didn’t know what special branch was doing, or he is lying,” commented Martin O’Brien, former director of CAJ, Northern Ireland’s leading human rights organisation, “and neither of those options is palatable”. Why, he wondered, was all this coming out now?

A clue comes from Phillips’ closing speech to the tribunal. In summer 1998 “arguably the most important moments in the chronology” converged, Phillips said. The police claimed their real target was her republican clients, yet the “focus is entirely on Rosemary Nelson”.

Philips ventured that the intelligence revealed a police “attitude that was all of a piece”: Nelson was “someone over whom it would not be worth taking any great trouble”. Despite years of surveillance there was no intelligence on the threats against her. Working with the RUC felt like “wading through treacle while treading on eggshells” Port told the inquiry.

Though much evidence about the suspects was in camera, Phillips drew attention to the security Operation Fagotto around Nelson’s home the weekend before her death. It transmitted messages that her car was parked outside. Why? Loyalists were sighted before and after her death - but not followed up. Why?

There has always been an eerie code of silence about Nelson’s death. Despite Port’s “outstanding” stings, said Phillips, the suspects had not spoken. But they had consistently uttered one mantra: “It was the government that did it.”

By Brian Rowan
Belfast Telegraph
Friday, 3 July 2009

A senior loyalist paramilitary leader has revealed how close Northern Ireland was to being returned to “the dark old days” after the dissident republican murders in March.

Speaking just days after confirmation of decommissioning the source told the story of a leadership struggle “to hold the line”.

In weekend statements the UVF, Red Hand Commando and UDA disclosed that preparations for disarmament were suspended in March after the dissident attacks at Massereene Barracks and in Craigavon.

Two soldiers, 23-year-old Sapper Mark Quinsey from Birmingham and 21-year-old Sapper Cengiz “Patrick” Azimkar from London, and police officer Stephen Caroll were murdered.

“People were champing at the bit (to react),” the loyalist paramilitary leader revealed.

He said this was “across the board”, meaning across the loyalist organisations.

“That’s how close it was,” he said — how close it was to “back to the dark old days”.

In those weekend statements the paramilitary leaderships revealed: “Assurances were sought from the Government and the Irish government that those responsible in whatever jurisdiction would be vigorously pursued.

“The key factor that saved the day was the arrests,” the senior loyalist told this newspaper.

“While the security forces were doing their job, others were doing their job to hold the line.

“The people who were champing at the bit were told of assurances and asked for space. It was very serious — (and) it was difficult. This thing (the peace process) has to be managed on a daily basis,” he said.

Within weeks of the March killings it became clear that loyalists had not abandoned their decommissioning plans.

And two statements at the weekend by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning confirmed arms moves by the three mainstream organisations — the most significant by the UVF and linked Red Hand Commando.

A source with knowledge of the decommissioning process is also now hinting at a significant move by the breakaway UDA “brigade” in south-east Antrim.

The source suggested people would be “surprised — pleasantly surprised” when General de Chastelain reports in August.

There was no detail of timing but the hint suggested more than a token gesture by the loyalist dissidents.

General de Chastelain and his team will be back in Belfast soon to assess what further progress is possible before he delivers his August report to the British and Irish governments. The IICD will end its role in the peace process by February next year.

:::u.tv:::
Friday, 03 July 2009

Sir Declan Morgan has been sworn in as the new Lord Chief Justice.

The new head of the judiciary declared himself ready to engage with political representatives whenever policing and justice powers are devolved.

Sir Declan Morgan also stressed his independence and vowed to oversee a judicial regime which would deliver results for the public.

He made the pledges following a ceremony at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast on Friday which was attended by his three immediate predecessors, Lord Kerr, Lord Carswell and Lord Hutton.
Article Continues

Sir Declan said he would work tirelessly to ensure the effective administration of justice for the people of Northern Ireland.

‘Challenge’

The new Lord Chief Justice acknowledged there will be changes should responsibility for policing and justice be transferred from Westminster to Stormont.

He said: “I look forward to meeting that challenge when it comes.

“Clearly, and constitutionally, the judiciary must remain in a position to make decisions which are impartial and independent of political influence, but I will be ready to engage with publicly elected representatives about matters of mutual interest.”

Sir Declan, who was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, takes up the position following a legal career which began when he was called to the Bar in 1976.

He took Silk in 1993 and served as senior Crown Counsel for Northern Ireland from 2002 until his appointment as a High Court judge two years later.

Sir Declan also paid tribute to the man he is taking over from, on his departure to the House of Lords.

“I wish him well as he takes up his new duties in the House of Lords. He has made a major contribution to the work of the judiciary in Northern Ireland and I have no doubt that he will make a significant impact in his new position,” he said.

North Belfast News
3rd of July 2009

Residents living near the notorious Limestone Road interface say they believe loyalists are trying to whip up sectarian tensions coming up to the marching season after a mob from Tigers Bay went on the rampage attacking cars and houses at the weekend.

The mob of around 15 youths smashed eight car windscreens and wing mirrors in Atlantic Avenue in the early hours of Saturday morning. They then smashed the front windows of a house in Newington Avenue before fleeing back to Tigers Bay.

Kevin Murphy, who is Co-chair of the Newington. Parkside and Castleton Residents Group had his car attacked outside his Atlantic Avenue home. He said local people are worried that the situation could escalate during the July parading season.

“Around 15 of them just came running into the area destroying everything in sight, you can even see the footprints on the bonnet of the car where they walked on it,” he said.

“They went right along the street wrecking cars and then ran back out again. People living here are worried now that it is going to get worse. They showed no fear whatsoever coming into this area to destroy property.

“This week is the mini Twelfth and then we have the main Twelfth parades coming up so residents are nervous about what could happen. Could a person be attacked next? If anyone had been out walking at that time they could have been killed. There is a sense of fear.”

Mr Murphy added that those who carried out the attack have been taunting young people in the area with text messages warning more attacks will take place.

“Some of our young people here have been involved in cross community work so have the numbers of the young people in the Tigers Bar area. They were sent text messages saying they would be back next week for more of the same.”

Sinn Feín councillor Conor Maskey said it is lucky no nationalist resident was killed or injured in the attacks.

“This is a situation that could have gone even more horribly wrong. The fact that a group of people from a loyalist area felt that it would be ok to come into Atlantic Avenue and vandalise cars and property is a disgrace,” he said.

“It is ironic that one of the co chairs of the residents’ association who is trying his best to do positive work for the district had his car attacked.

“One thing that is missing here is leadership from unionist political representatives on this matter. It has been stated before that there is great work going on in an inter-community level by community workers but political leadership is needed.”

A PSNI spokeswoman confirmed they are investigating the attacks and added that a sectarian motive is “one line of enquiry” they are pursuing.

DAN KEENAN
Irish Times
Saturday, July 4, 2009

THE ANNUAL Drumcree parade has again been prohibited from the nationalist Garvaghy Road area of Portadown, Co Armagh tomorrow.

The decision maintains the policy of refusing permission for the Portadown lodge of the Orange Order to return to its lodge through the nationalist area in the absence of a locally agreed accommodation.

The Parades Commission, which rules on contentious marches, said in a statement: “This commission is unchanged in its view that local accommodation is the best way to achieve a resolution; that those involved should work towards this resolution; and that there continues to be a sincere desire among people on all sides for some form of acceptable outcome which will allow Portadown to move on.”

It confirmed that “a significant number of meetings with both sides” has been held.

“These steps reflect a genuine and sincere effort on the part of the commission to establish a basis whereby the issues surrounding this particular parade can be discussed and resolved.

‘‘The commission is firm in its view that it does not see the current situation in Portadown as a long-term resolution to the parading dispute in the area.”

The commission believes the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition “is willing to become involved in dialogue which does not rule out any particular route and which includes all options surrounding the parade and its route”.

However, it also recognises that the residents do not believe that the circumstances for dialogue with the parade organisers have been met particularly in regard to the scope of any discussions on the route.

It said: “In the commission’s view the willingness of Portadown LOL No1 to engage in direct discussions represents a significant advance.”

Action on Bord Snip to be delayed as public sector gears for the fight

By JODY CORCORAN
Independent.ie
Sunday July 05 2009

The silent destruction of the real economy will continue virtually unchecked for a further six months, during which time TDs will enjoy a three-month summer holiday and the Government will prepare to re-run the Lisbon Treaty referendum.

In that six months, a further 100,000 jobs will be lost, bringing to an unprecedented 500,000 the number of private sector workers now out of work — a staggering 90 per cent increase in just a single year of an unrelenting economic crisis.

The report of the Expenditure Review Committee, also known as An Bord Snip Nua, has now been submitted in draft form to various Government departments.

It makes recommendations in relation to cuts of up to €5bn in current spending to eliminate a deficit of €15bn, of which €6bn relates to bailing out the banks.

The report will be officially presented to Finance Minister Brian Lenihan on Wednesday, but will not go to Government for a further week, or possibly a fortnight.

The report may be published before the end of summer. However, a Government decision on what action it will take on foot of the report’s recommendations will not be implemented for six months, during which time private sector job losses are expected to soar past half a million.

Without publicly admitting it, the Government has embarked on a strategy of allowing up to 3,000 private sector job losses a week — with its attendant devastating social consequences — as part of a long-term aspiration to increase competitiveness and return public finances to a sustainable position.

Last Friday, Taoiseach Brian Cowen effectively admitted that Government policy was to accept surging unemployment when he said: “There is no avoiding the difficult adjustment that needs to take place in the labour market. Costs have to fall and the level of employment in certain sectors — in particular the construction sector — was not sustainable.”

The Expenditure Review Committee has examined the current expenditure programmes in each department and has made recommendations for “reducing public sector numbers”.

It has also made recommendations on the “re-allocation of staffing or expenditure resources between public service organisations, as well as further rationalisation of State agencies”.

It is expected the report will be published before the second Lisbon referendum in the autumn, despite the objection of some in Cabinet, notably Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin, who fears that the proposals might cause protest to such an extent that the referendum could be defeated a second time.

Currently 350,000 people are employed in the public sector at a cost of over €20bn a year; this translates into a million votes when family members are factored in.

As such, the public sector represents the largest single lobby group in the country, wielding what many observers believe to have a disproportionate influence over decisions taken by the Government, which is itself largely dependent on the civil service, in particular, to function.

To meet its stated objective, the elimination of a €15bn deficit, the committee, which also comprises high-ranking civil servants, is thought to have made far-reaching recommendations which, if implemented, are certain to be met with resistance within the public sector.

The chairman of the committee, UCD economist Colm McCarthy, is known to be a strong critic of the operation of sections of the public sector, describing it six years ago as a “parallel universe, suspended in space somewhere”.

Publication of the report will reveal whether he holds the same view having examined the public sector for nine months, in the company of senior civil servants either on or advising his committee.

Mr McCarthy is on record as stating his belief that a “peculiar feature” of the public pay review process is that no notice is taken of pay relativities with other countries, and the resulting anomalies. He feels there is “no justification” in many senior public officials now receiving pay well in excess of their counterparts in other jurisdictions.

He has said that there is “something redolent of Soviet-era central planning about Irish procedures for determining public pay.” Pay rates and conditions, he believes, are highly centralised. “Bolshevik-style central bodies determine the minutiae of pay and conditions for 350,000 employees nationwide.”

“If the private sector were run this way, it would seize up.” he says. “No reliance is placed on the normal workings of supply and demand in the market — the ultimate arbiter of pay in the [largely non-union] private sector.

“There is no reason, though, why a less Bolshevised system of pay determination in the public services could not be introduced. State agencies, including Government depts, local authorities, schools and hospitals could be allocated annual budgets and left free to negotiate their own pay deals — reflecting supply and demand conditions in their own regions and in the specialised labour markets in which they operate.”

Mr McCarthy also believes it is time to encourage greater mobility between the two sectors, a process which would help to ensure that public and private pay stayed in line, without the benefit of benchmarking bodies and the like.

Mr McCarthy believes an increase in competitiveness in the public sector could be achieved by trimming back on what he has called an “explosion in headcount”.

The Government’s first priority is to reduce the deficit back below three per cent of GDP by 2013, striking a balance between what it calls “sustaining economic activity” in the short-term and making a credible start on the “difficult adjustment required”.

The Taoiseach has said: “We have taken some difficult decisions on both public spending and taxation, and more difficult choices lie ahead over the next few years.”

The second part of the Government strategy is to restore stability to the banking and financial systems: the third, to restore competitiveness and return to sustainable economic growth. The Government says the final part of its strategy is to maximise employment in the short-term and help those who lose their jobs.

Last Friday, the Taoiseach said: “This week’s Live Register figures show the scale of the challenge, and the best pathway to sustained job creation and economic growth is to regain competitive advantage in the market place by doing whatever is necessary to retain and regain market share in an environment of depleted demand.”

Mr Cowen believes that creating job opportunities for the unemployed will only happen when the country’s finances have stabilised, the banking system has become more sound and sustainable growth has been achieved “based on a competitive and innovative economy”.

He said: “Despite what some people claim, there is no short-cut or easy solution. The adjustment is, and will continue to be, difficult. The Government is working with the social partners to try to manage that adjustment… but we will not try to fool people into believing that difficult decisions can be avoided.”

- JODY CORCORAN

Letter to the Editor
Derry Journal
30 June 2009

Sir,
We, the families of hunger-strikers, Patsy O’Hara and Michael Devine, support the call by former hunger-striker, Gerard Hodkins, for an independent republican inquiry into the 1981 hunger-strike.

We cannot understand why any republican would have anything to fear from such an inquiry, or why they would not support it.

The Gulladuff meeting between the Sinn Fein leadership and eight of the hunger strikers’ families was very emotional, and we were not unaffected. However, at that meeting, the Sinn Fein delegation refused our request for an independent inquiry. Why?

We call on Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Bik McFarlane, and Richard O’Rawe to publicly support our call for an independent inquiry. We call on each of these principals to submit themselves to a judicial process, which would include not only witness evidence but cross-examination. Only then, and not before, will any of the hunger-striker families get to the truth about what happened to our loved ones.

Yours,
Louise and Michael Og Devine,
Peggy and Tony O Hara.

In my email I received this flyer and timetable of events sent by Lorraine Carrothers for our “Lá Gaelach / Irish Cultural Day”

Cairde Ghleann Darach.
www.ghleanndarach.com

The event will take place here:

Crumlin Community Centre,
War Memorial Park - (Off Main St),
Crumlin,
Co. Antrim.
BT29 4ZY.

on Saturday 1st August 2009.

This has been organised by Cairde Ghleann Darach (PTA), to raise funds and awareness for their school. Please spread the word and post these materials where others might see.

TIMETABLE FOR LÁ GAELACH

• 12 NOON
OPENING SPEECH BY ANN MARIE LOGUE

• 12.15-12.45PM
IRISH DANCE DISPLAY

• 12.30 1.00PM
SPRAOÍ SPORT

• 1.00PM-2.00PM
ARMAGH RHYMERS WORKSHOP

• 2.00PM-3.00PM
ARMAGH RHYMERS SHOW

• 2.00-2.30PM
NA BOPÓGA PUPPET SHOW

• 3.00PM-5.00PM
GAA SKILLS, INTRODUCTION TO CAMOGIE AND HURLING

• 3.00-3.30PM
MUSIC WORKSHOP (TIN WHISTLE)

• 4.00-5.00PM
ARTS AND CRAFTS

• THROUGHOUT THE DAY
BOUNCY CASTLES
BBQ
FACE PAINTING
IRISH MEDIUM INFORMATION STALLS
BOOKS FROM CULTÚRLANN STALLS
PHOBAL STALL
TUCK SHOP
TEA/COFFEE & TRAYBAKES
MUSIC BY RAIDIÓ FÁILTE

BBC
4 July 09

DUP leader Peter Robinson is to hold talks with both sides in the dispute over the Drumcree Orange parade.

Orangemen and supporters pictured in 2001 at a security barrier

Orangemen have been banned since 1998 from going down the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown after their annual march from Drumcree church.

This year’s parade takes place on Sunday, and faces similar restrictions.

Mr Robinson said he had invited both groups to separate meetings aimed at “enabling progress to be made, leading to a resolution of this matter”.

“By demonstrating a common-sense approach, I am certain that we can find a way through on this issue,” he said.

“I will do all I can to help progress this matter to a consensual conclusion but I would be equally content if, in the preliminary discussions, the two parties agree on some other approach or arrangement which might reach the outcome that everyone in Portadown and indeed throughout Northern Ireland wishes to see.”

In a statement, the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition said a meeting would take place next week.

“We will use the opportunity to put forward the views of the nationalist community in Portadown - views which have not been heard before at such a senior level within the DUP.

“Past experience has shown, however, that partisan political interventions by senior political figures have served no useful purpose in the past.

“Nevertheless, we will not seek to pre-judge either the purpose or the outcome of this planned meeting by speculating on the reasons behind it.”

Portadown district master Darryl Hewitt said he hoped they could get a resolution to the impasse.

He criticised the Parades Commission for “failing to deliver” on their willingness to hold face-to-face talks with residents.

“It needs somebody to inject fresh impetus into the situation, and if it’s the first minister, so be it,” he said.

Mr Hewitt said they held talks with Mr Robinson last month.

Before 1998, attempts to ban the parade from going down the road resulted in loyalist rioting both in Portadown and across Northern Ireland.

However, when the 1998 march was forced through the Garvaghy Road it sparked republican rioting.