Special Branch implcated in murders; new IMC report

Published: 27 October, 2005

A] Police Ombudsman Implicates Special Branch in Murders;  B] Call for British to Cooperate in Barron Report into Dublin/Monaghan Bombings;  C] IMC Report on Paramilitary Activity

The following are important to the ongoing struggle for justice and democracy:  calls for the British government to acknowledge and cooperate with inquires into British state collusion to murder innocent citizens [Special Branch murders and Dublin-Monaghan Bombings] and the International Monitoring Commission’s [IMC] latest report on IRA decommissioning and the lack of loyalist ceasefires and decommissioning of their arms.  

Irish Northern Aid rejects the existence of the IMC, which is little more than a Kangaroo Court imposed by the British government totally outside the Good Friday Agreement.  Nevertheless, the report points out an important fact, the IRA have fully decommissioned its arms [and have been on an uninterrupted ceasefire for 8 years] while Loyalist Paramilitaries are heavily armed and engaged in an active campaign of violence.

Please see that your local media and political leaders are apprised of the implications of these events.

A] Police Ombudsman Implicates Special Branch

Sinn  Féin  Dáil Leader Caoimhghin Ó Caoláin TD described news that the Police Ombudsman's  Office in the Six Counties will implicate six Special Branch  officers  in  the  cover-up of Loyalist murders as a vindication of Sinn  Féin's  view  that  "senior  elements of the British forces mounted a determined and ruthless campaign to thwart the peace process throughout the 1990s."

Deputy  Ó  Caoláin stated, "The  particular murders detailed in Mrs O'Loan's report took place between 1993 and 2000.  This period was the most crucial and delicate period of the peace process, between the start of the IRA cessation and the setting up of the institutions.

"The  involvement of RUC Special Branch in these murders vindicates Sinn Féin's view that senior elements of the British forces mounted a determined and  ruthless  campaign by proxy to thwart the peace process throughout the 1990s."

According to the Irish News, six Special Branch officers have been implicated by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan in the cover-up of more than a dozen UVF murders.

A spokesman for Mrs O'Loan's office confirmed that she has passed an interim report to the Director for Public Prosecutions (DPP) in relation to a number of murders by a UVF informer between 1993 and 2000.

It is also understood that a UVF man and one of his Special Branch handlers will be named in relation to a UVF bomb attack on Sinn Féin offices in Monaghan town in March 1997.

Mrs O'Loan's report is expected to deal with alleged Special Branch collusion to murder:

1. Catholic woman Sharon McKenna, shot dead by a UVF gunman while visiting a Protestant pensioner in January 1993

2. Co Armagh builders Gary Convie (24) and Eamon Fox (44), shot dead while working in north Belfast in May 1994

3. Thomas Sheppard (41), shot dead as a suspected UVF informer in March 1996

4. William Harbinson (39), beaten to death by UVF men in the Mount Vernon area of north Belfast in May 1997

5. David Templeton (43), a Protestant clergyman who died following a UVF punishment attack in February 1997

6. David Greer (21), a UDA man shot dead by the UVF in Tiger's Bay in October 2000

7. Tommy English (40), a UDA man shot dead in Newtownabbey in October 2000.

B] Call for British to Cooperate Dublin/Monaghan Bombings Inquiry

"Yesterday I raised in the Dáil the issue of the Barron Inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and the refusal of the British Government to co-operate with  it.   I  also  pointed  to  the  fact that Tony Blair has steadfastly refused to set up an inquiry in his own jurisdiction.  This has angered  people throughout the 32 Counties as it is a clear indication that the  British Government is still not prepared to face up to its role in the conflict.

"If the Ombudsman can throw light on the shadowy role of British forces in directing and facilitating loyalist death squads in their murder campaign against nationalists then it will be very welcome.  However the Irish Government must pursue the whole issue of collusion much more vigorously. It must be raised at an international level."

C] Independent Monitoring Commission Report

The British government today published the latest report by the Independent Monitoring Commission into paramilitary activity. 

In a Written Statement in Parliament the Secretary of State [for N. Ireland], Peter Hain MP said: "I have received the Seventh Report of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC)… The report concludes that the PIRA [Provisional Irish Republican Army] statement, despite coming at a point when five sixths of the period under review had elapsed, is 'very significant'. The statement and the act of decommissioning reported by the IICD [Independent International Commission on Decommissioning] on 26 September have created a platform for future progress and 'initial signs following the PIRA statement are encouraging'. However, it is essential that the IMC, as they state, are able to observe 'cumulative changes in behaviour over a more sustained period of time.' I await the next Report of the Commission, due in January 2006.

"In the meantime I have decided to restore Sinn Féin's Assembly allowances, with effect from 1 November, and will, in due course, recommend to the House that it lifts the suspension of allowances to Sinn Féin Members of Parliament, which took effect on 1 April this year.

"The report also concludes that paramilitaries, especially Loyalists and dissident Republicans, continue to exert a malign influence over communities which has obstructed the development of a 'culture of lawfulness'... Loyalist paramilitaries must now also realise that exclusively peaceful and democratic means represent the sole way forward.”

Please note that neither of the major Unionist/Loyalist parties, the Ulster Unionist Party and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, suffers in any way from lawless Protestant Paramilitary violence, murder, drug dealing, or general sectarianism.  And never have.

Sinn Fein Dail Leader Ó Caoláin TD also called for the British to cooperate with the Barron Inquiry into the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan which killed 33 people.  British operatives were alleged to be involved, but British authorities continue to refuse to participate in the probe.