You are currently browsing the daily archive for 31 January 2012.
GERRY MORIARTY
Irish Times
30 Jan 2012
INTERVIEW : Policing methods and a hearts-and-minds strategy will be employed in tandem
DREW HARRIS, the assistant chief constable with one of the most challenging posts in the PSNI, says the battle against dissident republicans will continue relentlessly and will go on for a long time.
It has been an up-and-down period for Harris, who as head of PSNI crime operations is charged with combating the threat from the dissidents.
Just over a week ago the Massereene murders trial concluded with the conviction of Brian Shivers for the killings of British soldiers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey. Lurgan republican Colin Duffy was acquitted of the killings.
The trial of former Sinn Féin councillor Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton for the Continuity IRA murder in Craigavon, Co Armagh, of Constable Stephen Carroll two days after the Massereene murders in March 2009 continues at the Crown Court in Laganside in Belfast.
Nobody has been charged with the murder of Constable Ronan Kerr, who died in an under-car bomb attack in Omagh in April last year. His killing is still being actively investigated, according to police, as are the murders of Constable Carroll and those of the two soldiers.
These are the most high-profile relatively recent murders that dissidents have admitted. But they have also been involved in other killings, numerous bomb and gun attacks, including recently in Belfast and Derry, and in so-called punishment shootings. The threat level from the dissidents, as measured by MI5, remains “severe”: that is, an attack from them is “highly likely”. In terms of dealing with that real and present threat and tackling all that purist republican crime and putting people in prison, the buck stops with Harris.
He is a quiet, reflective individual who started as a constable in the RUC in 1983 and rose steadily through the ranks. He views the dissidents as “near fascist”, a group “whose mindset is absolutely certain of the validity of their argument, so certain they feel they have the right to inflict violence on others”. In a time when there is political stability and a political dispensation supported by the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland, what they are doing “defies logic”, he says, in an interview at police headquarters at Knock in east Belfast, given ahead of the Massereene judgment.
But he knows too that it is their narrow view that makes them dangerous and unpredictable. The policing and intelligence strategy is to hit them with everything they can, he explains, and at community level to win the battle for hearts and minds. And that battle will run just as long as the dissidents run.
It is a multi-pronged approach of community and criminal policing; in the latter case dealing with the actual paramilitary threat but also targeting dissidents for more common forms of criminality such as drug-dealing, smuggling, drink-driving, fuel-laundering, petty criminality and “for whatever vulnerabilities there are in their lifestyle”.
If known or suspected dissidents are seen to be living beyond their means, then the Criminal Assets Bureau in the South and the Serious Organised Crime Agency in the North will target them, Harris explains. If there are suspected tax issues, then the tax authorities are brought in. “We have been going solid at this for two years now,” he says. It is a quiet war of attrition, most of which does not make big news.
The PSNI, Garda and MI5 and their dissident opponents are braced for a long conflict. “I think they themselves see it as a long-term project that they are engaged in. I don’t think they particularly see success in terms of weeks or months but they look at this in terms of years. We need to put our own timescale against this as well,” says Harris.
He says the dissidents can be resisted and does not believe the support systems or “emotional drivers” are present to allow for anything approaching a successful campaign of violence over the coming years.
Harris adds that garnering support on the ground to resist the dissidents is also crucial. The symbolism of GAA members carrying the coffin of Constable Kerr last year was powerful and still resonates in demonstrating the now extensive endorsement of the Belfast Agreement and the new policing and justice arrangements. The successful visit of Queen Elizabeth to the Republic also contributed. “These things are important. It keeps the agenda moving forward of a society at peace with itself as opposed to a society at conflict with itself.”
Harris recalls how after the 1998 Real IRA Omagh bombing, which killed 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins, there was a “weight of public opinion” against the dissidents.
“We need to keep mobilising that weight of public opinion. Together with our Garda colleagues we can chip away at them, lock them up, but the long-term thing that will erode them is if there is no public support for their actions. What happened in terms of the response to Ronan Kerr was very important in driving that message home to them.”
He says the dissidents have an “insidious” and “medieval” way of developing a support base. “For instance shooting people for what they term anti-social behaviour, or shooting people facing sexual assault or indecency offences. They’ll say, ‘if you are concerned about sex offenders in your area don’t worry we’ll shoot them’ – that sort of thing.”
Harris adds that that is why developing and improving community policing, particularly in “hard-to-reach communities”, must be a constant focus for the PSNI. “Our major aim is to make sure of a good-quality police presence on the ground. It’s about developing a counter-narrative to the rubbish that they spout.”
Scotsman
Tuesday 31 January 2012
The coalition government is now facing calls for an referendum to be held in Northern Ireland.
Senior Irish republican politicians say the ballot could be held in 2016, just two years after the Scottish independence vote. The vote in Northern Ireland would ask whether it wants to remain in the UK or become part of a united Ireland, according to Sinn Fein, the main pro-Irish republican party in the province.
The UK government has the final say on whether a referendum on the future of Northern Ireland can be held.
Stormont Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein leader, said he would like to see a referendum held after the next election for Northern Ireland’s assembly, which is likely to happen either in 2015 or 2016.
“It could take place anytime between 2016 and 2020-21,” Mr McGuinness said. “I don’t see any reason whatsoever why that should not be considered.”
Just as 2014 is a key year for Scottish nationalists, marking the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, so 2016 is important for Irish republicans, as it marks the centenary of the Easter Rising, one of the pivotal moments leading to indepedence in the south.
Another leading Sinn Fein member echoed Mr McGuinness’s comments.
Pearse Doherty, a member of the Dàil, the Irish Republic’s parliament, said: “I do hope the referendum happens in the next term of the assembly government.
“I would suspect that it will.”
It is not clear if many people from Northern Ireland’s historically republican Catholic communities would want to unite with the Irish Republic, particularly when Dublin is struggling to emerge from a deep financial crisis.
The state is the biggest employer in Northern Ireland and the province’s population enjoys a number of benefits – including universal free healthcare through the NHS – which are not available in the Republic.
The 2001 census showed that 40 per cent of Northern Ireland’s population classified themselves as Catholic, 46 per cent were Protestant and 14 per cent said they had no religion.
Details of religious affiliation from the 2011 census have yet to be released.
Under the 1998 peace deal that ended the IRA’s campaign against British rule of Northern Ireland, if a referendum is approved by London, another one cannot be held for another seven years.
A referendum held on the issue in 1973 in Northern Ireland was boycotted by republicans – fewer than 1 per cent of Catholics turned out to vote according to some reports. The result was a 99 per cent vote in favour of staying within the United Kingdom.
The republican boycott contributed to a turnout of only 58.7. In addition to taking a majority of votes cast, the UK option received the support of 57.5 per cent of the total electorate.
Derry Journal
30 January 2012
Paul Ward who claims PSNI officers are involved in a five year campaign of intimidation against him and his family. Mr Ward claims the harassment is in response to a civil case he took against a number of officers following an incident at his Ballymagroarty home in 2007.
A Derry man has claimed the PSNI attempted to recruit him as an informer against dissident republicans or “ruin his life” if he refused.
Father of four Paul Ward also accuses the PSNI of pursuing a five year campaign of intimidation against him.
Mr. Ward told the Journal that he was stopped on the Coshquin Road at 10pm on Tuesday night where officers offered him “everything to co-operate.”
Explaining what happened, Mr Ward said: “I was driving home along the Coshquin Road, near Whitehouse on Tuesday, when suddenly a policeman stepped out of nowhere and pulled over my van. Two plain clothes officers then got into the vehicle. They told me they’d been following me all night as they wanted my help informing them on dissident republicans in Derry.
“They accused me of running armed gangs in Creggan. I’m not involved in anything illegal, nevermind gangs. They told me that they’d search my house until they found something. My family home has been raided four times in the last year and they haven’t found anything illegal. We can’t rest in our beds at night for fear the police are going to put our door in.”
Mr Ward’s solicitor Paddy McGurk described the saga as, “A crazy situation, in which the PSNI is causing horrendous distress to Paul and the Ward family for a number of years now. They are picking his home life apart.
“The important point is that in five years of searches they have never found anything connecting him to illegal activity.”
In order to clear his name and “live in peace” Mr. Ward, his solicitor and a number of local community and political leaders such as Sinn Fein’s Billy Page are calling for a meeting with the PSNI.
Mr. Ward said, ”It is all intimidation; my wife is just recovering from cancer but isn’t even allowed to rest in her own house.”
Mr. Ward claimed that the CID officers offered to “Buy me a new van, pay me well and give me as many holidays as I could take. They basically said I could have anything I wanted if I helped them.
“When I declined the officers said I had two choices, help them or they would make the rest of my life a misery.
“I honestly thought I would be killed on that road. They were armed to the teeth and I thought, ‘No one knows I am here.’”
Mr Ward then exited the vehicle and walked home.
Mr. Ward first clashed with the police when his son was arrested near their Ballymagroarty home. During that 2007 incident he, his son who has learning difficulties and a neighbour all claim they were sprayed in the face with CS spray while handcuffed.
Ten public order charges against them were thrown out at the local Magistrate’s Court. Mysteriously the CS spray canister disappeared from evidence during the case.
Mr. Ward filed a civil action against the officers involved but was ultimately unsuccessful.
“That is when they started this campaign of harassment,” he said.
Since then Mr. Ward’s home has been raided several times. In the last two months PSNI officers telephoned him twice to instruct him they had received a bomb warning for his home address. The police even asked Mr. Ward to check under his own car and initially refused to send officers to investigate the threat.
“It was ridiculous; they asked me to go looking for a bomb. I’m at breaking point with all this.
“I am asking the PSNI to meet me. I’m an innocent man and have done nothing wrong, but I feel like going to the bridge with all of this. It is going to kill me one way or another.
“The police certainly know where I live; they know my solicitor. I have previously requested a meeting with them. There is no need to be stopping me on back roads in the dark of night.”
Sinn Fein representative and personal friend of Mr. Ward said: “I can categorically state that this man is not connected to any political party or group. The PSNI are harrassing an innocent man. These PSNI actions are setting community policing back years in Ballymagroarty. The dogs in the street see what the police are doing to the Ward family.
“My main concern is for Paul’s safety. The pressure the PSNI are putting this man, his family and his health under mean he is at breaking point. I thought we’d moved away from this type of policing, tactics and pressure.
“I am calling on Strand Road police to justify these actions.”
Mr. Paddy McGurk confirmed he has filed another complaint to the Police Ombudsman on behalf of Mr Ward and is examining the possibility of further legal action against the PSNI for harrasment. “I also want the PSNI to agree to a meeting to discuss the case,” he stated.
When asked to comment on the allegations a spokeseperson for the PSNI said only: “We do not comment on intelligence matters and no inference should be drawn from this. However, in line with all other police services across the UK the PSNI’s policy in relation to the use of Covert Human Intelligence Sources is strictly governed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and is fully compliant with Human Rights legislation.
“Anyone with a genuine complaint to make regarding police action should contact the Police Ombudsman.”
A spokesperson for the Ombudsman’s Office said: “We’ve received a complaint about an incident which is alleged to have happened after a man’s car was stopped by police in Derry on Tuesday night. We are currently dealing with the complaint.”
BBC
20 Jan 2012
Lord Saville oversaw the Bloody Sunday Inquiry which lasted 10 years
Lord Saville, who chaired the Bloody Sunday inquiry, has said the shootings were Derry’s “most terrible day”.
In a BBC interview he said his report seemed “to have achieved a lessening of tensions and possibly a degree of moving on”.
He also defended the £195m cost of the 12-year inquiry, saying it would have been a “disaster” if not done properly.
On 30 January 1972, a civil rights march in Derry ended with the shooting dead of 13 people by the British army.
The Saville Report, published on 15 June 2010, was heavily critical of the Army and found that soldiers fired the first shot.
Speaking before Parliament, Prime Minister David Cameron said he was “deeply sorry” and that the findings of the report were “shocking”.
A huge cheer erupted in Guildhall Square in Derry as Mr Cameron delivered the findings which unequivocally blamed the Army for one of the most controversial days in Northern Ireland’s history.
Widgery Report
Lord Saville was appointed in 1998 by then Prime Minister Tony Blair to look into the events of Bloody Sunday.
It followed an earlier official inquiry in 1972, led by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery, which was described as a “whitewash” by the families of the victims and their supporters.
Lord Saville said he had the impression that people in Derry were as upset by the Widgery Report as they have been by the events of the day.
“But, of course, whether they were right to be upset by the Widgery Report at the beginning we had no idea, because we had no preconceptions,” he said.
“We started with a clean slate and on the evidence we received and the research we did, we came to the conclusions we did which differed from those of Lord Widgery.”
“I’m happy with the reception the report received, but I must stress, we didn’t write the report with a view to what reception it might receive.
“We wrote the report in an attempt to find out what had happened on Bloody Sunday.
The scene outside the Guildhall Familes emerge from the Guildhall in Derry on 15 June 2010 after receiving the Saville Report
“It does seem to have advanced the cause of peace of Northern Ireland.”
While most of the families of those killed on Bloody Sunday welcomed the Saville Report, one has questioned its findings.
The inquiry found that one of the victims, 17-year-old Gerald Donaghey was probably armed with nail bombs when he was shot by Soldier G.
However, it went on to say that he was not preparing to throw them at the time when he was shot, nor was he shot because he was carrying them.
The Donaghey family have argued that the nail bombs were planted on Gerald.
Lord Saville said the inquiry had looked at the killing at “considerable length”.
“The chapter on Gerald Donaghey and the nail bombs is more than 100 pages long, and it really came down to two possibilities,” he said.
“We couldn’t exclude the possibility that the nail bombs had been planted on him.
“But we came to the conclusion that the balance of probabilities of those two possibilities lay in the conclusion that he probably had the nail bombs on him when he was shot, not sure about it, but it was probably the case.”
‘Gratified and pleased’
Lord Saville was not in Derry on the day the report was published, he was writing up another judgement for the Supreme Court, but did watch some of the events in the city unfold on television.
“My counsel team did go over there and they told me it was one of the most emotional occasions they’d ever been to,” he said.
“It did seem to get a good reception and the city that day did seem to be happy, so I was gratified and pleased.
“He (David Cameron) did adopt the absolutely correct response to a report of this kind and from what I saw on the television about the reception in Derry, he achieved a remarkable result.
“I never thought I would see an audience outside the Guildhall in Derry actually applaud a Conservative prime minister.”
On a role that took up so much of his life, Lord Saville said they were on a “search for the truth and we wanted everyone to help us find the truth if we possibly could”.
“Christopher Clarke in his opening statement said: ‘Not the truth as people would like it to be, but the truth pure and simple. However complex, painful or unacceptable to whom so ever that truth may be.’
“It was simply another, and by far the longest and biggest, judgement of my judicial career and as a judge you do your best to reach the answer you think is best and it’s for others to judge whether you have done so or not.
“It was a job that I tried to do carefully.
“It took a lot of time, cost a lot of money, we received a lot of criticism for spending so much time and so much money, but we felt that had to be done in order to do not only a thorough job but also a fair job,” he said.
• More of the interview with Lord Saville can be seen on BBC Newsline in Northern Ireland at 31 January at 18:30 GMT.
Recent Comments