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TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
8 Dec 2011
A Government funded factory in Dundalk may have been the source of printed circuit boards used in bombs in the UK, the Smithwick Tribunal has been told.
Chris Ryder a Northern security journalist and author told the tribunal that British security services were deeply frustrated by a lack of commitment on the part of the Southern authorities to deal with the IRA in the 1970s and early 1980s.
He said security sources in Scotland Yard in London had particularly expressed frustration over a factory owned by Mr James McCann in Dundalk which he was told “was of interest because of possible links with manufacturing bomb-making equipment used in London and Northern Ireland”.
He said the factory made gaming machines and had been supported by the IDA. But he said security services in the UK told him circuit boards manufactured for the gaming machines may have been used as timers in bombs. He said that following an article he wrote in the Sunday Times revealing the British security services’ concern about the factory, funding was pulled by the IDA.
Mr Ryder also said the UK authorities had expressed concerned that gelignite stolen from a factory at Enfield in Co Meath was repeatedly identified as a component in bombs.
What was seen as Irish Government resistance to extradition was a further source of frustration, as was an alleged refusal by the Irish to have joint Border posts manned by Irish and British army personnel.
He said relations between police forces North and South were such that many RUC officers frequently told him they would not trust many of the gardaí in stations south of the Border. He also claimed to have been told by a senior garda and RUC officers that leaks to paramilitaries from the gardai were a problem.
Mr Ryder told counsel for the tribunal Fintan Valentine he had heard the name of Det Sgt Owen Corrigan of Dundalk garda station being used in the context of someone who was not to be trusted. He said he met Mr Corrigan once, possibly in the mid-1970s in the La Mon hotel in Belfast when Mr Corrigan was in the company of RUC officers. He said at the meeting Mr Corrigan offered to give him information which could be useful for newspaper articles, but wanted to be paid. He said it was the first and last time he had been asked for money by a police officer.
The Smithwick Tribunal is inquiring into suggestions or Garda-IRA collusion in the assassination of two RUC officers in south Armagh in 1989. Chief supt Harry Breen and supt Bob Buchanan were killed in an IRA ambush minutes after leaving a meeting in Dundalk Garda Station.
At the start of Mr Ryder’s evidence this morning, Mr Valentine told Judge Peter Smithwick two aspects of Mr Ryder’s evidence would not be heard today. He said arrangements were being made to bring him back to give further evidence on another day.
Earlier, the leader Northern Ireland’s Traditional Unionist Voice party Jim Allister said he planned to attend at the Smithwick Tribunal today “to listen to what is anticipated as significant evidence in the inquiry into IRA/Garda collusion”.
The tribunal which is investigating suggestions of Garda collusion with the IRA in the killing of two RUC officers in 1989, has not publicly stated which witnesses are due to give evidence today.Mr Allister was travelling this morning and could not be contacted. Earlier this year he said of the Smithwick Tribunal: “Getting the truth on this issue is an imperative. It must not be compromised,” he said in a statement.
“The murder of Harry Breen and Tom Buchanan has always raised deep suspicions of sinister collusion between the IRA and Garda officers in Dundalk station, with suggestions that one officer in particular was on the payroll of the IRA.
“The timing of the deaths raised their own suspicions in that a possible cross-border operation against [a known republican] was said to be linked to the series of visits by senior RUC personnel across the border. The identity of those on the IRA killing gang also carries its own intrigue.”
Larne Times
8 December 2011
**Via Newshound
POLICE may be asked to investigate content posted recently on Carnlough Sinn Fein councillor James McKeown’s Facebook page.
Larne Borough Council has also asked the social networking site to remove a picture showing the Boyne tercentenary memorial window in the Mayor’s Parlour at Smiley Buildings, and a photograph of the Queen’s portrait which is displayed in the chamber when council business is being conducted there. A third picture, which portrayed one of Cllr McKeown’s council colleagues, and which had attracted adverse comment, was taken off the site on Monday night, soon after a stormy council meeting.
On Tuesday, Cllr McKeown told the Larne Times he was making “no comment” on the controversy, but at the council, faced with accusations that some of the Facebook content was “offensive” and “provocative”, the Coast Road representative – who was co-opted on November 21 to replace Assemblyman Oliver McMullan – said he thought it was “a non-issue”.
By Wednesday, the picture of the Queen, which had been tagged “Really warm place 4 Republicans”, had been removed, as had the picture of the stained glass window, which depicts William of Orange in classic pose astride a white horse. A comment posted by another person regarding the window had read: “I have a lovely brick I have been saving for a while, it would look great in that windy”.
The Boyne window was commissioned by the council to mark the 300th anniversary in 1990.
In Facebook’s activities and interests section, Cllr McKeown’s activities were listed as Provisional IRA North Antrim Brigade and Oglaigh Na hEireann. Links brought up Wikipedia entries relating to both groups. On Wednesday, the reference to the paramilitary organisations had been removed and Cllr McKeown’s interests were listed as family, politics, football and music.
The local authority resolved on Monday to seek legal advice on the content of the web page, which unionists claimed was in conflict with the Councillors’ Declaration which Cllr McKeown signed when he was co-opted. It states: “I will not by word or deed express support for or approval of — (a) any organisation that is for the time being a proscribed organisation specified in Schedule 2 to the (1978 c. 5.) Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978; or (b) acts of terrorism (that is to say, violence for political ends) connected with the affairs of Northern Ireland.”
The PSNI indicated on Tuesday afternoon that the matter “has been brought to the attention of local officers”, adding that “to date a formal complaint has yet to be to police”.
DUP councillor Gregg McKeen said: “This is not the way that we should be conducting business in Larne Council, but when the mayor (DUP councillor Bobby McKee) proposed that we seek legal advice on this, I seconded.
“Cllr McKeown said it was a ‘non-issue’, but we are wanting to move forward and work for all the people of Larne and it is not setting the right tone if even from the chamber things are being done to try and stir the pot and take us back to where we were 10 years ago.”
East Antrim Ulster Unionist MLA Roy Beggs said the references to the North Antrim IRA and Oglaigh Na hEireann were “clearly a matter for the PSNI to investigate”.
He added: “I will also be writing to the Minister for the Environment, who has responsibility for local government, as I believe a breach has been made to the Councillors’ Code of Conduct and the Declaration of Non Violence.”
Oliver McMullan said: “To me, this is a non-story, but it does raise the question of why shouldn’t somebody put a picture of the King Billy window on a web site? Is the council trying to hide it away or something?”
He added: “The mayor’s parlour should be a neutral space and a window that features King Billy is not neutral by any stretch of the imagination.”
Belfast Telegraph
Thursday, 8 December 2011
A former IRA leader is to unveil a painting of republican hunger strikers in Belfast City Hall today.
Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane, who was its ‘officer commanding’ in the Maze during the 1981 protest, is to unveil the artwork which will hang in the Sinn Fein party room on the ground floor of the building. Hunger striker families are also expected to attend the event at 1pm.
Equality impact assessments looking at the Union flag and the levels of British military memorabilia are currently being carried out in the City Hall.
Its findings are expected to be presented to the council next month.
:::u.tv:::
8 Dec 2011
Police interviews in which Massereene murder accused Colin Duffy refused to answer questions – over fears consultations with his then solicitor were being bugged – will be heard at his trial, despite a bid to have the evidence excluded.
The Lurgan man’s legal team didn’t want the interviews to be used in case his lack of co-operation is relied on in court to make an adverse inference.
Duffy and his co-accused Brian Shivers, from Magherafelt, are accused of killing Sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar in a Real IRA ambush in March 2009 and attempting to murder six others – charges they both deny.
Mr Justice Anthony Hart told Antrim Crown Court on Thursday that he was refusing the application, on the grounds that the legal advice received by Duffy was “adequate and appropriate”.
He added: “It cannot be said that the failure to provide an assurance (that consultations had not been bugged) deprived him of legal advice or that it forced him to make incriminating admissions, because he made none.”
Duffy was interviewed about the Massereene shooting at Antrim custody suite, accompanied by his then solicitor Patrick Vernon.
Mr Vernon said he felt unable to properly advise his client in the absence of police assurances that they were not being bugged.
The claim came after solicitor Manmohan ‘Johnny’ Sandhu was imprisoned for unrelated offences in an earlier case where his conversations were recorded at the same police station.
Duffy was counselled to deny membership of any organisation or any involvement, after he told his solicitor he was not guilty.
Mr Justice Hart said: “I am not persuaded that, even if Mr Vernon had received the assurances he asked for, that the defendant would have been advised to disclose something he may later rely on – because there is nothing to suggest that would have been the case.”
He said had the defendant been suffering from some form of mental or other disability that might have affected his ability to make an informed decision whether to answer questions or not, it would have been a different matter.
The judge added that the ruling did not mean adverse inference would necessarily be drawn.
The court later heard evidence from soil and geology experts who helped analyse samples taken from clothing belonging to Duffy and material from the alleged getaway car, which was recovered a short distance from the shooting.
The trial will continue on Monday.
BreakingNews.ie
08/12/2011
The bereaved families of 10 people shot dead by British soldiers have appealed to Taoiseach Enda Kenny to support their calls for an independent investigation.
Relatives of those killed in the Ballymurphy shootings in west Belfast 40 years ago submitted a letter of petition to the Department of the Taoiseach.
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams was at the Dáil to support campaigners – who have also sent letters to Downing Street and Stormont to coincide with Human Rights Week.
Briege Voyle, who was 14 when her mother Joan Connolly was killed, said the families were calling for no more than what they were entitled to.
“We don’t want an inquiry that goes on and costs thousands of pounds,” said Mrs Voyle.
“All we want is the truth and an investigation is the only thing that’s going to give us the truth.
“The law states that everyone is entitled to an investigation, especially in a killing.
“Our loved ones were murdered, so we’re only asking for what we’re entitled to.”
Mrs Voyle said while an investigation would not change the past, it might prove those killed in August 1971 by the Parachute Regiment were innocent.
Mrs Connolly, a mother-of-eight, was shot in the face while she tried to help another victim and the parish priest Father Hugh Mullan.
An eleventh person died from a heart attack after being threatened by the troops during what has come to be known as the Ballymurphy Massacre.
Families want an investigation similar to the Saville Inquiry to prove the victims were not paramilitaries and were unlawfully killed.
The Savile Inquiry condemned the Bloody Sunday shootings of 14 people in Derry, which were carried out five months after the Ballymurphy Massacre by the same regiment.
It declared the killings were unjustified and prompted the British government to issue an apology.
Northern Ireland’s Attorney General John Larkin wrote to the Ballymurphy families last month confirming inquests into the deaths would be reopened.
Campaigners believe that had a criminal investigation been carried out and the Parachute Regiment held to account, Bloody Sunday could have been prevented.
Mr Adams said: “This is a very open case. These 11 people were killed in crossfire.
“The regiment went on to kill people in Bloody Sunday. And they went back into west Belfast and killed more people in Springhill, on the Shankill Road and across Belfast during the summer of 1972.”
No date has been fixed for a meeting with the Taoiseach, but Mr Adams said he had received assurances that Mr Kenny was committed to it.
He is also hopeful they will receive cross-party support as representatives of Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil attended the event.
“The Government indicated its support for the Ballymurphy families and the Taoiseach has agreed to meet with them,” said Mr Adams.
“I’ve accompanied them on a number of meetings with the British Government and they’ve been totally unsatisfactory.”
BreakingNews.ie
08/12/2011
The Government today faced calls for an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse involving the former Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid.
Senior garda are investigating two complaints made against the senior cleric, who was the head of the Catholic Church in the capital between 1940-1972. He died a year later.
The Church in Dublin has refused to confirm an Irish Times report that Dr McQuaid was the subject of two complaints made by two men who alleged they were assaulted when they were young boys.
Support group One In Four said if true, the allegations show the sexual abuse of children extended to the very highest levels in the Irish Catholic Church.
Director Maeve Lewis said: “Dr McQuaid was Archbishop of Dublin for over 30 years and was at that time possibly the most powerful, influential and feared man in Ireland.
“If Archbishop McQuaid was, as is alleged, a sex offender himself, then it is no wonder that the secrecy and cover-ups which have characterised the Church’s handling of sexual abuse was so entrenched.”
The Murphy Commission revealed it received an allegation about a cleric in 2009 as it finalised its damning report into decades of clerical abuse by paedophile priests in Dublin.
Hundreds of crimes against defenceless children from the 1960s to the 1990s went unreported, it said.
The three-year inquiry by Judge Yvonne Murphy revealed Catholic hierarchy was granted police immunity while four archbishops, obsessed with secrecy and avoiding scandal, protected abusers and reputations at all costs.
However, a supplementary report published on the commission’s website in July – the same day as the damaging Cloyne report – revealed new information about a cleric had been received in June/July 2009 as it completed its work.
Ms Lewis called on Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald to establish a sworn statutory inquiry.
“It is the only way to establish the truth of the matter,” added Ms Lewis.
“If Dr McQuaid is innocent of the allegations then it will be an opportunity to restore his good name.”
Dr McQuaid, who was also indirectly criticised in the Ryan report into abuse in industrial schools, once banned Catholics from attending Trinity College Dublin.
The Commission revealed a man made a complaint against a cleric to the Eastern Health Board in January 2003 – but that the information had not been handed over to the Commission by the Health Service Executive (HSE).
In May 2009 the complaint was made known to Phil Garland, then director of child protection in Dublin’s archdiocese. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin immediately informed the commission and the HSE subsequently supplied relevant documentation to the commission.
The archdiocese also trawled its files and discovered a letter to its solicitor which showed an awareness among a number of people in the archdiocese that there had been a concern expressed about this cleric in 1999.
However, the commission said it was satisfied the HSE’s failure to hand over the documentation was due to human error and that the Dublin archdiocese had no knowledge of the concern about the cleric.
Judge Murphy revealed Archbishop Martin told the commission last year he had received another abuse complaint against the same cleric.
“Archbishop Martin was under no obligation to give the commission this information,” the commission added.
“At this stage, it is a matter for the Archdiocese to investigate all complaints against this cleric.”
In a statement, the Archdiocese of Dublin said the matters in the supplementary report are now the subject of the ongoing investigation by An Gardaí, led by Assistant Commissioner John O’Mahony – who is examining all the findings of the Murphy report.
It added that it had not disclosed the identity of anyone whom the Commission decided it itself could not name in its reports.
Meanwhile, the HSE said it would be inappropriate to comment further than what was already in the supplementary report.
By Jennifer O’Leary
BBC
8 Dec 2011
A former newspaper journalist has told the Smithwick Tribunal that the phone line of a senior British Army officer based in Lisburn was tapped.
Chris Ryder claimed the line ran from Army HQ to the attic of a house in Anderstown in west Belfast.
The Dublin tribunal is investigating allegations of Garda collusion in the IRA murders of two senior RUC officers.
Mr Ryder also denied suggestions that he had worked for MI5.
“That is what people of a republican disposition have said against me – I did not know a soul in MI5,” he said.
“At one point a person did approach me but I was not interested.”
Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were shot dead in an IRA ambush in south Armagh as they returned from a meeting at Dundalk Garda Station on 20 March 1989.
The former Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph journalist was described at the tribunal as an expert in policing and security matters in Northern Ireland.
Mr Ryder also alleged that parts from an Irish government funded factory in Dundalk may have ended up in bombs used by the IRA in the UK.
“British authorities identified bomb components and traced them back to the factory,” said Mr Ryder.
Mr Ryder also claimed that the Irish government funding for the factory was withdrawn after he published the information in the Sunday Times.
Mr Ryder told Judge Smithwick that there was a high degree of frustration and anger among RUC and British Army officers in the 1970s and 1980s at what they believed was inaction by authorities in the Republic.
“The perception was that while fine words were being used to condemn the IRA, it was never backed up on the ground,” he said.
He went on to describe sections in the Republic who he claimed sympathised with the IRA as “prawn-cocktail provos”.
Introduction
Chris Ryder said he met Owen Corrigan, one of the three former Dundalk-based gardai under the spotlight at the tribunal, in Belfast in the mid-1970s.
Mr Ryder said he was having lunch at the La Mon Hotel with a senior RUC officer and was introduced to Mr Corrigan by Special Branch RUC officer Brian Fitzsimons.
“Later I went to the lavoratory and Mr Corrigan was there and we exchanged pleasantries, he then handed me his card and said if you are ever looking for stories look me up in Dundalk, there would be a few bob in it for me, wouldn’t there?”
“Never before or since have I been propositioned by a policeman for stories.”
Jim O’Callaghan, counsel for Mr Corrigan, read a statement on behalf of his client denying that he had been introduced to Mr Ryder or had passed a card to him.
When asked what previous evidence to the tribunal had caused his ‘eyebrows to raise’, Mr Ryder referred to Ireland’s former Minister for Justice John O’Donoghue.
“He did not strike me as a very credible witness, there was a distinct sound of hands washing or wringing of hands,” he said.
“He was so dismissive of the fact there could have been a mole, it was not appropriate, something like that should be taken seriously.”
The leader of the TUV said the evidence given by Mr Ryder at the Smithwick Tribunal on Thursday “crystallises a view” that the Republic failed to “live-up to civilised responsibilities in terms of facing down terrorism that was operating out of their jurisdiction”.
“The evidence today is interesting in casting a spotlight upon the very deep feeling that the Irish authorities failed to do all they could have done,” said Mr Allister.
“That there was political intent in not doing all they could have done and that in consequence many innocent people doubtless died because it so facilitated the IRA campaign.”
The tribunal went into private session on Thursday afternoon to hear “sensitive intelligence” information from a retired British Army officer.
Brigadier Ian Lisles was recalled to give further information to the tribunal.
News Letter
8 December 2011
ONE of the killers of the first RUC officer to be murdered has finally been unmasked.
The identity of who shot Constable John Ryan was revealed as part of a documentary put together by a radio station in Tipperary where the murdered police officer was originally from and where he is now buried.
Const Ryan was killed in February 1933 — almost 11 years after the RUC had been founded — during a shoot-out against IRA gunmen who were attempting to hijack a mail van on the Grosvenor Road in west Belfast
The father-of-one was a Catholic from Thurles in Tipperary. He had been a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary before partition in 1921.
It is believed that he came to Northern Ireland to join the RUC because he may have had issues with the new police force in the Republic.
The Civic Guards — who later became An Garda Siochana — contained a number of former IRA men which may have put some ex-RIC men off joining it.
In a radio programme, put together by Tipp FM, Cork garda officer Jim Herlihy said: “Ex-RIC members would have found it almost impossible to get into the Civic Guards, especially since most of those who did join in the very early days were former IRA men.”
Jim McDonald, from the RUC George Cross Foundation, who also took part in the programme, said no-one was ever charged for the murder.
“There would have been a number of searches in west Belfast and there would have been a number of arrests for questioning but obviously nobody was prepared to talk,” he said.
The programme, however, reveals that a west Belfast republican made a confession to his friends and family.
In the years leading to his death in 1993, Bob Bradshaw, from Divis Street in Belfast, who had been living predominately in Dublin, confided in family and friends that he in fact was guilty of the shooting.
His son Terry Bradshaw told the programme: “He spoke to myself and my younger brother about it quite late in life after he had some strokes but he never mentioned any of the other people who were involved.”
The fate of Const Ryan’s family in the years that followed his killing is also explored. The constable was buried in his family plot at Kilvalure cemetery just outside Thurles, Co Tipperary.
The hour-long documentary, entitled ‘Divided Loyalty: Tipperary’s RUC Casualty’, was produced, presented and researched by Tipp Today producer Tom Hurley.
Part one, which ran for 30 minutes, was aired on Tipp FM radio last Sunday and the second part will run this Sunday (December 11).
It can be heard on www.tippfm.com.
An ex-Army intelligence officer can give evidence openly in London but not in Dublin. Just what are the authorities afraid of? Henry McDonald reports
Belfast Telegraph
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Two public inquiries on either side of the Irish Sea – the same witness speaking openly at one and being gagged at the other. This is the Kafkaesque scenario facing the former Army intelligence officer Ian Hurst.
At the start of last week, Hurst gave open, public evidence in front of the Leveson inquiry in London, which is investigating press standards following the phone hacking scandals last summer.
The ex-member of the Army’s secretive Force Research Unit (FRU) had been the target of phone and computers hackers working for News International.
Hurst’s evidence concerned the hacking of his computer using a so-called ‘Trojan’ virus after he had been outed as a whistleblower.
Hurst is famous (or notorious) for providing critical information on two scandals involving the security forces during the Troubles: the 1989 murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane and the exposé of the agent known as Stakeknife operating within the IRA.
Among others Hurst provided evidence of how most of the UDA unit involved in murdering Finucane in front of his family were working for one or more branch of the security forces at the time.
In relation to the revelation that Freddie Scappaticci – the IRA’s chief spy hunter – was himself a long-term British agent, Hurst played a central role in bringing this to light.
Given his background and knowledge of the undercover war against the IRA and loyalists (which often entailed the morally dubious practice of allowing state agents to commit crimes up to and including murder), Hurst became the focus of attention by the News of the World.
Essentially, this meant spying on Hurst, ironically using a former colleague in the now-disbanded FRU to infiltrate and read the ex-soldier’s email system – presumably to glean what he was saying to journalists, politicians, human rights organisations and campaign groups about the Stakeknife scandal.
During his testimony to Leveson Hurst repeated allegations aired a few months earlier in the BBC’s Panorama programme about how the Irish end of the News of the World had spied on him illegally.
Hurst is convinced that such practices – directed not only at himself, but also at the likes of former Labour Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain – posed a serious threat to both national security and the security of individuals working in the twilight world of intelligence.
For those in the Republic observing another tribunal currently running in Dublin, the contrast between Hurst speaking freely and unfettered was glaring.
Hurst wants to give evidence in person to the Smithwick Tribunal in Dublin, which is exploring how the Provisional IRA killed RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan in 1989.
The inquiry is investigating allegations a garda mole provided the IRA with information to target the two police officers for murder. Yet Hurst has been told he can only deliver his testimony in Dublin behind closed doors, away from the media and the public.
Hurst claims to have evidence of Stakeknife’s role in the Breen/Buchanan killing and how the murder-plot was known to the highest-ranking members of the IRA and Sinn Fein at the time.
This he contends, is due to the fact that Stakeknife was also aware of the plan to ambush and kill the policemen on the Louth/south Armagh border.
In turn, Hurst has refused to go to Dublin unless he is allowed to speak in the open and under the scrutiny of the media like every other witness.
He has stated he believes the tribunal’s refusal to let him do so is politically motivated; that this reticence flows from the official policy of protecting key figures in the Northern Ireland peace process. There is a further contrast between the strictures the Smithwick Tribunal wishes to impose on Hurst and the way it treated other recent witnesses – no more so than the founder of the Real IRA, Michael McKevitt.
The inquiry even moved out of its usual location in Dublin’s Blackhall Place to another location close by to hear McKevitt’s evidence – the Republic’s heavily-guarded Special Criminal Court, where terrorist trials have been heard since the Troubles erupted.
McKevitt was the Provisional IRA’s so-called ‘quartermaster-general’ at the time of the Breen-Buchanan murders and lived in the north Louth area not far from Dundalk Garda Station.
He was a leading figure in the Provisionals in the late-1980s and would have had knowledge of many IRA operations in the border region.
Under the glare of the gathered media in open court, the convicted Real IRA member was cross-examined over allegations that he benefited from Garda tip-offs about raids on his home and that, implicitly, he and the local Provisionals had some ‘friendly’ police officers in the frontier zone.
The brother-in-law of the IRA icon Bobby Sands was afforded the opportunity to strongly deny such collusion existed which, of course, goes to the heart of Smithwick’s investigation.
However, an Army intelligence officer who ran operations to counter the activities of McKevitt and his ilk is offered no such opportunity to speak in public. This begs an important question in relation to the whole nature of the Troubles’ secret war: just what are the authorities in Dublin afraid of in regard to Hurst talking in public under privilege?
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