Adams' Actions Counter to McGeough Claim - Irish News, April 5, 2014.
Dear Editor, Irish News,
Here is my Right to Reply to Mr. Newton's opinion on page 19 of today's Irish News regarding the above article.
Newton’s skewered Laws of Reality
Here we go again. Newton Emerson, the world’s un-funniest would-be satirist and less than convincing, intellectual pretensions is once again making a feeble attempt to smear Gerry McGeough.
Although Gerry has dismissed the opinions of an “inbred Portadown Planter” as being utterly irrelevant, I nevertheless feel that it’s important to counter his outrageous claims in today’s (April 5th, 2014) Irish News.
In gushing praise of Gerry Adams, Newton suggests that ex-RUC Special Branch man Norman Baxter’s recent allegation that Adams demanded the British Government intervene and have McGeough released following his post-election arrest in 2007 somehow undermines McGeough’s credibility!
If anything, McGeough’s credibility is considerably enhanced by the whole episode. Apart from his sinister RUC background, which involved liaison work with MI5, Baxter’s testimony is questionable by any standards and the man clearly has an axe or two to grind. He provides no evidence to date to support his claims and even Gerry Adams himself disputes the allegations.
The dogs in the street know that had Gerry McGeough been a member of Sinn Féin he would never have been imprisoned or even arrested. Sinn Féin did intervene to have John Downey released and they left Gerry McGeough to his fate. Had Adams and SF ever been serious about the McGeough case they would have refused to go into government with the DUP in2007 until McGeough and McAnespie were released and all proceedings dropped in that and future cases. You can be sure that Blair, Ahern, et al, would have moved heaven and earth to acquiesce in order to get the Assembly finally up and running with Paisley and Co all aboard.
There can be no doubt that Adams did contact the British over Gerry McGeough’s arrest on March 8th, 2007.The man was under enormous pressure with egg all over his beard. Sinn Féin had just railroaded the republican electorate in the Six-Counties into supporting the RUC/PSNI, urging them to become informers en masse and even join up.
Gerry McGeough had warned against this policy and now found himself arrested and about to pay a high price for the stance he’d taken. The electorate were disgusted, feeling that they had been sold a pup by Sinn Féin and were telling them so in no uncertain terms following McGeough’s arrest. The treachery of the British made the Sinn Féin leadership look like a bundle of gullible fools. Naturally, Adams, probably very reluctantly, called on the British to release Gerry McGeough.
It is the understanding of the “Justice for Gerry McGeough Campaign” that Adams spoke with the then Secretary of State for the Six-Counties Peter Hain about the matter. Hain’s response, apparently, was that Gerry McGeough would “only have to do two years”! This, incidentally, was days before McGeough was officially charged with anything. Clearly the British had already made their decision. The rubber-stamping show-trial would follow.
For Newton Emerson to try and portray this in any other light and somehow suggest that Gerry Adams and the British conspired to free Gerry McGeough is pathetic beyond words. Obviously, the collective fear of what Gerry McGeough represents and stands for remains very real in the psyche of these people.
- Helen McClafferty, Chairwoman Free Gerry McGeough Campaign USA
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