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Showing posts with label Northern Conflict Legacy Issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northern Conflict Legacy Issues. Show all posts
Irish News ✒ NIO minister seeks to block information being passed to family of murdered Catholic man Fergal McCusker.. Written by Connla Young. Recommended by Christy Walsh. 


Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris has been accused of “an unprecedented political intervention” as it emerged he has written to chief constable Jon Boutcher questioning his actions.

Dramatic details came to light during an inquest hearing liked to the LVF murder of Fergal McCusker (28) in Maghera, Co Derry, as he made his way home from a night out on January 18, 1998.

No-one has ever been charged with the Catholic man’s murder, although four men were arrested and later released.

Mr McCusker’s family believe there was collusion involved.

Former Director of Public Prosecutions, Barra McGrory KC, acting for the McCusker family, raised serious concerns after the Secretary of State recent intervention in the inquest, which opened last year.

During Tuesday’s hearing in Belfast, coroner Paddy McGurgan, heard how Mr Heaton-Harris referred to comments made by Mr Boutcher about a High Court case linked to another legacy inquest as “unwelcome”, while details of Mr Boutcher’s “robust” response were also revealed.

Mr McCusker’s callous killing came months after the LVF gunned down prominent GAA member Sean Brown in nearby Bellaghy in May 1997.

Continue reading @ Irish News.

Chris Heaton-Harris Accused Of ‘Unprecedented Political Intervention’ In Legacy Inquest

Dr John Coulter ✍ Dublin’s latest political incursion into the United Kingdom’s internal affairs must be dismissed for what it really is - an electoral double whammy to hopefully spike the guns of the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein.

Just before Christmas, in what many in the Westminster establishment and Northern Ireland Unionism viewed as a totally irresponsible act, Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach of Southern Ireland, said that Dublin would launch an inter-state case against the UK’s so-called legacy legislation under the European convention on human rights.

This latest political gauntlet came a matter of weeks after Dublin unveiled a multi-million pound package to assist all-Ireland projects inside Northern Ireland. That move was unveiled by Varadkar’s predecessor as Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, now the Tanaiste, as part of the Shared Island Fund.

Taken in tandem, these two announcements reek of political hypocrisy - a pat on the back from Shared Island, followed by a stab in the back from the legacy move. The latter has plunged Anglo-Irish relations to a new low not witnessed since before the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

But Dublin’s latest move against the UK over legacy should really be seen as part of Southern Ireland’s internal political crisis that in the next Dail general election, Sinn Fein could emerge with its best election result since the 1918 Westminster General Election when the movement won over 70 of the 105 Commons seats for Ireland when the island was all part of the British Empire.

After all, it’s been less than 40 years since the IRA’s political wing voted at a special conference in 1986 to allow its elected TDs to take their seats in Leinster House.

And the last time Sinn Fein had such an electoral mandate in the 1920s, the movement split over the Treaty which partitioned the island sparking a bloody civil war between the new pro-Treaty Free State Army and the anti-Treaty IRA. Sinn Fein may be an expert in protest politics, but it has an atrocious historical record as a party of government.

Taken in this light, and given that opinion polls suggest Sinn Fein will probably emerge as the largest party in the Dail after the next Southern general election, really all that has to be decided is will Sinn Fein have enough TDs to form a majority government, or will it need the help of Independent TDs or a coalition partner, such as Fianna Fáil, to form a stable government?

In the last Dail election, Sinn Fein was only kept out of government because of an historic pact between the two establishment rivals - Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

With Sinn Fein’s supposed New Year resolution of a border poll on Irish Unity by 2030, the Dublin establishment - and especially the FG/FF shotgun marriage - needed to show Southern voters it could provide an alternative to Sinn Fein’s sabre-rattling Irish unity rhetoric.

In short, the current Dublin administration needed to prove it was the real seekers of Irish Unity, not the republican movement.

Step one was Tanaiste Martin’s softly, softly carrot tactic of throwing millions at all-island initiatives from the Shared Island Fund. Step two, the stick; it came from the so-called political hard man act from Taoiseach Varadkar taking the UK to court.

But throwing all that cash at Northern Ireland stinks of the Dublin establishment trying to buy the next election by providing as much cash incentives as it can before Sinn Fein gets its hands on the Dail’s budget.

Sinn Fein has pledged a massive spending spree to alleviate the republic’s social housing crisis - a spree which could easily bankrupt the Southern economy within five years, leading to yet another crash in the Celtic Tiger … except, unlike before when the UK was in the EU, there will be no British millions to bail out the South’s economy.

Likewise, by flexing its political muscles against the UK over legacy, the current Dublin administration is showing it has the will to take on the British in the hope that wavering voters will stay with the FG/FF partnership rather than follow opinion polls and defect to Sinn Fein.

Whilst Unionism has branded the Shared Island slush fund as a ‘Trojan horse’, the real ‘Trojan horse’ will come if the European court supports the Dublin case against the UK, and legacy issues remain open to investigation.

Imagine the dilemma for a Sinn Fein-led government. Think of the number of attacks which the IRA and INLA carried out where the terrorists retreated to the territorial safety of the 26 Southern Irish counties.

How many unsolved murders as part of the republican movement’s ethnic cleansing of the Northern Ireland border county Protestant population during the Troubles would be open to serious scrutiny as to the role which the Irish Republic as a geographical terrorist springboard played in that slaughter?

Imagine the embarrassment for a Sinn Fein-led government in Leinster House having to provide detailed information on the IRA and INLA death squads which carried out the Tullyvallen Orange Hall massacre, the Kingsmill minibus massacre and the Darkley Mission Hall massacre.

It poses the serious question - is Dublin’s case against the UK really the current administration in Leinster House leaving a ticking political time bomb for any future government which contains Sinn Fein either as a majority party, or a coalition partner?

In short, has Sinn Fein - because of its lack of government experience - been set up by the old dogs in the Dublin establishment; a move which could confine Sinn Fein’s 2030 border poll dream to the dustbin of history for generations to come.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Dublin’s Legacy Move Is Ticking Time Bomb For Sinn Fein

Paper Trail ✏The families of the McGurk's Bar Massacre have discovered that the Office of the Police Ombudsman withheld critical fingerprint evidence from them. Recommended by Christy Walsh.

Ciarán MacAirt
16-August-2023

The Office of the Police Ombudsman Northern Ireland (OPONI) has horrified families of 15 civilians murdered in the McGurk’s Bar Massacre after it admitted it deliberately withheld from them the discovery of fingerprint evidence taken from the car used in the bombing.

In its 2011 report – which has since been contested by the families – OPONI wrote (7.52 page 22):

Records show that police examined a vehicle described as ‘car used in explosion Gt. George St.’ The Police Ombudsman’s investigation has found no other information about this vehicle in police records.

Following a lengthy court battle against Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI) for sight of its Historical Enquiries Team (HET) Review Summary Report (RSR), the families learned that the police record was actually a Fingerprint Ledger which not only proved that the police had recovered two prints from the vehicle the police suspected was used in the McGurk’s Bar Massacre but had also recovered prints from other evidence relating to the atrocity.

Continue reading @ Paper Trail.

McGurk’s Bar Massacre 🔴 Police Ombudsman Withheld Fingerprint Evidence From Families

Ancient Order of Hibernians ✒ will be hosting a webinar to discuss the British government's plans to press ahead with its legacy bill. The webinar is scheduled to take place on Saturday June 10 @ 10 AM Eastern Time, 3 PM Irish time.


FREEDOM for ALL IRELAND
By its appointment of former Chief Justice Declan Morgan to head its new legacy commission, the British government is clearly signaling its intention to move ahead with the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, despite overwhelming opposition by victims’ relatives, human rights campaigners, the Irish government and all major six county political parties. 

With British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arriving in Washington, victims’ relatives are making an emergency appeal for American help, as their best hope to stop a bill designed to cut off legal channels for justice. Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick will join victims’ relative Patsy Kelly, civil rights lawyer Niall Murphy, and justice campaigner Andree Murphy in a live webinar broadcast, hosted by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, (AOH) this Saturday, June 10th, at 10 AM Eastern Time, 3 PM Irish time.

The British amnesty bill, aims to discard Britain’s Stormont House Agreement on legacy mechanisms with the Irish government, and end criminal cases, Historical Investigations, Inquests, civil suits or Ombudsman investigations which could give the truth in hundreds cases including British crown force or collusion killings. Instead the British want to set-up an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) which victims’ relatives fear will bury the truth along with the victims. 

Although the amnesty bill has not yet been passed at Westminster, the British have already announced the appointment of retired Chief Judge Declan Morgan to head the Commission. 




Panelists



Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, has been one of the leading Washington voices on Irish issues and a driving force on a series of Congressional initiatives, House Resolutions and Briefings on legacy justice. Most recently he co-signed a strongly worded letter to British Secretary Chris Heaton Harris, expressing deep disappointment at the moves to push ahead with an amnesty bill despite the opposition of nationalist and unionist victims.

Patsy Kelly Jr., is the son of Independent Councillor Patsy Kelly who was abducted from work in County Tyrone and murdered in July 1974. The family has always believed the murder was carried out by members of the British Army’s Ulster Defense Regiment and a recent Ombudsman Investigation ruled that there had been collusive behavior by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Now the Kelly family’s 50 year fight for justice is threatened by the proposed British amnesty bill.

Civil rights lawyer, Niall Murphy will explain the legal implications of the amnesty law and how badly the law will effect families who have waited decades for truth and would be compelled to begin a long legal battle to the European Court of Human Rights.

Andree Murphy, the Deputy Chair of Relatives for Justice, will discuss the importance of American help in the continuing political and legal battle for legacy justice.

AOH Hosts Emergency Legacy Justice Appeal Webinar

Lesley Stock ✍ Dear Politicians in the British, Irish and NI Governments,

I do hope you have all had a wonderful time in America, some of you, at our expense! Can I, however, bring attention to your failings as politicians, in particular to Reconciliation of our island, people and the legacy of this fractured community? 

You, (though perhaps not all) may remember agreements, which were made by yourselves either personally, or preceding members of your parties. So … Let me remind you in chronological order of those agreements made.

1998 – The Good Friday Agreement was a legally binding agreement set out in legislation i.e. Law, so can I refresh your memories as to your obligations in relation to reconciliation and legacy? First and foremost, your collective conduct as Ministers must at all times be: Accountable to users of services, the community and through the Assembly, for the activities within their responsibilities, their stewardship of public funds and the extent to which key performance targets and objectives have been met. You see the word Accountable? Well, in my opinion, you’re not.

Now can I draw your attention to Strand 3 in relation to Reconciliation and victims of violence? You agreed that it is ‘essential to acknowledge and Address, the suffering of the victims of violence as a Necessary element of reconciliation.’ Do you all think that establishing a Victims Commissioner negated your responsibility to actively promote and action everything else you initially agreed on? You also all agreed that the aims of the justice system were to be ‘responsive to the community’s’ concerns’.

Stop Press – We all have concerns in relation to the agenda, inconsideration of all victims and legality of the proposed legacy bill which the Tories are intending to introduce! Merely ‘denouncing this proposed Bill on social media’ is Not what I call actively doing anything about this, nor is it adhering to your agreements.

Ok, so the GFA| wasn’t perfect, so yet again, you all went back to the drawing board and set about drafting a New agreement in 2006. At least you recognised back then, that certain parts of the initial agreement still (after 8 Years!) had not been implemented, namely, the establishment of the Victims Commission!! So you all trooped off to Scotland and drafted yet another agreement, not taking into consideration the urgent need for positive action towards reconciliation.

By 2014, there was a need for yet Another agreement! To think that No steps had ever really been taken in response in relation to addressing some of the most divisive issues in Northern Ireland, namely Flags, Identity/Culture is quite frankly astonishing, however, on the plus side, a Commission was agreed to be established by June 2015 and it was to produce a report by mid 2017. By 2014, the GFA had been in operation 16 Years, so why was there even a need to discuss ‘transition to long term peace and stability’? Why had this not been one of the main focuses back in 1998? Perhaps some of you could inform me where I can access the Centralised Oral History Archive which was to be established 6 years ago, or indeed point me to the report of the Research Project? I mean, they’ve had 7 years to research this surely? I see the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval was to be established – but wait!! Another lame duck, yet another part of the agreement signed by all, which yet again, has let down the most vulnerable and traumatised in our society! What were you all doing about positive changes for victims, for survivors to deal with a real chance of reconciling our past?

As for New Decade, New Approach in 2019? Please folks, don’t make me sick. I honestly don’t think (but happy to be proven wrong on any of my observations) anything has been changed, implemented or indeed reported on. The report on flags, identity and culture certainly hasn’t been. In fact that report has been blocked after spending 100’s of thousands of taxpayers money in commissioning it! It certainly doesn’t seem to have been a New Approach, just the same B.S. regurgitated in abject apathy – especially in relation to victims, the past, legacy or justice.

I’m not a political anorak, I’m not what I would describe an ‘activist.’ I am most definitely however, a mother, a daughter and a concerned citizen who merely wants to see us all living an inclusive life, as free from the bitter sectarian rubbish that has blighted our community for decades as possible. I want You, the political leaders, to stand up for us, to fight for us in order to achieve that goal, to respect the hurt and trauma that victims families and survivors are still dealing with today. I want you to acknowledge in a practical manner which will Change the situation for them, not merely spout empty platitudes the odd time on your social media pages, or in the odd interview you give! I want you to start becoming Accountable To Us, something which you’re not at the moment, because when challenged, it would seem that the favourite term is ‘That’s not my department’ ‘That’s someone else’s fault.’ 

Stop the Blame Game, take control of the issues, create merry hell until you get those issues heard and dealt with by whoever you need to lobby…. Stop with the attitude that it’s everyone else’s fault, consider Your actions, Your language when talking, because as far as I can see, far too many of you are not adhering to your agreed principals and obligations in that respect.

Start engaging, start promoting, start being accountable to those of us who have no voice!  
 
 Lesley Stock is a former PSNI and RUC Officer
currently involved in community work. 

Legacy ✒ An Open Letter To All Politicians

Ancient Order of Hibernians ✒ will be hosting a webinar to discuss the British judicial system's conviction of a British soldier for shooting dead Aidan McAnespie. 


Una McCabe, a niece of Aidan McAnespie, whose murder, resulted in a historic guilty verdict against a former British Grenadier after 34 years, will be making special appeals to the Irish government and American Congressmen, on behalf of families whose hopes for justice are threatened by the pending British amnesty law. She will be joined by Fergus O’Dowd TD, chair of the Irish Committee for the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), and civil rights attorney Niall Murphy, to discuss the verdict and its meaning for legacy justice, in a live webinar broadcast hosted by the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) on Saturday, December 10th, at 11 AM Eastern Time, 4 PM Irish time. The broadcast comes as the British government pushes ahead with its Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, designed to take away legal rights to get criminal prosecutions, inquests, Ombudsman reports or civil suits in legacy killings.


Historic


The guilty verdict against former British Grenadier Michael Holden, is considered historic because only four British soldiers have been convicted of killing Irish civilians during the entire period of the Troubles. No British soldier was convicted for Bloody Sunday murders or the Ballymurphy Massacre. The McAnespie verdict undercuts claims by British officials that criminal prosecutions for Troubles killings were now impossible because of the passage of time.


Aidan McAnespie was shot in the back by British Grenadier Michael Holden, firing a machine gun. McAnespie, walking to the local Gaelic football grounds, had just been passed through the Auchnacloy British Army checkpoint, near the County Monaghan border. Holden claimed “his hand had slipped.” His claims were rejected by trial Justice O’Hara rejected as “a deliberately false account of what happened”. 

The British government responded to the verdict with a pledge by British Cabinet Veteran’s Affairs Minister, Johnny Mercer, of full support of the Ministry of Defense for Holden, and promise to pass amnesty legislation which is opposed by both nationalist and unionist political parties in the six counties as well as by human rights groups.  


Zoom registration:

 

AOH Webinar on McAnespie Verdict and Amnesty Bill


Or


AOH Webinar on McAnespie Verdict and Amnesty Bill


YouTube:


 Or


 AOH Webinar on McAnespie Verdict and Amnesty Bill - YouTube


European Court 


Una McCabe, was 7 years old when her mother’s brother Aidan said goodbye to her and began his final journey. She will talk about   the toll her family’s thirty-four year campaign for justice, took on her mother Eilish, and other family members who did not live to see the verdict. She wishes to make a special appeal to the Irish government and Irish Americans for hundreds of other families, who have also been fighting for truth about the murder of loved ones, but now fear British amnesty legislation. 

    

Fergus O’Dowd, a Fine Gael party member of the Irish parliament or Dail from County Louth, chairs the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement Committee (GFA Committee) which includes Irish Dail and Seanad members, plus British Parliament MPs elected from the six counties.  O’Dowd, with approval from the full GFA Committee has made formal written requests calling upon Attorney General Paul Gallagher, to examine the British amnesty bill ‘with a view to taking an interstate case should you determine that the legislation contravenes the UK’s obligations under Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.’

An Irish government case at the European Court, would spare victims’ relatives years of legal delays spent exhausting local remedies in Crown and Appellate courts, before the European Court could consider the case. 

Niall Murphy, is one of the civil rights lawyers who are being vilified for efforts to get justice in legacy cases derided as lawfare. He will talk about the British amnesty bill and why a European Court case by the Irish government or American Congressional pressure are so crucial to victims’ families hoping for justice.

GFA Committee Chair Joins McAnespie Webinar

Anthony McIntyre ✒ This week’s Ombudsman report into a number of Northern conflict deaths has again placed the RUC firmly at the centre of a collusion narrative. 

With each passing report, inquest or inquiry the noose tightens around the neck of the RUC's monochrome remembrance of itself and its security services allies that the RUC and political unionism has assiduously tried to cultivate.

The RUC mythology that imagines a force committed to the rule of law has been steadily eroded and is being displaced by a narrative that judges its role to have been one of the rule of law enforcement – a law unto itself, often determined by the force within a force that was RUC Special Branch.

The aspect of the Ombudsman report report that interested me most was that concerning the 1992 massacre at Grahams’ Bookmakers on the Lower Ormeau Road. I had grown up in the area, joined the IRA there and was imprisoned twice as a result of being with the organisation.  Friends from it visited me throughout my imprisonment and would pick me up from, and drop me back at, the gates each time I was on parole.

I retained a strong emotional attachment to that half mile cluster of streets throughout my time in prison. On the morning of the attack a friend who lived no more than a hundred yards from the bookies had visited me. On hearing the news, my immediate thoughts were about him, worried that he might have been caught up in it. I got the prison welfare to ring his home. Fortunately, he was safe.

Another person who had previously visited me had not been so lucky. Peter Magee’s life ended that day. He was eighteen, uninvolved and unarmed: slain for no reason other the “yabba, dabba doo, any Taig will do” moronic mindset espoused by Johnny Adair, whose prevailing political objective was to be a British drug dealer rather than an Irish one. Peter came up to see me unannounced when he was 15, solely out of curiosity along with his uncle who was my friend and the primary visitor that day.

A day or two after the attack I penned a lengthy piece for An Phoblacht which sought to explain life for a community under siege. 

Former RUC members are seething that they are now figuratively in the dock rather than putting others in it. A posse of them set off in pursuit of Ombudsman, Marie Anderson and one of her predecessors, Nuala O’Loan who in the eyes of the former police enforcers, had the temerity to support Anderson. The PSNI, eager to maintain fidelity to the beast that bore it, has also been complaining that the RUC actions and methodology were being repeatedly overlooked in a succession of damning PONI reports.

And damning they are, because they lend credence to the perspective that the RUC functioned quite comfortably as an institution of British state terrorism. For all the criticism that may be thrown at the IRA’s armed struggle, it is becoming increasingly clear to even those who had no inkling, that one of the fronts the IRA fought on saw it pitched against British state terrorism. In the zero-sum game that is legitimacy, the legitimacy that is hemorrhaging from the RUC is being transfused into the IRA. Attempts to portray the Northern conflict as a law and order problem occasioned by an aggravated crime wave are hollowed out by their own implausibility.

In all of this, one of the responses simply has to make its way onto the Dawson Baillie Library, which is located in the province of Retardia. There the inhabitants beat drums, kick the pope and speak some indecipherable patois. Some plods have taken to telling the News Letter that almost all of the ‘collusive behaviour’ claims relate to standard police practice where human intelligence sources are involved. As my wife observed, on the first count of collusion, the RUC pleads guilty as charged. 

 ⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Collusion ✑ Guilty M'Lud

Fra Hughes ✏ Loyalist militias committed countless crimes in northern Ireland during the troubles, and even before that. Not only these crimes went unanswered, but now, Boris Johnson is also proposing amnesty to Criminals.

First Published In
Al Mayadeen English.

November 29, 2021, on a cold wet winter night in Belfast, victims and survivors of troubles related atrocities met at Belfast Queen's University Peter Froggatt Centre, to hold a public meeting entitled ‘No To Amnesty’.

Kate Nash told us how her brother William 19, had been murdered
on the 30th of January 1972 when he attended a civil rights march in Derry.

Speaker after speaker condemned the proposal of Boris Johnson and the conservative government to introduce amnesty type legislation, which would prevent any future prosecutions, judicial inquests, or civil actions taken against those who were involved in the violence in N. Ireland to include murder, bombings, and disputed British army killings prior to the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Brandon Lewis, current Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson, and the Conservative government have a majority of 80 MP’s in the House of Commons, and it is envisioned they will try in late 2021 - early 2022 to bring legislation before Parliament to basically allow what one of the panelists described as an ‘Amnesty for murder’.

Those in power at Westminster are advising the British public, the people of the United Kingdom, Europe, and the globe, that the only way to deal with the legacy issues created from the political violence which erupted in Northern Ireland in 1969 and mostly came to an end in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, is to have ‘no prosecutions’, in the words of Boris Johnson to ‘draw a line in the sand’ and for the people here to ‘move on’.

Raymond McCord senior whose son Raymond McCord junior was murdered by the Ulster Volunteer Force, had been a member of the Royal British Air Force before he was brutally beaten to death during a savage attack, having been lured to his death to a disused quarry in Ballyduff, Netwonwabbey just outside Belfast, in November 1997. It is believed his murder may have been ordered by a senior commander in the UVF who, at that time, was a paid police informer.

Mr. McCord addressed the audience and asserted his claim that it is not an amnesty for the guilty that is required by the people of the north of Ireland, but full judicial investigative prosecutions. Where evidence is gathered sufficient for prosecution, the guilty including the members of the Ulster Volunteer Force who murdered his son should be brought before the civil courts to handle the case and issue the verdict accordingly.

Many of the speakers asserted that the British government had been involved in a bloody war in the North of Ireland using human assets, informers, highly placed and highly paid individuals within paramilitary organizations to carry out acts of murder and bombing; protecting these perpetrators in order to keep secret the state's involvement. A pattern of behavior that continues to this day.

The daughter of a Roman Catholic police officer, SGT Joseph Campbell a father of eight who was murdered while on duty at his police station in Cushendall on the County Antrim coastline in 1977, claims that those involved in her father's murder were members of the Glenanne Gang, a group of men - some in the Ulster Defence Regiment (British Army), some in the service of the police (Royal Ulster Constabulary) and others, murdered her father with collusion from senior police officers who knew him personally and were involved in the instigation and orchestration of his assassination.

The Glenanne gang is believed to be responsible for up to 120 murders, nearly all of whom were Catholic Irish Nationalists.

The Omagh bomb carried out by Republicans produced the biggest single loss of life during the violent conflict in the north of Ireland. It is claimed that the deaths could have been prevented as the security forces had prior knowledge of the intended paramilitary operations, one of the relatives who lost his son informed the audience.

Eugene McGreevey spoke of how his three brothers were brutally murdered at home by UVF assassins. John Martin 24, Brian 22, and Anthony 17 were helpless after the assailants sledgehammered their way into the family home.

A little later as Eugene, his mother, and others were having their sons and murdered brothers removed from the family home, the injured were taken to the hospital while dead victims were being taken to the morgue; and there, they were stopped by a British army checkpoint. Eugene's mother who had just lost her three sons was assaulted and abused by the British Army soldiers present, and the blood-soaked clothes that were in the bags were emptied onto the road and danced upon by the Soldiers.

We heard witness testimony from those who could recall the White Rock/ Ballymurphy massacre in Belfast when British Army paratroopers murdered 11 innocent people including a Roman Catholic priest, all unarmed people, during the introduction of internment without trial on the 9th of August 1971.

The son of a murdered victim of the Sean Graham bookmakers Massacre on the Ormeau Road in Belfast 5 February 1992, recalled how 5 men died and 9 were injured, all Catholics, when loyalist paramilitaries, the Ulster Defence Association went into the bookmakers with the intention of murdering everyone there.

A son of one of those murdered was refused entry to the bookmakers along with family, friends, relatives, and neighbors of those who had been shot. British soldiers in civilian clothes prevented their access while other British soldiers also in civilian clothes removed the spent bullet casings thereby perverting the course of justice and possibly preventing the identification of those involved in the murders.

Kate Nash told us how her brother William 19, had been murdered on the 30th of January 1972 when he attended a civil rights march in Derry calling for an end to internment without trial.13 people were murdered that day and another victim would succumb to his wounds several months later. All 14 were shot and murdered by the British parachute regiment under the command of Colonel Mike Jackson.

Those victims were claimed by the British government, and the British press to be armed terrorists involved in military actions against the Soldiers of the parachute regiment. After several judicial Inquiries, it was finally admitted by the British government that none of the people murdered on Bloody Sunday were involved in any acts of violence against the state or the British soldiers involved, indeed they were innocent unarmed civil rights protesters who were murdered by the British parachute regiment the same regiment responsible for the Whiterock/Balymurphy massacre the previous August.

Colonel Mike Jackson the officer in command on that day, later became the general officer commanding British Land forces.

Speaker after speaker condemned and accused the British government of a cover-up of war crimes. A cover-up of state collusion with paramilitary murderers and they went on to claim the amnesty is not designed to help people ‘move on’ but is, in fact, an attempt to bury the past along with the dead and to forever keep secret the strength and depth of state involvement in some of the 3600 deaths and tens of thousands of injuries that occurred in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1998.

All those panelists in unison demanded ‘No Amnesty’ and vowed to continue the fight for prosecutions and justice in the names of the dead, the injured, the bereaved families, their friends, and the community.

𒍨The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al Mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

Fra Hughes is a columnist with Al Mayadeen.

Amnesty for Murder ✒ Boris Johnson's Proposed Blanket Immunity Legislation

Daniel Bradley ✒ writes to the North's British Justice Minister, Naomi Long regarding the death of his brother at the hands of British troops during Operation Motorman.


Dear Naomi,

I write regarding an Inquest held into the death of my brother Seamus Bradley, on 31st July 1972. I have fought for many years and pursued every possible line of enquiry to uncover the truth of what happened to my brother Seamus on the night of 31st July 1972. 

I was present when my brother was killed and watched as a soldier fired the first shots which resulted in his death. This event has haunted me, my family and all who knew Seamus in the years since. The subsequent treatment of investigations into the death of my brother caused immense pain and distress to myself, to my parents who were distraught at the loss of a son, and to the many friends Seamus had in our community in Creggan. 



After many decades and without any assistance other than my own resolve and determination for the truth, I was able to secure a second Inquest into the death of my brother Seamus, due to serious and consequential flaws in the original Inquest into my brother’s death held in October 1973. The outcome of this second Inquest was published by the Judicial Communications Office on 15th August 2019, and I have attached a copy of this for reference. 

In addition to this I have attached two witness statements of the events of 31st July 1972 from a Constable William Thompson Cunningham, as well as ambulance driver John Walter Simpson from the first Inquest into the death of my brother on October 1973. I would like to bring to your attention what I feel to be a major and blatant omission and disregard for the judicial and investigative process, evident in these attached documents. 

Both of the attached contemporaneous witness statements from the original Inquest attest to the fact that an ambulance was called for my brother at 6:15am from Altnagelvin to collect my brother from St. Peter’s School in Creggan, which is some distance away on the other side of the City of Derry. Constable William Thompson Cunningham’s attached statement clearly states that around 7:00am he remembers viewing my brothers remains in the morgue of Altnagelvin Hospital for forensic examination. 

These documents from the Inquest of 1973 were entirely omitted from the above mentioned second Inquest into the death of my brother on the night of 31st July 1972, despite the consequential and clear statements they contain regarding the timeframe of events that night. In the published report of the second Inquest into the death of my brother dated 19th August 2019, statement one of Private Jamieson states clearly that my brother was shot at 4:45am, within the first hour of the commencement of Operation Motorman at 4:00am on the night of 31st July 1972. 

I believe these attached statements from the original Inquest into the death of my brother in October 1973, as well as the testimony of Private Jamieson during the Inquest of 2019 demonstrate clearly and unequivocally that a period of two hours elapsed between the initial shots fired at my brother and his arrival at Altnagelvin Hospital. 

However, in its final publication of August 2019, the second Inquest into the death of my brother rules that he had been shot between 5am and 6am, and that a period of only one hour had elapsed between this event and my brother’s arrival at hospital. This longer time period of two hours would, I believe, have been sufficient for my brother to have received urgent emergency care, and indeed had my brother been taken immediately for medical care it is possible he may not have died on the night of 31st July 1972. 

The second Inquest, published in August 2019, in the absence of this vital evidence and testimony found that a period of only one hour had elapsed between the death of my brother and his arrival at Altnagelvin. I have no explanation personally as to why these vital testimonies were omitted from the Inquest findings of August 2019. I appeal to you to seek information from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, as well as records at Altnagelvin Hospital regarding the precise time of the shooting of Michael Doherty, who was also badly wounded on the night of Operation Motorman on 31st July 1972, and arrived at the hospital some time before my brother Seamus, which would corroborate with the evidence given at the second Inquest of August 2019. 

I am very grateful for your reply to my correspondence sent via Mark Durkan on 7th September, and would very much appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and to discuss the above. Thank you for your kind words regarding my own personal campaign for justice, moreover, simply for the full truth of the events of the night of the death of my brother in 1972. Despite the passage of many years and many obstacles I can assure you my own determination and resolve, for the truth and for justice for my brother, has never wavered.

Daniel Bradley is a Derry justice campaigner.

A Long Time Waiting For Justice

Anthony McIntyre ✒ It sometimes seems that Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly is given the shitty end of the stick, almost as if he is being punished for some transgression the rest of us know nothing about.

No doubt, Kelly has his indiscretions like everybody else, probably pisses in the street after a beer or takes a hammer to a wheel clamp. Nothing that should concern the rest of us, apart from some unionists who seem to get perplexed about these sort of things, although not, for some reason, about the behaviour of Davy Tweed.

It could be speculated in those more fanciful moments that Kelly has become a pin cushion for his ardent revolutionary past at the behest of the conservative leadership now running Sinn Fein. More plausibly, that very past is held up to show how deferential to the establishment the party has become after years of a relationship of mutual contempt and anathema. Having the erstwhile ardent revolutionary undo all he ever did and unsay all he ever said is perhaps an authentic and effective way of flashing the required credentials that permit admission to the establishment ball.

Recently, Kelly commented on the British government's amnesty proposal for all those combatants from the North's violent conflict: 

People, whether they are ex-combatants or not, look upon this as an issue for victims. We had the Stormont House Agreement, all parties said this had to be based on a victims-centred process, and the Stormont House Agreement brought that. I am an ex-combatant myself and I have talked to others and they have no notion outside of supporting the families in this.

He contended that former combatants "would feel no relief" from any amnesty. It is not about relief but belief. As one of those former combatants I do not support the Kelly position. I have always believed a political amnesty should have been enacted on the cessation of hostilities.

Long before the British suggested their own self serving amnesty I found myself opposed to prosecutions. I can fully understand the victims favouring such an approach even if I feel many of those in the political class perform a sleight of hand when encouraging families to go down the prosecutorial route.

What is harder to fathom is why former combatants like Gerry Kelly can support the arrest by the British of their own comrades, former IRA volunteers of the Bobby Sands generation, have them prosecuted and tried in a non-jury Diplock Court as mere deviants subject to the criminal code, and deposited into the British prison regime.

As a former combatant, I will see the crematorium before ever agreeing to that.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Belief Not Relief

Brandon Sullivan ✒ From the window of the government building I worked in, I noticed a gathering of men.

Mostly dressed in motorcycle leathers, many of them very overweight, and bearded, the crowd grew to perhaps 70 or 80. Some of the men were wearing maroon berets. They were a comedic spectacle: imagine a few score of Ken Maginnis-types in motorcycle leathers. They lined up in military formation, their physical condition making this pretence pathetic rather than sinister, and unfurled a very small banner which read “WE SUPPORT SOLDIER F.”

I couldn’t help thinking of protests against the injustices visited upon the Guilford Four and the Birmingham Six, protests held in England. How society seems to have changed, and not for the better.

Douglas Murray, a neo-conservative thinker and writer much respected and admired by many on the right, had this to say about Soldier F in his peerless account of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry:

Soldier F — who fired 13 rounds on the day — whose performance in 1972 and 2003 was most disturbing. It always seemed to me that if anyone was deserving of prosecution, then it was him.

Murray also had this to say about the killers of 14 civilians on Bloody Sunday: “The soldiers of 1 Para weren’t just unapologetic killers, but unrelenting liars.”

Recently, former British solider Dennis Hutchings faced trial for the killing of John Pat Cunningham. Hutchings received much support, including high profile political support, from those who objected to his prosecution. The circumstances of John Pat’s death could scarcely be more upsetting:

A Benburb doctor said the victim, who was his patient, had been born with an incomplete development of mind, and had been declared a person requiring special care.
The doctor said that about a year earlier, near the scene of the shooting, he had come across soldiers pushing John Cunningham into a Saracen armoured car.
He spoke to the soldiers who said he had been hiding in the bushes and acting suspiciously.
The doctor said he had told the young man’s mother about the incident and advised her to keep a special watch on her son’s movements, in view of his apprehension towards soldiers and their uniforms.

Dennis Hutchings is alleged to have shot John Pat in the back as he ran away from an army patrol. There is simply no way that John Pat was a threat to them. British and Unionist politicians were outraged over a prosecution taking place. They were silent when the prosecution of Soldier F, a perjurer, multiple-killer, and perhaps the single greatest recruiting sergeant the PIRA ever had, fell apart.

From tragedy to farce, we can now look at the case of Donald MacNaughton, who was tried and acquitted of attempted murder in 1974. The case against him fell apart because of “inconsistencies” with the victim’s evidence, and the evidence of MacNaughton and his comrades “fitted together and was not mutually contradictory ." MacNaughton was a member of the Parachute Regiment, whose soldiers colluded with each other to lie to several British Government Inquiries, and indeed to British Army investigators. The farce in this case, I think, demonstrates something of the self-degradation of those on the English right: MacNaughton became a Brexit Party campaigner, and is widely believed to have thrown yogurt over himself to gain media attention.

Hutchings died before his trial, and will be given full military honours at his funeral. Soldier F was promoted and decorated several times in his military career. Just as their killings of Irish citizens did not unduly affect their lives for decades, was there any serious attempt at prosecuting them to the full extent of the law?

But their prosecution is not really the point. The level of support for them is.

What does it say about sections of society, and politicians, if they can support those suspected of murder, so long as it was committed by a uniformed killer, regardless of the status of the victim?

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys.

Unapologetic Killers, Unrelenting Liars, And Their Uncaring Supporters

Anthony McIntyre ✒ Dennis Hutchings the former British soldier who died from Covid during his trial for the attempted murder of a Tyrone man in 1974 was not a victim. 

The unarmed civilian he fired his shots at was the victim of the patrol led by Hutchings in June 1974. John Pat Cunningham was shot in the back and killed as he ran terrified from a British Army patrol. Back then, officialdom asked few questions: the state forces could kill who they liked and were sent on their way, armed and still in uniform, down the road of unaccountability and immunity.

While Hutchings does not merit the status of victim, it seems indisputable that he was a casualty of a war that was supposed to have ended decades ago but which is still allowed to fester and hang around like a bad smell in a supposedly fresh society under the guise of truth recovery. It is Orwellian to call prosecutions truth recovery when so little truth is recovered as a result of them. 

It is completely understandable why the relatives of those killed during the North's violent conflict should seek prosecutions. Human emotion allows them to do little else. When relatives earnestly sought the truth they were treated with contempt as a gaggle of liars from across the political and security spectrum lined up to testify at the Ballymurphy massacre inquest. The motives of many politicians and former combatants calling for justice are suspect. For them it is about political one-upmanship, score settling, played out for the purposes of the present and wholly divested of any concern about the past. The past only matters insofar as present prosecutions are a means of vengeance today for the transgressions of yesteryear.

If pursuing an infirm 80 year old onetime foot soldier through the courts for a period of six and a half years, ultimately for him to die in hospital far from his home, is justice, it is so only in the most formal sense. Every globule of compassion and smidgen of reconciliation has been wrung out of the concept of justice by the prosecutorial mangle. 

Hutchings even lost an attempt to be tried by a jury. The judicial system is so rooted in the past that he was scheduled to face justice in that most unjust of settings - a Diplock court. The late Lord Kerr ruled that trial by jury was not the only way to achieve a fair outcome. Well he would wouldn’t he given the number of such trials the judiciary of which he was a part presided over. Non jury trials deliver results but ones that are unjustly secured. Diplock courts were never, from the moment of their inception, meant to deliver fair trials, just instrumental outcomes. Diplock was the product of a political and judicial mindset that didn’t give one toss about people like John Pat Cunningham.

Johnny Mercer, former Tory minister and firm opponent of former British soldiers being prosecuted has in the wake of the Hutchings death demanded:

a public inquiry into the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland. I’ve spoken to people in the system who cannot believe these prosecutions have gone ahead. It’s destroying lives.

Doubtless, it is destroying lives but that alone is insufficient to halt prosecutions, considering that most trials result from lives having been destroyed by the former soldiers before the courts.

It just happens that the lives being destroyed are those of former British veterans. The destruction of other lives was evidently not a concern when the British prosecuted Ivor Bell who was around the same age as Dennis Hutchings during his ongoing prosecution and subsequent trial of facts. Yet it seems beyond denial, that the Public Prosecution Service has been demonstrably inept in pursuing legacy cases.

it has been confirmed that only one British soldier is still facing prosecution. The public prosecution service (PPS) in Northern Ireland said that former Grenadier Guardsman David Holden, 51, faces charges of gross negligence manslaughter in connection with the killing of Aidan McAnespie, 23, in 1988. He was shot at a border checkpoint in Co Tyrone.

If that is what passes for truth retrieval, it is as ersatz as the faux political concern driving it. The lives of those in advanced years are being destroyed and disrupted for no tangible results. Any other public service chalking up that rate of inefficiency and failure would be be consigned to the stocks for wasting public money and undermining public confidence.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Neither Truth Nor Justice

Christy Walsh ✒ looks at the British Amnesty controversy.

Rex non potest dare gratiam cum injurid et damno aliorum

The King cannot confer a favour on one subject which occasions injury and loss to others.

Introduction

This article makes no judgment on whether, or not, any former combatants warrant prosecution for unlawful killing’s that they may have committed during the Conflict.  

It is, however, intended to provide more information than is commonly available to remove the current confusion and misconceptions over the function and remit of an amnesty.

Pardons, clemency and amnesties mean the same thing; where the latter is the collective or composite term used when applied to a large class of people such as insurgents or political agitators[1]. Pardons can be implemented in various individual arrangements, such as conditional, free, full, posthumous or pre-charge pardons and they can all be applied collectively as an amnesty.

Amnesty: A sovereign act of pardon and oblivion for past acts, granted by a government to all persons (or to certain persons) who have been guilty of crime or delict, generally political offenses,—treason, sedition, rebellion,—and often conditioned upon their return to obedience and duty within a prescribed time.[2]

Full pardons bring an end to a criminal penalty or void any sentence passed at the end of a trial; also, the pardoned person might even be compensated for any time spent in jail: “however, [it] does not erase the conviction nor imply innocence.” [3] In other words, pardons only negate the penalty but not the actual validity of the conviction. On that basis, there is no precedent of a pardon being granted to prevent investigations or judicial process where prima facie evidence of guilt exists. Whereas, conditional pardons involve an alteration of the original sentence. The terms ‘commutation’ and ‘remission’ are forms of conditional pardons where their objective is to remit, reprieve or otherwise reduce the severity of a sentence. For example, on 27th April 1948, the Lord Chancellor announced that “prisoners who are serving sentences of penal servitude for the part they took in the I.R.A. outrages in 1939 and 1940” were to be released “earlier than in the ordinary course”. [4] The early release scheme under the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 are a good example of a statutory amnesty for the early release of paramilitary prisoners.[5]

Leslie Sebba, at the Institute of Criminology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem asserts that an:

amnesty was an event of considerable social impact. Moreover, the elation generated among the offending population companied by a concomitant degree of concern on the part of the public in general and the police in particular.[6] 

It was for these reasons that the UK Government was extremely uncomfortable during the Northern Ireland peace talks in the 1990s when it came to prisoner releases. The use of the word amnesty was, for many, a trigger word particularly among those who had been victims of non-state actors to the conflict;as is now evident among the families of those murdered by state actors.

Pardons or amnesties are intended to relieve offenders from a criminal penalty where their otherwise unlawful conduct attracted the penalty or is likely to do so. The Queen’s Pardon is said to forgive and forget an offence committed against the Crown on the undertaking that it will not be repeated. The current proposed statutory amnesty is intended to relieve former British Soldiers from criminal punishments for any murders they may have committed during the conflict. 

However, the amnesty presently being considered is being viewed as a means of preventing any further prosecutions against former British Soldiers from commencing in the first place. A pre-trial pardon or amnesty cannot, in itself, prevent prosecutions where the test for prosecution has been met. While Parliament has the power to enact statutory amnesties, such acts must be compatible with international human rights law and any other relevant international agreements and treaties.

Pre-Charge and Pre-Conviction Pardons

A pardon may be granted any time after the commission of an offence and before judicial proceedings have been undertaken or during their pendency.[7] “A pardon is valid even if the one pardoned has not been indicted or convicted.”[8] However, the grant of a pre-conviction pardon does not have the authority to upset or prevent ongoing legal proceedings because of "the constitutional doctrine that the sovereign cannot exercise judicial power except through her courts.”[9] In other words, a pardon can be granted as a surety against any resulting penalty but cannot prevent the actual trial from proceeding to the normal conviction and sentencing stages: “If granted before conviction, it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent from conviction from attaching.”[10] A pre-conviction pardon cannot prevent the Court from performing its function, but any subsequent conviction would be in name only, because the pardon: "operates as an extinguishment of the penalty inflicted by the judgment of conviction, and all its attending circumstances.”[11] The Court would have to consider if continuing with a prosecution and trial without punishment served the public interest. Unfortunately, because the purpose of the amnesty is in the best interests of former state-actors, the Courts would have to take into consideration Government policy intention to ride roughshod over individual victims’ rights. However, the Court would have to take into account how compelling the evidence against the accused was and if it was against the interests of the public to discontinue legal proceedings.

It is worth comparing the South African model for amnesty and truth recovery. Boris Johnson’s suggested amnesty is primarily focused upon ending all prosecutions of former British Soldiers who may have committed murder and war crimes during the Conflict. In South Africa, a combatant could obtain immunity from prosecution if they revealed and discussed their unlawful acts as part of the healing and truth recovery process. Whereas, Johnson’s model potentially shuts down any further truth recovery in disregard of the interests of victims rights.

Note: Amnesty and immunity can be mistakenly interpreted as meaning the same thing; In the context of this article it is to be understood that pardons relieve a person from a penalty post-conviction and not from being prosecuted per say, whereas, immunity from prosecution allows a person to impart their role in an unlawful killing without fear of being prosecuted.

Beneficiaries of the Proposed Amnesty

Those to whom the proposed amnesty is intended would have to identify themselves to avail of the amnesty. For example, after the Rebellion of the United Irishmen in 1798, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Cornwallis, issued a proclamation on 22nd September 1799 “requiring every person in County Galway who had been engaged in the late rebellion to apply for pardon under the Act of Amnesty.” [12] Whereas, any new amnesty introduced today would lay in abeyance until someone indicated that they wished to avail of it; “Like any other deed, a pardon must be brought judicially before the court by plea, motion or otherwise.”[13] This might only occur once a prosecution has been initiated against someone or they are aware that one is imminent. To comply with modern equality laws, the amnesty would have to include former Loyalists and Republican paramilitaries and not just the intended target of former members of the British Army suspected of committing murder or war crimes.

It would be a matter for the prosecution service or the Court to decide if continuing with a prosecution would be in the public interest. The amnesty itself is unlikely to have the legal or constitutional power to enforce the discontinuance of investigations or prosecutions; though the fact that, ultimately, no penalty can be enforced might itself be persuasive enough for discontinuation of all legacy related prosecutions on the grounds of costs and in the public interest. A prosecution is not evidence of guilt so an innocent British Soldier could potentially seek to rely upon the availability of the amnesty simply to avoid the understandable distress of being prosecuted in error.

However, if the prosecution were to continue in the public interest a successful conviction might be seen as just satisfaction enough. Although the convicted person might not spend a day in jail they would forever stand convicted of murder and must disclose that fact when officially obliged to do so. A pardon "does not obliterate the fact of the commission of the crime [and] it does not wash out the moral stain;” rather, it involves a desire for “forgiveness and not forgetfulness".[14]

In light of the proposed amnesty, both the Court and Prosecution would have to consider, in advance, if it is in the public interest to proceed to trial in such cases. It would be for that technical reason why prosecutions might not be pursued and not because an amnesty has any legal or constitutional authority to stop prosecutions or investigations; “A pardon, while it absolves the offender, does not touch the rights of others.”[15] In addition, any proposed amnesty cannot, in any way, limit or prevent, citizens from pursuing civil actions.
 
30th March 1972 Statutory Amnesty

The first codification of pardons was introduced by King Charles II through the enactment of An Act of Free and General Pardon Indemnity and Oblivion [1660]. The Act was to bring to an end the English Civil War and as a commitment from the King that he would not seek revenge against the Rebels. In return, the Rebels would recognise Charles II as the lawful king and all standing armies would be re-commissioned into service under the crown. The pardons were intended to be complete, in that all offences and punishments were null and void, including the Rebels involved in beheading his father King Charles I. Lands and other property were to be returned.[16]

British troops arrived in Northern Ireland on 14 August 1969, at the request of the then Prime Minister, James Chichester-Clark, while the Battle of the Bogside was raging in Derry. Internment was then introduced on 9th August 1971 by a new Prime Minister, Brian Faulkner. Countless Internees suffered serious physical injuries during their arrests[17] that eventually lead to the Irish Government taking the UK to the European Court of Human Rights for torture and other physical abuses.[18] Regarding the brutality meted out during interrogations, in his Report, Lord Parker concluded as follows:

The blame for this sorry story, if blame there be, must lie with those who, many years ago, decided that in emergency conditions in Colonial-type situations we should abandon our legal, well-tried and highly successful wartime interrogation methods and replace them by procedures which were secret, illegal, not morally justifiable and alien to the traditions of what I believe still to be the greatest democracy in the world.[19]

John Hume and others challenged Brian Faulkner’s authority to introduce Internment and order the British Army to carry his orders out. On 29th March 1972, the Court concluded that section 4(1) of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 limited the Northern Ireland Stormont Government’s powers to introduce new laws or regulations “under the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922 which purported to confer powers on officers and members of Her Majesty's forces on duty.”[20] In other words, Mr Faulkner had no authority to give commands to members of Her Majesty's forces in the “navy, the army, the air force, the territorial army, or any other naval, military, or air force”[21]. In other words, he treated the British Army as Stormont's standing army and the Army took orders from him as if they served Stormont and not the Crown.

The Court concluded that all orders and commands given to Her Majesty’s forces by Faulkner “relating to military matters which had been created by legislation by or under the Parliament of Northern Ireland was void and of no effect.” This effectively derives from the 1660 Act of Oblivion that there should be no standing armies other than those under the command and service of the sovereign. Sir William Searle Holdsworth observes that Parliament has never consented to the raising, or keeping, of a standing army since 1660 and the introduction of the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement.[22] This means that, while acting under authority of Faulkner, every interaction between the Army and civilian population, if even a 5minute stop at the side of the road, was unlawful.

Within 24 hours, on 30th March 1972, in response to the Court’s judgment in Hume and Others, Parliament introduced a statutory amnesty under the Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act 1972, wherein, no British soldier would stand trial for any unlawful act committed under the direction of Stormont and the NI Prime Minister. Section 6(1)(b)[23] asserted that all unlawful laws, regulations or orders issued by the NI Government or its Minister are to, retrospectively, be treated as “references to the Secretary of State or any person appointed by him to discharge the relevant functions.” The legislation created a new Northern Ireland Office (NIO), supervised by a new Secretary of State, Mr William Whitelaw.[24] Section 6(2) of the Act retrospectively legalised all unlawful acts committed by the Army: “This Act shall not invalidate anything done before it comes into force."

In effect The Temporary Provisions Act served as a statutory amnesty to all members of the British Army for their part in the widespread unlawful detentions, arrests, house searches, imprisonments, beatings and/or shootings that they had carried out in pursuance of Stormont's orders. Hence, any British soldier who might have ordinarily been prosecuted for his crimes had, within 24 hours, been speedily pardoned in advance of any charges. Under both common law and Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the law can not make unlawful arrests and imprisonments without trial, retrospectively lawful.

Although members of the British Army had been granted immunity from their criminal liability, no remedy was provided for those unlawfully detained, mistreated, imprisoned and even murdered by the British Army between 9th August 1971 and 29th March 1972.

Conclusion

The proposed introduction of another statutory amnesty to shield former members of the security forces from accountability for crimes committed during the course of the NI Conflict ought not to escape the scrutiny that the 30th March 1972 statutory amnesty did. The 1972 statutory amnesty was introduced at a time when lawyers and the public were not as aware of human and civil rights as they are today.

There is no precedent in UK law where a pardon relieved a suspect from scrutiny; pardons only relieve the guilty from any subsequent penalty for their criminal conduct and not an investigation. If prosecutions are not pursued where there is prima facie evidence of guilt, it would be because it was considered contrary to the public interest in cases where a penalty cannot be implemented or enforced on account of the proposed pardons. Taking a lesson from South Africa, immunity from prosecution was available where Combatant’s were prepared to give a full and open account of any unlawful killings they may have been involved in.

Finally, any valid grounds for civil action against British Soldiers would remain unscathed by any amnesty because citizens’ rights cannot be forfeited or negated on foot of any pardon or amnesty.

(1) In 1848 the UK Parliament debated extending pardons to include 3 Canadian political agitators who had been not been pardoned along with others, see Pardon of Political Offenders, HC Deb 06 April 1848 vol 97 cc1369-90. 

(2) Black's Law Dictionary Containing Definitions of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modern, 2nd Edition, West Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota, 1910, at page 66:

(3) The Queens Pardon, C.H. Rolph, Cassell and Collier Ltd, 1978, pp.35-36

(4) Written Answers, 27th April 1948, Volume 155. 

[5] Daniel F. Mulvihill, "The Legality of the Pardoning of Paramilitaries under the Early Release Provisions of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement," Cornell International Law Journal, Volume 34, Issue 1 2001, Article 6, at page 241.

[6] Leslie Sebba, "Amnesty—A Quasi-Experiment", The British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 19, No. 1 (January 1979), pp. 5-30, at p.6.

[7] W W Thornton, 'Pardon and Amnesty' (1885) 6 The Criminal Law Magazine 457, at 471

[8] Pardon and Amnesty, The Criminal Law Magazine, Vol. VI. July 1885. No. 4. pp.457-500, p.485

See also, Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333 (1867), p.380. And, n50,p.3.

[9] R (On the Application of Michael Shields) v Secretary of State for Justice [2008] EWHC 3102 (Admin), para.22.

[10] ibid, p.2.

[11] W W Thornton, 'Pardon and Amnesty' (1885) 6 The Criminal Law Magazine 457, at 486.

[12] James G. Patterson, "Republicanism, Agrarianism and Banditry in the West of Ireland, 1798-1803", Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 35, No. 137 (May 2006), pp. 17-39, at page 33.

[13] W W Thornton, 'Pardon and Amnesty' (1885) 6 The Criminal Law Magazine 457, at 493.

[14] F. Gregory Murphy v. Gerald R. Ford, as President of the United States, 390 F.Supp. 1372 (1975), p.3 citing Page v. Watson, 140 Fla. 536, 192 So. 205, p.208.

[15] W W Thornton, 'Pardon and Amnesty' (1885) 6 The Criminal Law Magazine 457, at 358.

[16] ibid, at Section II. "Abettors of such Treasons and other Crimes pardoned and restored to their Lands." https://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol5/pp226-234#h3-0010.

[17] Report of the Committee of Privy Counsellors Appointed to consider authorised procedures for the interrogation of persons suspected of terrorism, Chairman: Lord Parker of Waddington, March 1972. 

[18] Ireland V United Kingdom (1979-80) 2 EHRR 25.

[19] Report of the Committee of Privy Counsellors appointed to consider authorised procedures for the interrogation of persons suspected of terrorism, Chairman: Lord Parker of Waddington, March 1972. 

[20] Regina (Hume and Others) V Londonderry Justices [1972] NI 91 QBD, at the conclusion.

[21] ibid.

[22] W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law, 3rd Edition, 1922-1923, London, Volume 6, p.241. https://archive.org/details/historyofenglish06holduoft.

[23] The Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act 1972.

[24] University of Ulster: CAIN Web Service - Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland; Chronology.

⏩ Christy Walsh was stitched up by the British Ministry of Defence and spent many years in prison as a result.

Amnesty ➖ A Tonic For The Troops

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