Archive for the ‘Protecting Sources’ Category
A hidden scandal – MI5 in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland under the peace process is supposed to have put the bad old days of Police Collusion with Loyalist Murder Gangs, and state force misbehaviour, into the distant past. The recent De Silva Report on the murder of civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane contains a lot of material which is very critical of the British State but leaves many questions unanswered :
Ed Moloney concludes in this essay :
“So, a powerful indictment of…what? RUC incompetence or malevolence, or evidence of some hidden subterranean manipulation? We don’t know because as with so much of Sir Desmond de Silva’s report, there are more questions than answers, more what’s, where’s and when’s than why’s.”
Bringing the story up-to–date read Eamonn McCann’s Belfast Telegraph Article
Sham row over ‘FBI-style’ body hides scandal of MI5
Web Link :
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/sham-row-over-fbistyle-body-hides-scandal-of-mi5-16268218.html?r=RSSMore and More, peace process policing and justice in Northern Ireland is hidden from view – Kafka-like rules are becoming more common, where people are held in jail without even knowing the charges made against them – as highlighted in another article on this blog featuring Dáil questions from Clare Daly TD to Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore.
Why Was Billy Stobie Charged With Pat Finucane’s Murder?
I should first of all disclose an interest in this story. As they say in the country where I now live, I have a dog in the fight.
Billy Stobie was a valued source of mine and not only did I harbor the loyalty towards him that journalists should always show their sources – in our case to the extent that I fought and successfully defeated a Scotland Yard subpoena seeking the notes of our conversations which were sought to buttress his criminal prosecution – but I also liked him despite his all too evident flaws.
That he was a rogue and a scoundrel was undeniable. That image that was set in cement in the public mind when The Sunday Tribune published his photo above the story of his involvement in the Pat Finucane scandal just after his arrest in June…
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Column: Newspapers are seeking to outlaw the free exchange of ideas
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/newspapers-charges-linking-ireland-740093-Jan2013/
Irish Newspapers have gone mad, Ted
De Silva’s Gaping Hole
A gaping hole in the De Silva Pat Finucane Review
UPDATED 14.05 EST
STATEMENT BY ED MOLONEY ON THE DE SILVA REPORT – Dec 12th 2012
In his report on the murder of Pat Finucane, Sir Desmond de Silva has this to say in relation to the RUC’s role in encouraging the UDA to target the solicitor (Par 73):
“The critical issue, in my view, was to determine whether RUC officers had been involved in inciting loyalists in custody to attack Patrick Finucane. Allegations that RUC officers had incited loyalists in this manner were first expressed privately by the Ambassador of the Government of Ireland to the Cabinet Secretary on 13 February 1989, the day after Patrick Finucane’s murder.”
In December 1998 I was the Northern Editor of the Sunday Tribune newspaper. During that month I had lunch with the late Tommy Lyttle, then the West Belfast Commander of the UDA. During the lunch he told me that RUC…
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Pat Finucane – A De Silva British State Whitewash?
Read this – and see that the British State is very unlikely to hold a Public Inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane
Corrected 14.40 EST
Correction – December 27th 2012 – The Force Research Unit member we identified as Peter Charles Jones from the two photos taken of the unit was in fact a soldier called Kevin Dodds. He was/is a friend of another well known special forces soldier, Charles Pettifer, a former member of the SAS who married Tiggy Legge Bourke, friend of the late Lady Diana Spencer and nanny to her two sons. Dodds and Pettifer, according to our sources, went into business together after military service and set up a risk assessment company (business-speak for private detectives). However as you can see here, Pettifer has since moved up in the world, literally.
Meanwhile the former SAS soldier turned thriller writer known as Andy McNab was obviously indulging in some sly humour at the expense of the former FRU member when he wrote the novel described below (cue tipsy laughter…
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British State Helped UDA to kill Pat Finucane – but Prevented this Loyalist Killing Machine from Bumping Off Gerry Adams
The British State facilitated the murder of Pat Finucane – and prevented the UDA from killing Gerry Adams – all done to help the Six County Peace Process.
UPDATED DECEMBER 7th
It remains to be seen just which UDA plot to kill the Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams it was that leading UK barrister Sir Desmond de Silva was referring to when he sent a message to the Louth TD this week warning him that details of the plot would be revealed in his 500-page report into the UDA’s killing of Belfast solicitor, Pat Finucane which is due to be published in the coming days.
De Silva’s private, and remarkably speedy inquiry into the Finucane murder was the response of British prime minister David Cameron to nearly two decades of calls for a full, sworn public inquiry into a scandal that nearly everyone knows, especially the British government, enmeshes MI5, British military intelligence and the RUC Special Branch in a series of murders carried out mostly in Belfast in the 1980’s by Loyalists, acting as a classic counter…
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Boston College Oral History Archive – Dealing with the Past: BBC Radio Ulster Talkback Transcript | Boston College Subpoena News
Tommy McKearney (Former IRA Volunteer), discusses the Boston Tapes Dispute with two other panelists – Norman Hamill, a former police officer, and Roger Bailey, a psychologist. It is an excellent debate.
Link :
Former IRA Volunteer, an Ex Police Officer and a Psychologist Assess the Boston Archive
Norman Hamill’s Opinion :
The whole issue is enormously difficult but I think on balance I tend to come down on the side of thinking that the police are making a mistake in seeking these tapes because it is important that history is accurately recorded and that can make a contribution to our understanding.
And after all, we do have a mature attitude to the past now. People aren’t going to serve lengthy prison sentences for anything they’ve done.
So I think on balance it would have been better if the police had let this drop.
The Guardian (July 10) carries an Anthony McIntyre article :
Northern Ireland conflict archives should not fall into police hands
The British State is attempting to monopolise an “official version” of history :
Moreover, the double standards of the British state are on full display. It refuses access to the archives in the possession of its security services to the family of the murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, despite David Cameron admitting security force collusion in Finucane’s death.
What sort of history do we want? :
Ultimately, law enforcement agencies, which cannot escape culpability for Northern Ireland’s “dirty war”, are now trying to shape society’s knowledge of that war by seeking to monopolise control over what unfolds from the past while simultaneously relegating the role of academic and journalistic researchers. Any agency other than law enforcement is liable to be sabotaged. A law enforcement view of history is a partial and self-serving one, which seeks to conceal rather than reveal.
Link :
NUJ Dismay over Boston Tapes Ruling | Boston College Subpoena News
National Union of Journalists : Dismay Over Boston Tapes Ruling
NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet said the ruling has “significant implications” for academic and journalistic research.
She said:
“These interviews were recorded between 2001 and 2006 and each participant understood the recording would not be released prior to their death. We salute the stand taken by Ed Moloney, Belfast Project Director and Anthony McIntyre, who carried out the interviews in good faith. It is regrettable that Boston College did not support their legal challenge in relation to the Price interview. It is deeply disappointing that the challenge has failed. As a union we are concerned at the chilling effect which this ruling will have on academic and journalistic research but we are also concerned at the possible threat to the safety of Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney.”
This Henry McDonald Guardian article is also worth reading:
Disclosure of IRA testimony held in Boston could stall search for truth
Link :
SECOND FRONT OPENED IN LEGAL FIGHT TO SAVE BOSTON COLLEGE ARCHIVES
SECOND FRONT OPENED IN LEGAL FIGHT TO SAVE BOSTON COLLEGE ARCHIVES
Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre are pleased to announce that they are opening a second front in their fight to prevent the Police Service of Northern Ireland gaining access to the Belfast Archive at Boston College. In addition to the legal action currently ongoing in the federal appeals court in Boston, they have this week filed papers in the Belfast courts seeking a judicial review of the PSNI action alleging that the UK authorities are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and the British Human RIghts Act of 1998. The Judicial Review asks that the British Home Office’s request of assistance from the United States be quashed, the subpoenas be declared unlawful, a discontinuation of the PSNI’s application for the material, and for an injunction stopping any material from Boston College being received by the PSNI. The two legal actions in Belfast and Boston emphasise our utter determination that the enormously valuable historical documents in the Boston College archive will never fall into the hands of anyone except those authorised by the terms of the solemn and unbreakable contracts we made with the interviewees. Ultimately these papers tell a part of Ireland’s recent troubled history and they should be used for no reason other than to educate and inform. Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 