A BRIEF FOR THE US CONGRESS

Posted by Jim on November 19, 2015

A BRIEF FOR THE US CONGRESS

Prepared by the KRW-LLP law firm. November 18, 2015

 

THE LEGACY OF SCAPPATICCI: THE NEED NOW FOR AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO COLLUSION DURING THE CONFLICT IN THE NORTH OF IRELAND

Lawyers from KRW LAW LLP have always received a receptive welcome from our colleagues in the USA. We have briefed lawyers, academics and politicians on behalf of our clients in the North of Ireland specifically on the matter of collusion between the British government and paramilitary organisations during the Conflict and the use of agents and informers in what as has been described as a “Dirty War”. Recently the extent of this Dirty War is becoming increasingly apparent as new information emerges through the process of civil litigation taken on behalf of the victims of collusion in their quest for truth, justice and accountability.

In 2012 Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for the existence of collusion in the murder of Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane following the publication of the De Silva Review Report. Congress is well aware of the resonance of this case given the eloquence of persistency of Patrick’s widow Geraldine Finucane and her family who continues to demand an independent statutory inquiry into the murder of her husband. Patrick Finucane was killed by Loyalist paramilitaries with the complicity of state agents – agents of the British government engaged in a government sanctioned policy of collusion during the Conflict.

For many years it has also been known that the British government – specifically the shadowy agencies of the RUC Special Branch, MI5 and the Force Reconnaissance Unit, ran agents infiltrated into the IRA including agent Stakeknife, recognised as Freddie Scappaticci.

We represent a number of relatives of victims who were murdered by the IRA Internal Security Team known as “The Nutting Squad” which headed by alleged British informer and agent Freddie Scappaticci – Stakeknife. It is believed that Scappaticci and The Nutting Squad were responsible for at least 24 murders during the Conflict and that the activities of Scappaticci possibly extended to the early period of the PSNI, the institutional successor to the RUC. As noted, the nefarious activities of Scappaticci throughout a sustained period engage serious allegations of collusion with British Security Forces including RUC Special Branch, FRU and MI5.  The victims of Scappaticci included Caroline Moreland and Joe Mulhern amongst others. We hope now that Scappaticci, his crimes and his employers – the British government – will now be independently investigated and held to account.

 

The questions the victims we represent have is to what extent were the murders and violence perpetrated by Scappaticci and his colleagues sanctioned by the British Security Forces, what extent could any of these deaths have been prevented and what was the role of Scappaticci as an informer and agent? Lord Stevens conducting three investigations into allegations of collusion between paramilitaries and state agents during the Conflict in the North of Ireland initially with specific reference to the murder of Patrick Finucane. Had a Stevens 4 investigation have been allowed to have been undertaken it may well have examined the role of Scappaticci and the murders and violence he is implicated in. In the event the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) assumed aspects of the Stevens brief, the outcomes of which are well known – as members of Congress are aware the HET was closed following a report exposing its bias and unlawfulness.

 

Last month we were  informed by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI)whose Office has been undertaking an investigation into the activities of the IRA Internal Security Team and the role of the RUC, that an interim report into this linked complex investigation of 24 murders involving Scappaticci that commenced in 2013 and revealed evidence of culpability, complicity and collusion amounting to criminality of both RUC officers and members of the British Security Forces specifically MI5 has been sent to the Director of the Public Prosecutions Service for Northern Ireland (PPS)

Because PONI has no jurisdiction to investigation allegations against state agents other than RUC or PSNI personnel, he referred his interim investigation report to the Director of Public Prosecutions: the DPP has now requested the Chief Constable of the PSNI to conduct an investigation into the activities of Scappaticci and the culpability, complicity and criminality of RUC and MI5 officers. Further, the DPP has, on the advice of the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, requested an investigation into an allegation of perjury by Scappaticci in a 2003 prosecution.

KRW LAW LLP welcomes this referral by PONI to the DPP and the order made by the DPP to the PSNI. However, we must sound a note of caution on behalf of our clients which Congress should be alert to when being briefed on these serious matters by the British government.

First, the announcement of the DPP comes as legal proceedings against the PSNI are in the process of being lodged with High Court regarding the failure of the PSNI to undertake a thematic investigation into the role of Scappaticci into the murder of Caroline Moreland by the IRA in 1994 and that she was murdered because she was an informer for the British Security Forces and killed to protect the position of Scappaticci. We are arguing that so far the PSNI has failed to undertake a thematic investigation into the activities of Scappaticci, the RUC and MI5 and that it does not have the resources to do so and that any such thematic investigation will lack the necessary degree of independence to deliver truth, justice and accountability to the family of Caroline Moreland.

Second, on that basis we are sceptical as to whether the order of the DPP to the PSNI to undertake a thematic or linked investigation into the complex case of Scappaticci and collusion on the basis of the work of OPONI is both a possibility in terms of resources or feasible in terms of the requirements of human rights law when the British government must undertake a human rights compliant investigation when there has been a breach of the right to life of the ECHR (Article 2).

The PSNI Legacy Investigations Branch (LIB) has taken over aspects of the work of the defunct and discredited HET but is a smaller unit with lesser resources a directly within the operation command of the PSNI and employs a number of former RUC officers. It cannot satisfy the demands of human rights compliance.

Third, if the PSNI consider that it either cannot perform such an investigation into Scappaticci and collusion because of resources or because of necessary independence then another mechanism is needed. As yet the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) proposed under the Stormont House Agreement 2014 has yet to be legislated for as a Stormont House Agreement Bill has not be published. What is known about the proposed Bill is that the HIU will also not necessarily be Article 2 compliant in terms of independence.

We therefore suggest either a statutory inquiry into this matter is established to undertake an investigation into collusion during the Conflict in Northern Ireland including the activities of Scappaticci or another mechanism is developed to discharge the obligations of the British government – legal, moral and political – which are on-going human rights obligations to the relatives of the victims and survivors of the violence of the legacy of collusion.

We would request that all members of the Congress of the USA press the British government, on behalf of all victims of collusion during the Conflict in the North of Ireland, to establish such an inquiry, so that the wounds of the past can be sutured and the quest for the truth, justice and accountability concluded.

END.

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