Loughgall documents point to war crime

Posted by Jim on May 12, 2018

Loughgall documents point to war crime

 

Members of the IRA unit shot dead in a British Army ambush at Loughgall
had been under surveillance for weeks, it was confirmed this week.

A lawyer for the father of one of the eight republicans killed at
Loughgall in County Armagh in 1987 said the new information is a major
development in the case.

Relatives of the dead men and legal representatives point out that the
disclosure proves that the men should have been arrested and their
deaths prevented.

‘Elite’ SAS soldiers wiped out the IRA’s East Tyrone unit as it was
preparing to mount an attack against Loughgall RUC barracks in May 1987.
It has thought the orders for the massacre, the North’s most notorious
‘shoot-to-kill’ act of targeted assassination, came directly from the
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It was the IRA’s single
largest loss of life during the conflict.

Declan Arthurs’ father, Patrick, is suing the Ministry of Defence (MoD)
over the ambush, as well as the PSNI (formerly RUC), who took part in
the operation.

Partially censored documents have now been disclosed by the PSNI as part
of his legal action. Mr Arthurs’s barrister said they revealed an SAS
operation had been watching eight of those who ended up dying for a
number of weeks prior to the ambush.

Mairead Kelly of the Loughgall Truth and Justice Campaign said: “It has
long been suspected by the bereaved families of Loughgall that the SAS
shoot-to-kill operation did not have to happen.

“This recent raft of discovery shows that the state authorities had
sufficient information to effect arrests long in advance but instead
undertook a premeditated shoot-to-kill strategy.”

Ms McKeegan, of KRW Law, said the new material from the PSNI “proves
that the security services not only could have prevented the ambush but
that the MoD have not been up-front in relation to their disclosure
obligations in this case”.

She said that previous disclosure from the MoD made no reference to SAS
surveillance of the IRA men in advance of the shootings.

Funding for outstanding inquests from the conflict, including the
Loughgall massacre continue to be blocked by government officials
despite a recent court ruling that former First Minister, DUP leader
Arlene Foster, had illegally withheld the cash.

Ms McKeegan said the new evidence “further highlights the need for the
fresh inquests and the need for the money to be released from the
[British] government immediately so that all victims of the conflict can
obtain the answers that they so greatly need and deserve.”