HAMILTON – THE FACE OF COLLUSION IN 2019?
Posted by Jim on February 17, 2019
PSNI chief George Hamilton stands accused of subverting justice in
regard to dozens of loyalist killings in the late 1980s and early 1990s
after secret police documents relating to collusion unexpectedly came
to light.
The PSNI claimed that they had previously been “unable to find” the
documents, after lawyers were told they didn’t exist. That received a
scathing response from families of the victims.
Due to retire this June at the ripe age of 51, Hamilton is being told
to go immediately. It is clear that allegations of a continuous and
continuing police cover-up in an orchestrated campaign of murder will
not be answered by him.
The archive was traced when one file came to light as part of a civil
legal action unrelated to previous police investigations or oversight.
Much of it relates to a crucial supply of weapons smuggled into the
north for loyalists in the late 1980s.
The publication of three reports by the Police Ombudsman on its
investigations into killings by UDA paramilitaries will now be delayed.
The Ombudsman revealed that the previously unidentified files include
“sensitive material, intelligence-led material, and.. information (on)
covert policing”.
The stalled reports include investigations into the large-scale campaign
of sectarian murder between 1988 and 1994, including the ‘trick or
treat’ massacre of eight people and the murder of Donegal Sinn Féin
councillor Eddie Fullerton; the massacre of five Catholic men at Sean
Graham bookmaker’s on Belfast’s Ormeau Road in 1992; and the murder of
17-year-old Damien Walsh in west Belfast in 1993.
Damian Walsh’s mother, Marian dismissed the apology by PSNI deputy chief
Stephen Martin, who blamed the scandal on “complex challenges associated
with voluminous material”.
“He didn’t apologise to me personally, I just heard he apologised
somewhere to somebody,” she said. “It is just a sham, and excuses. How
come one person was able to find it and yet all these other ones
couldn’t?”
The anguished mother said she had been expecting to receive the results
of the Ombudsman’s investigation.
“I thought the report must have been ready, but then I was told it
wasn’t ready again,” she said.
She said she broke down when she got the news.
“I just thought, I am so tired now, I have just got so old, so sick and
I don’t know how I am going to go on with this. And then I rallied and
thought, I have no choice, I have to keep going to see this through.”
Sinn Féin policing spokesman Gerry Kelly described the news as
“appalling and unacceptable”.
Some of the recently discovered information relates to a huge cache of
Czech-made arms imported into the north by loyalists. It previously
emerged that one of these submachine guns, used to kill seven Catholic
men, was put on display at the British Imperial War Museum in London.
Reports previously issued by the Ombudsman’s office may now have to be
withdrawn amid fears that several investigations could have been
subverted.
Lawyer Niall Murphy explained why some relatives want Hamilton to resign
immediately.
“The families are appalled,” he said. “Many parents and siblings have
passed away even in the last 12 months and people are dying without
access to justice.”
Campaign group Time For Truth organised protests in locations around
Belfast today [Saturday] in solidarity with the victims and survivors,
and to demand full investigations and legacy inquests.
“We call on citizens to sign the petition and show their support for
victims and survivors across the community who are still denied their
basic human rights,” said organiser Ciaran Mac Airt.
“Just look at the news this week. Families from the Ormeau Road have
been failed yet again by police investigating atrocities in the past.
“Hundreds of other families are experiencing the same and are being
re-traumatised on a Dáily basis.”