NO FUNDS’ FOR WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATIONS

Posted by Jim on October 4, 2014

Plans to abandon or scale down a number of investigations into past
British atrocities in the north of Ireland are being blamed by
Stormont ministers on a cut in the British exchequer’s annual block
grant for the Six Counties.

There was a furious reaction in Derry yesterday after the PSNI revealed
that the Bloody Sunday murder investigation “will be losing the majority
of its investigation team”.

It said the decision was due to “severe financial pressures” and would
have “a substantial impact on the investigation”.

The announcement came just four days before the PSNI were due to start
interviewing the soldiers who massacred 14 innocent civilians during an
anti-internment march in Derry in January 1972.

“The only winners in this now are the killers,” said John Kelly, a
brother of one of the victims. “This is a live murder investigation and
they’ve just decided that it shouldn’t go ahead for financial reasons.
Where else would a murder investigation be dropped because police are
short of money?” he said.

Mr Kelly said as the Bloody Sunday killings were carried out by the
British army, the Westminster government should now step in to fund the
investigation rather than have it paid from the North’s subvention.

“When this investigation was established we were told that only a
catastrophic event would cause it to be stopped. We were told the money
was ring-fenced. But they’ve pulled the plug on it, end of story. As far
as I am concerned, David Cameron’s apology counts for nothing now,” he
said.

The decision was also condemned by Derry Sinn Fein assembly member
Raymond McCartney, who said “access to justice should not come with a
price tag”.

The PSNI has also announced that it is closing the Historical Enquiries
Team (HET), a specialist police unit set up to investigate unsolved
killings from the conflict. A far smaller “Legacy Investigations Branch”
is set to replace the unit.

And more seriously, a cut in the Police Ombudsman’s budget has
threatened the office’s investigations into more than 300 cases.

Michael Maguire, who has been ombudsman since 2012, has said that plans
to launch investigations into the killing of dozens of Catholics by the
notorious Glenanne gang in the 1970s, will now be “postponed”. He has
also written to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to
inform them that his office will in future not be able to conduct
investigations in line with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Relatives for Justice director Mark Thompson said the news will cause
“further distress and upset to families from across the community”.

“Simply put, the amount promised to the Police Ombudsman to investigate
340 cases is less than the hospitality budget of the NIO for the last
financial year,” he said.

“Politicians continually say that victims and survivors are a priority
and that they too support their efforts to resolve their cases.

“One way to demonstrate that commitment would be by ensuring that this
goes beyond rhetoric and that the funds required by the Police Ombudsman
are provided urgently.”

The campaigner said savings made through axing the HET could have been
carried over to fund the Police Ombudsman’s office.

Theresa Kelly, whose husband Patsy Kelly was murdered in July 1974 in
Trillick, said she had been given hope of discovering the truth about a
murder in which members of the British Army’s UDR are suspected of being
involved.

“The state has failed us time and time again. We have a right to the
truth about Patsy’s murder, and the state owe us a duty to investigate
Patsy’s death properly and effectively. They cannot get out of that
duty.

“Now is the time to have an independent effective investigation and this
should happen in my lifetime – not in 12 more years. They have failed
me, and Patsy, for over 40 years”.

The family of Tommy Casey also spoke of their disappointment that his
case will also be delayed. The 57-year-old Sinn Fein member was shot
dead by loyalists in apparent collusion with the Crown forces.

His daughter Collette Casey last night said: “If the state had
investigated these cases properly the first time we wouldn’t need to
pursue them.

“We will continue to fight for the truth about how our daddy died. It
now looks like it will take generations but we won’t stop. We know that
there was collusion and we know the police didn’t investigate it
properly and this is just another excuse to prevent an examination of
the past.”

The three main routes to examine the past — through the Police
Ombudsman’s Office, the Historical Enquiries Team and the inquest
process — have always subject to political interference, legal delays,
back-room manoeuvres and open sabotage.

But for many nationalists, the claims of insufficient funds are merely a
new attempt to disguise the fact that a veil is being drawn over the war
crimes of the British state.

The “cutbacks” in investigations are a clear sign of the failure of
politicians to agree a way to deal with the past. Rhetoric about
upholding the rights of victims and their families have been proven
meaningless.