Posted by Jim on November 6, 2015
A west Belfast man was permitted to engage in a “murderous campaign” to strengthen his position as a British spy, the High Court has heard.
Lawyers for victims’ relatives made the claim against Freddie Scappaticci as they pressed to have an outside police force investigate 24 killings. Scappaticci denies being the army’s most prized agent within the IRA, operating under the codename Stakeknife.
But legal action has been launched in a bid to secure a wide-ranging probe into the full circumstances surrounding a series of killings stretching back to the 1980s and attributed to the paramilitary organisation’s internal security team.
Last month Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory called for police to examine Stakeknife’s activities, along with what was known by RUC Special Branch and MI5.
Although relatives of those allegedly killed by the IRA’s so-called ‘nutting squad’ have backed that move, they are opposed to the PSNI taking charge.
Judicial review proceedings brought by the family of Caroline Moreland are now focused on ensuring outside
investigators are brought in.
Ms Moreland, a 34-year-old Catholic mother-of-three from Belfast, was abducted and murdered by the IRA in July 1994 for being an alleged British informer.
In court yesterday a barrister for her family, Sean Devine, said: “This challenge concerns at its core a murderous campaign that a named individual, Mr Frederick Scappaticci, was allowed to engage upon whilst managed by the security forces in order, we say, to enhance his position as an intelligence asset.”
Scappaticci left Northern Ireland in 2003 when he was identified by the media as Stakeknife.
Before quitting his west Belfast home he vehemently denied being a British agent.
With his alleged role now set to come under fresh scrutiny, victims’ relatives want a thematic inquiry carried out without any delays.
Their opposition to PSNI involvement is based on a perceived lack of independence and the availability of resources.
Due to the Director of Public Prosecution’s intervention, Mr Devine sought an adjournment to allow time for investigators to be identified.
Paul McLaughlin, for the chief constable, agreed that proceedings should be put on hold.
The court also heard there were resource issues and potential political implications.
Granting a four-week adjournment, Mrs Justice Keegan stressed: “Given the issues raised about delay I’m keen to keep some timetable.”
Outside court Ms Moreland’s daughter, Shauna, said the families had taken a step in the right direction.
“We just don’t have faith in the PSNI to investigate any further,” she said.
Her solicitor, Kevin Winters, claimed the action went right to the upper echelons of British military intelligence.
Referring to the possible political implications raised in court, he said: “It demonstrates the level to which this case goes.”
Fr. Sean Mc Manus
Posted by Jim on
For the first time ever, official prison inspectors have issued an
“urgent action plan” to authorities at Maghaberry jail in the wake of a
recent inspection.
In another unprecedented move, they are to return for a follow-up visit
in January to ensure recommendations are followed through. Follow-ups
are usually conducted two to three years after inspection.
The high-security prison near Lisburn was found to be in a “state of
crisis” in a devastating assessment by inspectors. One senior inspector,
Brendan McGuigan, said it was in a “downward spiral that could have led
to serious consequences”.
Two months after they visited the prison in May, the governor Alan
Longwell left his post. He was replaced by former governor of HMP
Belmarsh in south London, Phil Wragg.
The report noted that care of vulnerable prisoners was inadequate, with
high levels of suicide and self-harm. Health services had deteriorated
and some aspects were unsafe. They also noted that prisoners suffered
excessive lock down periods.
Nick Hardwick, chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales, said he
had never seen a more dangerous prison environment.
“This is one of the worst prisons I’ve ever seen and the most dangerous
prison I’ve been to,” he said.
“Dickens could write about Maghaberry without batting an eyelid.”
In three of the four criteria they looked at — safety, respect, and
purposeful activity — the inspectors labelled performance as “poor”,
the lowest possible ranking.
There was no attempt made to examine the plight of republican prisoners
in the segregated Roe House section.
Six-County ‘Justice Minister’ David Ford dismissed the report, insisting
action had already been taken to address the issues identified.
In its response, the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association said
the report had vindicated its calls for the prison and those responsible
for running it to be “consigned to the dustbin of history”.
“While the report clearly highlights the failings of the regime and
rightly points the finger at its staff and those within its leadership,
it falls short in calling for the heads of those ultimately
responsible,” it said.
“We in the IRPWA hold no such reservations. We point the finger at those
at the heart of the prison service headquarters whose policies led to
such a damning report.
“David Ford, the so called Justice Minister at Stormont, is equally
responsible as are all those constitutional politicians sitting in
Stormont who were fully informed of the issues yet failed to ensure that
real and radical change was brought about.”
However, the criticised the report’s “vague and limited” analysis of the
situation at Roe House.
“No mention of the core issues of controlled movement, strip searching
and the isolation of Republican Prisoners. No mention of the issues at
the heart of the complaints and judicial reviews initiated by Republican
Prisoners,” they said.
They also criticised the failure to examine the involvement of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, or the “malign influence” of
MI5 and the staff and management who work directly for them.
“Whatever the future may bring to Maghaberry Prison following on from
this report, one can rest assured that Maghaberry will always be in the
headlines until the issues identified by Republican Prisoners have been
resolved and Britain desists from its current prison policies which like
those it implemented in the past are doomed to failure.”
Posted by Jim on
The convictions against the Craigavon Two are on even shakier ground
after new details about key evidence was made public.
Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton are the subject of an ongoing
miscarriage of justice campaign after they were wrongly convicted of a
Continuity IRA attack in Craigavon in March 2009, in which a member of
the PSNI was killed.
It emerged this week that the gun allegedly used in the attack was
identified based only on remarks made by a vulnerable person following
three illegal interrogations.
Papers from a European court case reveal that the person in question,
referred to as ‘RE’, should not have been questioned in the absence of
an appropriate adult. It also appears that a supposedly private
conversation between ‘RE’ and his lawyer was illegally spied upon.
‘RE’ was initially charged with withholding information about the
attack, but these charges were subsequently dropped.
The details only emerged after a case was taken against the British
government over concerns that the PSNI was carrying out surveillance of
conversations between ‘RE’ and his lawyer.
It emerged that man was arrested and interrogated three times in the
weeks after the attack. Court papers reveal that before being seen by a
lawyer or appropriate adult, the man innocently asked to speak to the
PSNI “off the record”.
His lawyers brought a separate case on his behalf to the European Court
which this week found that secret surveillance carried out on lawyers
and their clients is in breach of European law.
During the first two periods of interrogation his lawyer received
assurances that consultations would not be subject to covert
surveillance. During a third arrest the PSNI refused to give an
assurance.
The court ruling found that the man’s Article Eight rights under the
European Court of Human Rights had been violated.
Nichola Harte, of Harte, Coyle, Collins Solicitors, who represented
‘RE’, said the ruling has wider implications.
“The European Court criticised the inadequate procedures currently in
place in Northern Ireland for the handling, use, storage and destruction
of information obtained from covert surveillance of legal
consultations,” she said.
“The police arrangements were and continue to be a violation of the
right to respect for private life.
“This landmark European ruling has implications for all legal
consultations in police stations if subjected to covert surveillance.”
Brendan McConville’s lawyer Darragh Mackin, of KRW Law, has written to
Crown prosecutors requesting notes taken during interrogations of ‘RE’
and asking what happened to the charges levelled against him.
Posted by Jim on November 4, 2015
MARTIN GALVIN
ATTORNEY AT LAW
903F SHERIDAN AVENUE
BRONX, NEW YORK, 10451
Reply to Ruth Dudley Edwards
Published BELFAST TELEGRAPH-November 3, 2015
Insults aimed at Irish-America a pathetic effort to pull veil over British misrule
A complaint was filed with the Independent Press Standards Organisation by Martin Galvin in relation to alleged references to him and Irish-Americans contained within an article by Ruth Dudley Edwards published in the Belfast Telegraph on January 26, 2015.
The newspaper rejects in its entirety any allegation that it has violated the Editors’ Code, but has agreed to publish the following article by Mr. Galvin in order to provide him with a right of reply and resolve the matter.
Imagine writing that British rule in Ireland was motivated solely by “hatred,” and Unionists supporting this “curse” could be labeled “ignorant, gullible or malign” or “typical of a particularly stupid strain”. Then claim that supporters of British forces “liked people to kill.” There would be a furious reaction to sentiments that seemed more bigotry than reasoned commentary.
Now apply those quoted words to the Irish leaders honored in 1916 commemorations, to American supporters of Irish independence or reunification from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, and then add Ms. Edwards’ insulting Irish-Americans while targeting me and readers may understand my indignation.
There is nothing new in British officials or apologists, blaming Irish Americans for civil rights protests or armed resistance to British rule. During my years as a National Director of the Irish Northern Aid Committee and Editor of the IRISH PEOPLE NEWSPAPER, British officials often resorted to this myth. It was designed to divert attention away from the inequities and injustices within British rule that were the real causes of conflict.
One typical illustration followed the murder of civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989. We charged British complicity and collusion in his murder in major protests and in Congress. The British Ambassador was outraged. He said the British government would never soil its hands with such misdeeds. Only misinformed Irish Americans would entertain such accusations. More than 20 years later, British secretary Owen Paterson apologized for collusion and the parts played in this murder by paid British Army and RUC agents.
Books and documentaries have exposed British collusion with loyalists in crimes back to the early 1970s, including 120 Glennane Gang murders and Dublin-Monaghan bombings. Irish-Americans were right, and decades ahead. British officials were misled or deliberately misled others.
Recently Martin McGuinness told reporter Eamonn Mallie, he had been “proud to be a member of the IRA.” Is it really plausible to suggest that those, including the Deputy First Minister of the British administration, who once fought to end British rule were not moved to do so by discrimination, or Internment or Bloody Sunday, but because Americans like me were aiding the families of Republican prisoners and highlighting injustice?
Ms Edwards takes this fiction to unprecedented extremes. Those who proclaimed an Irish Republic in her native Dublin in 1916 will be celebrated by millions for the Easter Rising which ultimately led to independence for 26 counties. Executed labour leader, James Connolly said of his British firing squad, “I will say a prayer for all brave men who do their duty according to their own lights.” Surely he and other leaders, who millions honour as patriots, deserve better than a sneering category “killed and died for hatred”
Ms. Edwards is correct that from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, there have been Americans who believed Ireland would be better served by independent Irish government than by British rule. Indeed she might have pointed to the beginning of that century and United Irishmen. They were proven right by British policies a half- century later, during the Great Hunger.
Their heirs in this generation marched the streets, flooded Congressional offices and Presidential forums until a Presidential candidate named Bill Clinton pledged in response to my question, that he would end visa censorship against Sinn Fein and put the north back on the American agenda. It is a proud legacy.
Certainly the commitment and contributions of Irish-Americans towards achieving a united Ireland may be unwelcome by some readers. I make no apology. Let us disagree in Connolly’s spirit, respecting others who do what they believe right according to their own differing lights. Would it not be “ignorant, gullible or malign” to do otherwise?
Posted by Jim on
PSNI looking bleak
Brian Feeney. Irish News(Belfast). Wednesday, November 4, 2015
A month ago on September 30 PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton announced a new recruitment drive for the police.
He told the BBC the PSNI wanted more women, more people from west of the Bann [the more Catholic area]“and finally we want more Catholics”.
Wrong order. Wrong priorities. Wrong message. The single most important requirement the PSNI has for new recruits is more Catholics be they men or women. Hamilton also said they wanted more people ‘from across the social divide’. Presumably by that he meant more working-class recruits. He should have said more working-class Catholic recruits, but Catholic recruits from anywhere, any class is the first priority. It wasn’t in his message.
This government ended 50/50 recruiting as recommended by the Patten commission in 2000. The proconsul [ NI Secretary of State] at the time, Owen Paterson, was the culprit, a purblind right-winger who just didn’t “get it” as far as The North was concerned and to prove it, wore a stupid plastic bracelet to show his support for the Royal Irish Regiment. It was Paterson who re-established links with the UUP which ended in the disastrous UCUNF joint candidates in the 2010 election. His undistinguished period in office here began the consistent Unionist bias that this government has repeatedly shown and maintains.
Paterson’s decision to end 50/50 recruiting was based on Unionist sentiment, certainly not on the evidence that the policing problem here was near solution. To top it off, it coincided in 2011 with the murder of Constable Ronan Kerr, not an event likely to produce a lot more Catholic recruits. None of that penetrated Patterson’s right-wing carapace.
Thankfully he was washed out of the cabinet in the summer floods of 2014.
We have now reached the stage where both the percentage and raw numbers of Catholics in the PSNI have declined, is declining and will continue to decline. It reached a peak of 30 per cent though it’s unclear whether that includes civilian staff in the PSNI as well as front-line police. However, what is worse is that we do know only 17 per cent of those applying are Catholic. Quite simply that arithmetic means in the present recruitment drive the total percentage of Catholics in the PSNI must decline further since in the absence of affirmative action a minimum of something like 80 per cent selected will probably be Protestant.
Furthermore the number of senior Catholic officers is vanishingly small since a large proportion of those who had struggled to near the top took early retirement under the Patten terms. That means hardly anyone among the top ranks has any connection with the Catholic community here which now constitutes around 45 per cent of the population.
It’s a no-brainer that to be successful a police service must look like the population it serves. There’s no need to labour the point but experience in the US and Britain amply illustrates it. The police are civilians in uniform entrusted with special powers by society. Society owns the police but not many Catholics in the north believe they own the PSNI.
The PSNI hasn’t done much to help Catholics and nationalists feel they own it. Re-hiring former RUC Special Branch members as agency workers in numbers wasn’t a great idea. Using former RUC members to vet documents for inquests into deaths they might previously have investigated, ridiculous redactions, ‘losing’ vital documents, unconscionable delays in providing documentation to the coroner and much more have sapped confidence.
The handling of loyalist paramilitaries as compared to former republicans seems to mirror Unionist attitudes, namely that the UVF and UDA aren’t really much of a threat. Their leaders can participate in a press conference, their names are widely known and they run organizations that are illegal, but hey, so what? Contrast the obvious fishing exercise after the killing of Kevin McGuigan leading to a score of arrests signifying nothing.
The PSNI has much to do to encourage Catholics to join but at present there’s not much in evidence. Abandoning 50/50 recruitment was a disastrous decision but the fact that the percentage of Catholics has peaked at 30 per cent and is falling demands radical action. Placing recruitment of Catholics as the last priority in a list does not indicate that senior PSNI officers grasp how serious a problem the imbalance is for a divided society.