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A Foul Unfinished Business. The shortcomings of, and plots against, Saville’s Bloody Sunday Inquiry.

by admin 24 July, 2021

By David Burke. 1. 50-year Concerted Cover-up. The British government’s determination to absolve all British soldiers involved in killings during the Troubles means that there are now precious few opportunities to get to the bottom of what really happened during the Ballymurphy massacre and on Bloody Sunday. The Bloody Sunday cover-up went into high gear in April 1972 with the report by the duplicitous Freemason and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Widgery. See: Mission accomplished. The unscrupulous judge who covered-up the Bloody Sunday murders. Soldier F and other paratroopers have been protected by the British State for five decades. None of them now face prosecution. This perversion of justice began with the connivance of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, John Widgery, a former British Army brigadier, Freemason and oath-breaker. 2. A stab in the back: the Ministry of Defence’s charade of sympathy while waging a secret black propaganda campaign of vilification. Widgery’s report was condemned as a whitewash around the globe, something that forced the grey-suited gnomes in Whitehall to plot a course correction within two years of its publication. This involved a pretence at sympathy for the relatives of the 14 murder victims of Bloody Sunday. The charade manifested itself in December 1974 when the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced that it was going to pay out £41,500 to the families of those killed in Derry as a gesture of “conciliation and goodwill”. Slyly, while this was taking place, a cohort of black propagandists were vilifying the victims of the massacre. The smear campaign was led by Hugh Mooney, T. E. Utley, Brian Crozier and the smearmeisters of the sinister Information Research Department (IRD) of the Foreign Office. The money spent on the various smear campaigns was probably a multiple of the cynical token gesture afforded to the families. The policy of carrot and smear was not a success and the issue remained an open wound. The relatives’ families pressed ahead with a campaign for justice assisted by an array of activists, artists, lawyers, politicians, authors and journalists. Finally, in January 1998, Tony Blair announced a fresh inquiry to be led by Lord Saville of Newdigate. Blair stated that Widgery had rushed his work, had failed to take evidence from the wounded and had not read the eyewitness accounts personally. 3. A cynical prediction about the likely outcome of the Saville Inquiry. Tom Hayden, a Californian State Senator and former anti-war movement leader, who has studied state-sponsored cover-ups, predicted in 1998 that: “The more cynical analysis of the new Bloody Sunday inquiry under Lord Saville is that it will become another exercise in damage control, with perhaps some new drops of truth leaking out. In this scenario, the innocence of the victims will be reaffirmed once more and responsibility for the shooting lodged with an isolated “rogue” element of the army. Any inference of knowledge, complicity, or accountability at higher echelons will be rejected. A further apology will be offered, compensation paid, and perhaps a memorial constructed. As American cover-up and damage-control specialists would say, “let us bottom this up and get it behind us”. [1] 4. The MoD plots to deny Saville access to witnesses. The Ministry of Defence plotted to thwart Saville from the start. Author Anthony Verrier submitted a statement to Saville warning him that: “I know several members of the Parachute Regiment. One particular member of the Battalion in question who was present in Derry on Bloody Sunday was a mature student on one of my courses. I discussed Bloody Sunday with him. My understanding from him was that the soldiers had been instructed not to assist the Inquiry. This student told me that he had received a letter from the MoD which said he would be provided with legal advice should he wish to make a statement to the Inquiry but he was advised not to. He did not want to be involved in the Inquiry and did not want to give evidence. I am not sure if he has made a statement to the Inquiry“. [2] 5. Murder as material for comedy. Soldier Cleary, also known as “Soldier F” shot Patrick Doherty in the buttock while he was on the ground crawling away from him. As he lay crying out in pain, Barney McGuigan stepped forward with a white handkerchief looking to help Doherty. Cleary dropped to one knee, aimed his rifle and shot McGuigan in the head. All of the victims of Bloody Sunday were shot in cold blood. None of them posed any sort of a threat to the elite soldiers of Support Company of 1 Para who slaughtered them. Behind closed door, the civil servants at the MoD had little more than disdain for the victims. They gave the game away when, in 1999, Saville asked them about the whereabouts of the rifles which had been discharged on Bloody Sunday, i.e. the murder weapons which had extinguished the lives of 14 people. This sparked an internal email stating: “The Bloody Sunday Inquiry are after records (if any) of what happened to the Bloody Sunday weapons .. On Tuesday the Battle of Hastings Inquiry will want to find the longbow which put Harold’s eye out!”. [3] An email of such depravity could hardly have been circulated as a joke if the employees at the MoD had an ounce of respect or sympathy for the 14 victims, the many wounded, their distraught relatives and the people of Derry. 6. The MoD secures the anonymity of the Bloody Sunday trigger men Saville made his introductory statement at Derry Guildhall on 3 April 1999. Oral hearings began on 27 March 2000, with an opening speech by Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the Inquiry. The first witness took the stand on 28 November 2000. The tribunal ruled in December 1998 that the soldiers of 1 Para would be named, save in exceptional cases. The Ministry of Defence appealed this ruling to the Court of Appeal which

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The Libyan weapons trail: How Gaddafi armed the IRA.

by admin 23 July, 2021

By Deirdre Younge Kingsberry case The High Court in Belfast granted permission in early July for the family of a former member of the UDA, William Kingsberry – shot dead in 1991, to sue Libya for supplying the assault rifle used by the IRA unit that killed him. New approach The Kingsberry case, which is civil not criminal, is a new approach to gaining compensation for those killed or injured by Libyan-supplied matériel – and will be the first of many. The PSNI initially refused to confirm that Libyan-supplied Semtex was used in explosions after 1986; but a case brought by Belfast solicitors KRWLaw in Belfast on behalf of a number of victims has established the link to the AKM rifle used in the 1991 Kingsberry case. The Kingsberry case creates a precedent for many other victims. Many were killed or injured in bombs made with the powerful Czechoslovakian-manufactured but Libyan-supplied semtex explosive which was used in massive bomb and mortar attacks. The massive increase in lethal bombings fuelled with semtex created hundreds of victims killed or maimed after 1986. The first so-called ‘spectacular’ was the explosion at the Remembrance Day service in Enniskillen in November 1987 which left eleven dead and others with horrific injuries, causing shock and revulsion. According to Irish Government documents Gerry Adams believed it was an IRA own goal. It also came at a time when Adams was building up Sinn Féin, the political wing of the movement, and there were tentative moves towards talks. RUC woman Colleen McMurray was murdered in 1991 when a mortar boosted by semtex was fired at the police car in which she was travelling in Newry. The 1996 Docklands bombings in London were ignited by semtex. It was also used by so called ‘Dissidents’ to make the Banbridge bomb and the devastating Omagh bomb in 1998. Victims of all these atrocities are pushing for recognition and compensation. British Government reluctance So far, the British Government has refused to directly compensate victims of IRA Libyan-supplied weapons and semtex explosives out of the former overthrown leader General Muammaur Gaddafi’s funds, long frozen in British banks. It also refuses to publish a report it commissioned on the issue of compensation, from ex-journalist and member of the Charity Commission, William Shawcross. Action in Northern Ireland Actions in Northern Ireland are aimed at the British-Government-controlled funds in the UK. In 2011 Solicitor Jason McCue, who represents victims of the post-ceasefire Docklands bombings of 1996 and who acted for the Omagh Bomb relatives in their compensation case, obtained a letter from the Transitional Libyan Government. It’s not clear what weight the letter carries. The issue of compensating victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland has been mired in an argument about definitions. In the case of Libya it’s also entangled with the long and murky history of the various intelligence services’ involvement in Libya and the fractured politics post-Gaddafi. Libya Whether the post-Gaddafi state, weak and divided, should be expected to pay reparations may be moot but that is by no means the case with the interest now accruing to the British Government from Gaddafi funds in UK banks which could, in practice, be used to compensate victims. Sovereign Wealth Fund The new Libyan Prime Minister, Abdelhamid Dabaiba, has reportedly reached a deal with the Chairman of the country’s Sovereign Wealth Fund – the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) – Ali Mahmoud Hassan, whereby Dabaiba will receive €1 billion via the Central Bank of Libya for his cash-strapped Government. The deal shows the central importance in general terms of the Libyan fund and that the key is its control by Hassan, a former Gaddafi ally. Bahraini bank According to the French-based Africa Intelligence the LIA is sourcing the funds from CBL’s Bahraini subsidiary, ABC Bank. Most of the LIA’s assets abroad, amounting to billions of dollars, have been frozen since sanctions were imposed on Gaddafi. Gaddafi investments in UK and Ireland Gaddafi invested in everything from Pearson Inc to RBS to office blocks to villages he liked when he went on sovereign visits. It has been alleged there is €1.5billion in Irish banks. There is around £11 billion in frozen Gaddafi-era funds in banks in the UK from which the British Government receives substantial interest payments. It is from these assets in British Banks that lawyers will try to source the money for a compensation fund. The Libyan Government itself has been without a budget since March. Caught up in the internal politics of Libya and competing loyalties of politicians, some loyal to General Haftar the former Gaddafi-era exile and ‘warlord’ are making their support conditional on appointment of Haftar allies from the east of the country, to strategic positions. The Sovereign Fund is at the centre of allegations of the embezzlement of billions of dollars during the Gaddafi era. The Prime Minister himself has taken control of the Libyan Asset Recovery and Management Office [LARMO] in an effort to keep control of investigations into corruption in various state organisations. [Africa Intelligence, 02/07/2021] Hassan was in control of some of the organisations in question during the Gaddafi era and he is also the focus of scrutiny by the international community including the US State Department, for the lack of transparency in management of the Libyan Wealth Fund. It’s in this tangled atmosphere of competing interests and loyalties that the issue of compensation plays out. After Gaddafi The disastrous lack of preparation for the aftermath of the fall of the Gaddafi regime, by the UK and France in particular, left Libya divided in four between a powerless internationally recognised Government of National Accord; General Haftar – a returned exile from the US, who has shifting and tenuous control of the valuable oil fields; the so called Tobruk administration; and various militias both Islamic and other. Al Qaeda has a presence in the desert regions. Despite promises made by the Government of National Accord, the administration in Tripoli, it is questionable if the present Government could implement

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A murky affair: the Garda made no progress into the IRA murder of Tom Oliver until an intervention by Drew Harris, then with the PSNI, now Garda Commissioner.

by admin 19 July, 2021

By Deirdre Younge. Tom Oliver, a farmer from Riverstown, on the Cooley peninsula, was kidnapped, interrogated and murdered by the IRA in July 1991. They alleged he was a Garda informant. The murder by the IRA’s punishment squad didn’t only cause devastation for his family but split the tight-knit community in which he lived. IRA men living in the area were ostracised and barred from local pubs and GAA clubs while gardaí were told to stay away from the area. The Garda were attacked for their failure to protect Mr Oliver who had given information to them about IRA weapons found on his land. Local IRA men were believed to have been strongly opposed to the murder of the popular family man but were reportedly overruled by Belfast leaders. Oliver was abducted by a group which included FRU/ MI5 agent Kevin Fulton aka Peter Keeley and there are allegations that Freddie Scappaticci was among those who carried out the interrogations though he has denied it. Keeley gave a vivid description of the night Oliver was snatched and named some of those allegedly involved, at the Smithwick Tribunal in December 2011. Drew Harris the present Garda Commissioner, then PSNI Head of Legacy, arrived at the Smithwick Tribunal in October 2012 with “new and of the moment” intelligence that a garda who had not been identified to the Smithwick Tribunal after years of private and public investigations was the ‘colluder’ who had betrayed Oliver to the IRA. Operation Kenova took up Oliver’s case and has discovered new DNA evidence. Oliver’s battered body was found a day later in Belleeks, Co Armagh. The Oliver case has been investigated and reinvestigated by the Garda in Dundalk. The latest reinvestigation just completed has found multiple flaws in the handling of the case. Operation Kenova under Jon Boutcher took the Oliver case as part of its remit. It has now apparently found new evidence after DNA analysis was done on clothing, which appears to advance the case. The Tom Oliver case became a central issue in the Smithwick Tribunal in Dublin which reported in 2013. FRU (British military intelligence), Special Branch and MI5 agent and informer Kevin Fulton whose real name is Peter Keeley described what he called the “abduction” of Tom Oliver, in his evidence. He gave a vivid description of the night of the abduction and of how Oliver was carried in the boot of a car to his interrogators. The cross-examining barrister, Jim O’Callaghan, acting for Garda Owen Corrigan, said of the evidence – “you are describing the last moments of a man’s life”. Keeley was the driver for the IRA’s ‘Nutting Squad’ on the night Tom Oliver was kidnapped and took him to his final destination. Keeley as Fulton also implicated Fred Scappaticci in Tom Oliver’s interrogation at Smithwick. Scappaticci got legal representation to deny both that he was involved in Oliver’s murder and that he was Agent Stakeknife! See also: Investigation: Killusion The present Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, as Head of Legacy in the PSNI, had a crucial role at Smithwick as the gatekeeper for intelligence and information from the various UK Security Services. He made a last- minute dramatic intervention to present intelligence emanating from M15, of the involvement of a garda who had not been identified to the Tribunal, in setting up Oliver for murder. No name has so far emerged. Drew Harris also named the senior IRA figure he claimed had ordered that Tom Oliver be shot. See also: How Drew Harris diverted the Smithwick Tribunal. Operation Kenova and Chief Superintendent Jon Boutcher are interviewing former Gardai and others who may have evidence or intelligence about Tom Oliver’s abduction and murder. Mr Oliver was taken from near his home in Castlecarra Cooley late on the evening of the 18th July while tending cattle. His interrogation, carried out by the Internal Security Squad, was finally ‘adjudicated’ on by a senior member of the Army Council who arrived at a ‘safe house’ in Cooley after breaking off a holiday. He is believed to have overruled the local IRA officer commanding and decided that Tom Oliver must be shot. He was then transported into South Armagh where his battered body was found the next day. Will Operation Kenova and Jon Boutcher finally achieve justice for Tom Oliver and his family? OTHER STORIES ABOUT GARDA-RUC-PSNI AFFAIRS ON THIS WEBSITE BY DEIRDRE YOUNGE: How Drew Harris diverted the Smithwick Tribunal. Nailing Harry Breen Investigation: Killusion Drew Harris Drawn in. SMITHWICK’s SECRET WITNESS MI5 FLIES A FALSE FLAG. New DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson alleged that a Garda mole was involved in the IRA murder of two RUC officers.

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Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Bloody Sunday with the actions of paratroopers in Belfast in August 1971. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enemy.

by admin 17 July, 2021

By David Burke. 1. “No other perpetrator involved would be given anonymity, for some reason Soldier F is a protected species”. In the last week, Colum Eastwood MP, the Leader of the SDLP, named ‘Soldier F’, in the House of Commons, under privilege. ‘Soldier F’ had faced murder charges for his actions on Bloody Sunday which had been dropped. The world now knows that former Lance Corporal Cleary is ‘Soldier F’. He is a small man who joined the Parachute Regiment in 1966. Eastwood said that, “For 50 years he has been granted anonymity and now the government want to grant him an amnesty. No one involved in murder during the Troubles should be granted an amnesty.” After his speech, Eastwood told BBC NI that: “Over the past couple of weeks his name has been plastered on Free Derry Corner, it has gone viral on social media. The people of Derry know his name. There is no reason for him to be granted anonymity. No other perpetrator involved would be given anonymity, for some reason Soldier F is a protected species.” The Speaker of the Commons has confirmed that Eastwood did not abuse parliamentary privilege in naming Cleary. 2. David Cleary’s Killing Spree. On Bloody Sunday in January 1972 Cleary was conveyed into the Bogside at speed in a Saracen vehicle or “pig”. He and his colleagues leapt out of it and took up positions behind a low wall adjacent to a ramp on Kells Walk from where they shot Michael Kelly. Kelly was unarmed and standing at a nearby rubble barricade, a threat to no one. Cleary and three of his colleagues, Corporal E, Private G, Private H, [the EFGH unit] moved into Glenfada Park North, where their killing spree continued. The Saville Inquiry found that Cleary or Private H shot William McKinney dead; also that this unit was responsible for the shot that wounded Joe Mahon, and that either Cleary or Private G fired the shot that wounded Joe Friel. Saville opined that the EFGH unit also murdered William Wray, injured Joe McMahon, Joe Friel, Michael Quinn and Patrick O’Donnell, and possibly injured Daniel Gillespie. There was no excuse for their behaviour. According to Saville: “In our view none of the soldiers fired in the belief that he might have identified a person in possession of or using or about to use bombs or firearms.” Saville also found that: “The last gunfire casualties were Bernard McGuigan, Patrick Doherty, Patrick Campbell and Daniel McGowan, all shot in the area to the south of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats within a very short time of each other. We are sure that Lance Corporal F [i.e. Cleary] fired at and shot Bernard McGuigan and Patrick Doherty, and it is highly probable that he was also responsible for shooting the other two casualties. This soldier fired across Rossville Street from the Rossville Street entrance way into Glenfada North”. Cleary was a cruel, cynical and clinical killer. He shot Patrick Doherty in the buttock while he was on the ground crawling away from him. As Doherty lay crying out in pain, his life draining away from him, Barney McGuigan, an exceptionally brave and humane man, stepped forward with a white handkerchief looking to help Doherty. Cleary dropped to one knee, aimed his rifle and shot McGuigan in the head. Cleary was a cruel, cynical and clinical killer. He shot Patrick Doherty in the buttock while he was on the ground crawling away from him. As Doherty lay crying out in pain, his life draining away from him, Barney McGuigan, an exceptionally brave and humane man, stepped forward with a white handkerchief looking to help Doherty. Cleary dropped to one knee, aimed his rifle and shot McGuigan in the head. 3. A Pat on the Back: mentioned in despatches. Cleary was “mentioned in dispatches” for confronting the enemies of the Queen in the London Gazette in February 1972. This was a few weeks after Bloody Sunday. The citation was for his alleged courage in Belfast the previous August 1971. The odds are astronomically high that Cleary was one of those involved in the shooting of unarmed and innocent civilians in what became known as the Ballymurphy massacre. It is now beginning to look like Cleary and a group of paratroopers attached to the Support Company of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment (1 Para) were identified, recruited and groomed to carry out the extermination of civilians in any circumstance, including on occasions when they posed no threat to the British Army. The man in charge of Cleary and his comrades was Colonel Derek Wilford. He is on record as having said that all Catholics support the IRA. Thus, to kill a Catholic was tantamount to killing a supporter or member of the IRA. That attitude was undoubtedly shared by Cleary and others in 1 Para. The contempt and disdain they had for Catholics became grotesquely manifest in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday. Wilford reported to Brigadier (later General) Frank Kitson. Of the pair, Kitson is the far more significant. First, he was the superior officer. Second, Wilford did not take over command of 1 Para until July 1971 by which time the soldiers of 1 Para had been engaged in countless violent confrontations with civilians in Belfast. (The murderous violence of 1 Para did, however, gather momentum after Wilford’s appointment.) Third, Kitson had disclosed the technique of terrorising a community which harboured insurgents in his infamous book ‘Low Intensity Operations’. An analysis which makes sense of what took place in Ballymurphy from a British Army counterinsurgency perspective – and which is based on the content of ‘Low Intensity Operations’ – can be found at: Brigadier Kitson’s motive for murdering unarmed civilians in Ballymurphy. From the standpoint of the British Army, Kitson’s book should never have been published. However, the author was entitled to 50% of the royalties of the sale thereof and this may account for the indiscretion of publishing