Ken Livingstone

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    Did Thatcher sanction the Finucane murder? It is now up to PM Boris Johnson and his Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to order a full judicial inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane to establish whether or not Margaret Thatcher gave Sir Patrick Walker, Director-General of MI5, the green light to murder him.

    Update: this article was published in October 2019. One year later the British government has refused to carry out a judicial inquiry. One of the stated reasons is that the PSNI and Police Ombudsman are reviewing the case. However, no  review is about to take place. Patrick Finucane’s widow has responded by saying that “as long as there is breath” in her body she will continue to seek answers about her husband’s murder and that the decision by the British government was “quite a shock” and showed “startling arrogance at ignoring the highest court in the land”,  i.e. the UK Supreme Court which has ruled that an inquiry should take place. Mrs Finucane has also pointed out that Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, did not go into any detail about why the decision to refuse the inquiry was made. It  “does seem rather bizarre” she added  “that he [Lewis] is insisting the police [will investigate]” as the PSNI later issued a statement saying there is nothing new to investigate. The Police Ombudsman has no funding for a review. In any event such a review would be pointless and it is a judicial inquiry that is required. Clearly, there are other reasons Lewis and his boss Boris Johnson are blocking an inquiry. Village’s 2019 investigation addressed some of the issues the Tories, MI5 and other elements of the British Establishment are trying to suppress. That article starts here: Introduction: Margaret Thatcher and the cold-blooded murder of an Irish lawyer On 12 February, 1989, the UDA assassinated Patrick Finucane, a highly-regarded Belfast solicitor, at his North Belfast home. Finucane, who was 38-years-old, was shot 14 times by two masked UDA gunmen who sledgehammered their way into his house. His wife Geraldine was also injured during the attack which took place while the couple was enjoying a meal with their young family. In 2019 the Supreme Court in London ruled that the British Government had failed to investigate the murder properly. The only tenable reason for this is because the murder was organised by MI5, the intelligence service attached to the Home Office. A retired Canadian judge, Peter Cory, investigated the murder on behalf of the British State. During his inquiry MI5 officers broke into his office and stole some of the evidence he had accumulated. Cory also told Geraldine Finucane that he had seen a document relevant to her husband’s case which was marked  “for Cabinet eyes only”. Mrs Finucane knows no more. This raises the distinct possibility that her husband’s case was discussed in Whitehall in sinister circumstances before the murder. These revelations formed part of BBC NI’s compelling seven part Spotlight  series,  ‘The Secret History of the Troubles’. They have been ignored by the mainstream British media. Put simply, the finger of blame is now pointing at Margaret Thatcher. It now looks like she gave MI5 the green light to murder a perfectly respectable, law abiding lawyer. If Thatcher  and her circle did not order the murder, why are the Tory top brass so terrified of an inquiry? MI5 was led by Sir Patrick Walker at the time the assassination was planned and executed. If MI5 was involved, it is inconceivable he did not call  the shots – literally. When David Cameron was in 10 Downing Street he told the Finucane family that he could not order a public inquiry into the scandal. When Finucane’s brother Martin asked him why, he turned to Mrs Finucane and said: “Look, the last administration couldn’t deliver an inquiry in your husband’s case and neither can we”. According to Cameron this was because “there are people all around this place, [10 Downing Street], who won’t let it happen”. As he was saying this, he raised a finger and made a circular motion in the air. Theresa May, who was Cameron’s Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016, did not order a proper inquiry either when she took over at 10 Downing Street. The opportunity and duty to do the right thing and call one has passed to Theresa May’s successor, Boris Johnson, and his Home Secretary, Priti Patel. Yet, will they prove every bit as disdainful and corrupt as Blair, Cameron and May and continue the cover-up? Time is fast running out to hear what potentially key living  witnesses have to offer about the Finucane case. The list includes  Thatcher’s then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd. Born in March 1930, he published a 524 page autobiography in 2003.  Unfortunately, there is no entry under the word “Finucane” in its index. Village  offers him the freedom of this website to inform our readers about what he know about the case, most particularly anything about “cabinet eyes only” documents. The evidence that continues to accumulate points to the probability that Finucane, a skilful lawyer, was targeted by the British State because he had mastered the intricacies of the Diplock Court system in NI and was representing his clients to the best of his very considerable abilities. A lot of Provos were walking free from court. In the mind of Thatcher and others in London, he had to have been a Provo and his death warrant was approved. In these circumstances, the task of assassinating him was passed to Walker and his gang of cutthroats at MI5. However, Finucane was not a Provo. On the contrary, he represented both Republicans and Loyalists. Who ever heard of a Provo securing the freedom of the Loyalist enemy? Moreover, he was married to a Protestant. Finucane was perfectly innocent of any involvement with the IRA although he was vilified as a member after his death. Insofar as the UDA was concerned, the kill-order was issued by Tommy ‘Tucker’ Lyttle, the UDA’s ‘brigadier’ or commander in West Belfast. Ian Hurst, who served with the then top secret Force Reconnaissance Unit (FRU) of the British Army, has stated “with cast iron certainty” that Lyttle was a British agent who was “handled” by the RUC’s Special Branch (RUCSB) using the codename “Rodney Stewart”. Lyttle himself

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    John Imrie, MI5’s Flasher-General

    Village has learnt that John L.L. Imrie, formerly of MI5 and the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), died last summer without a whisper of his passing reaching the ears of the press. Imrie had the unique distinction of being the only British official ever linked to the Kincora Boys’ Home sex abuse scandal by name in the press during his lifetime. Imrie had served as an Assistant Secretary at the NIO in the early 1970s while the sexual abuse of boys at a number of homes in Northern Ireland including Kincora was rampant. Imrie did not provide evidence to the Hart Inquiry in 2016. Judge Hart, whose 2017 report is littered with factual inaccuracies, determined that MI5 had known nothing about the Kincora scandal until it was exposed by the media in January 1980. Imrie was one of many who – had he told the truth – could have put Hart straight. Privates on parade at victoria station Imrie was a convicted sex pest. In 1979 he went ‘cottaging’ in London, that is to say, looking for sex with random strangers in gentlemen’s lavatories. He was arrested at the gents at Victoria Station when, after an attempt to attract a sexual partner by displaying his genitals, he was charged with indecent exposure. The last thing MI5 needed in 1979 was a sordid scandal involving an MI5 officer who had served in Belfast. At this time the Kincora scandal was bubbling under the surface ready to erupt across National headlines. Howard Smith was D-G of MI5. He appreciated the full potential of the scandal because he had served as intelligence supremo in NI in the early 1970s when Imrie had been stationed in Belfast and the Kincora ‘honey trap’ operation was up and running. Two social workers had already provided details of the scandal to Peter McKenna of the Irish Independent. They had learnt about it from Richard Kerr, a resident at Kincora for whom they were responsible. Hence, Establishment pressure was exerted to drop the charges against Imrie for his performance at Victoria Station. The endeavour failed, proving yet again that MI5 is not always top dog when confronted by honest police officers and lawyers. Indeed, only last year we witnessed another example of this when the incorruptible Chief Constable of Wiltshire, Michael Veale, his Assistant Chief Constable Paul Mills, and their Operation Confier team reported that former British PM Edward Heath was a paedophile. (See Village October 2017.) The fact that Imrie was a figure whom Whitehall wanted to protect became public knowledge thanks to Private Eye magazine. On 17 August 1979 it reported that: “Up until the trial strong pressure was brought to bear by a variety of authorities to drop the charges in the national interest”. Ken Livingstone noticed a discrepancy in the way Imrie had been treated compared to the mauling Sir Maurice Oldfield had received after the exposure of his sexual predilections in 1980 Imrie was brought before the Magistrates’ Court at 70 Horseferry road, London, (now the City of Westminster Magistrates Court) where he pleaded not guilty to the charges preferred against him and submitted a preposterous defence maintaining that he had been caught short with a weak bladder and, fearing disastrous consequences on the train he intended to take at 11.10 to Sydneyham – which had no toilet – he had been compelled to display him- self to the gentlemen in the vicinity of the urinals. The presiding magistrate – another honourable individual who was prepared to do his job without fear or favour – concluded Imrie was lying since he had been arrested at 11.25, i.e. 15 minutes after the bladder-bursting train had departed. Imrie was convicted, conditionally discharged and ordered to pay £50 costs. Imrie was not the only senior intelligence officer arrested for misbehaviour in a public lavatory in London during this era. In 1984 Sir Peter Hayman, the reputed Deputy Chief of MI6, was also arrested for gross indecency, and convicted. Hayman was an abuser of Richard Kerr, details of which will be revealed in a later edition of Village. Sir Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess, another pair of paedophiles from the ranks of both MI5 and the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring, were also members in good standing of MI5’s cottaging circuit. Imrie’s conviction did not deflect the upward trajectory of his career. After Kincora was exposed in January 1980, the RUC set out to track down the child molesters involved, or at least some honest officers in the RUC tried to do so before they were stifled. At least they managed to question Imrie before the vice grip of the cover-up took a hold. Against this background, it is hardly unfair to ask if Imrie was a pederast (i.e. an abuser of teenage males), if not an outright paedophile himself. Why else would the RUC have made inquiries about him? The answers to these questions may be found lurking in the pages of Imrie’s personnel file which gathers dust somewhere in the vaults of MI5. During the 1970s the RUC Special Branch officers who helped Joseph Mains, the Warden of Kincora, run the operation on the ground, are rumoured to have maintained a secret library of files as insurance in case anyone ever tried to prosecute them for trafficking the children involved to their abusers. The RUC Special Branch library may still be in existence and, if so, undoubtedly has bulging files on Imrie and others such as Peter England, also formerly of the NIO. The Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse in London still has an opportunity to demand sight of Imrie’s personnel file and that of england but time is running out fast. a career shrouded in mystery Inevitably, a cloud of mystery hangs over Imrie’s career. A little speculation must be forgiven. Despite claims to the contrary, he probably never worked for the Ministry of Defence (MoD). References to him in the Civil Service Yearbooks during the 1980s as an MoD employee were probably nothing more than a cover

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