Who organised the Bloody Sunday massacre?

MPORTANT NEW evidence is emerging

about the covert activities of the Brit-

ish police in Northern Ireland during

the Troubles. One of f icer, ‘Sean Lynch’,

who infiltrated the Northern Ireland

Civil Rights Association may have precipi-

tated Bloody Sunday.

Recent revelations of the secret activities

of British police in the North make it

“imperative” that the Undercover Police

Inquiry (UCPI) now sitting in London is

extended to Northern Ireland, according to

Kate Nash whose brother was killed and

whose father was seriously wounded in the

Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry in Janu-

ary 1972 when members of the parachute

regiment opened f ire on a Nor thern Ireland

Civil Rights Association demonstration in

Derry.

“I was overjoyed that Saville found that

my brother and my father had been inno-

cent people out marching for civil rights”,

she said. “But I still want to know who was

ultimately responsible for the paratroopers

bursting onto our streets and shooting to

kill”.

“We knew that Northern Ireland was

crawling with MI5, MI6, Military Intelli-

gence, Special Branch, etc, around the time

of Bloody Sunday. Now it’s emerged

because of Jason Kirkpatrick’s case that

they weren’t the only ones”.

Kirkpatrick, a US environmental activist,

was monitored by a secret unit from the

Metropolitan Police Force in the mid-2000s

because of his involvement in the anti-glo-

balisation campaign. Kirkpatrick had been

under sur veillance in Belfast and Britain by

an officer from the National Public Order

Intelligence Unit known as Mark Kennedy

who among other unsavoury betrayals for

six years dated a woman he was covertly

monitoring. Seven women were compen-

sated for the deception, by five officers

from two undercover units over a 25-year

period starting in the late 1980s.

Another campaigner, Kim Bryan has said

she went to Belfast in 2005 with Mark Ken-

nedy at his suggestion.

"Mark Kennedy organised the travel – he

paid for the trip and we went in his vehicle

2 0

July-August 2018

Who organised the Bloody

Sunday massacre?

After evidence emerges of a covert British

police unit operating in NI and of police

inﬁltrations of campaigns dating back to

1970, it is time to reopen all the inquiries to

see whether covert British police ofﬁcer ‘Mark

Duffy’ arranged for the parachute regiment to

run amok in 1972

lambs

NEWS

By Eamonn McCann

July-August 2018

2 1

so he drove us around Ireland when he

came to visit”, she said.

"We did three events in total when we

were in Belfast.

"I don't know exactly what he was doing,

but I suspect he used the opportunity to

spy on activists in Ireland – in Belfast and

Dublin and in County Clare where we were.

I suspect that information was fed back

to his superiors, but again, I think what's

highly problematic is that we would not

have gone to Ireland if Mark Kennedy had

not paid for us to go to Ireland”.

Jason Kirkpatrick, said he also accompa-

nied Mark Kennedy to Belfast where they

ran anti-globalisation events.

He said one was at a bar in University

Street and another was at a church in the

Holyland area that offered its premises at

the time to various groups involved in com-

munity work.

In the High Court in Belfast in February

last year Kirkpatrick was given the go-

ahead to bring judicial review proceedings

against a ruling by the current inquiry into

covert policing confining its investigations

to events in England and Wales, and so

omitting the North.

The Inquiry was set up in March 2015 by

then Home Secretary Theresa May after it

had emerged that officers from the Metro-

politan Police’s Special Demonstration

Squad had formed relationships and even

fathered children with members of political

groups which they had inf iltrated. The unit,

and/or its predecessor, the Special Demon-

stration Squad (SDS), had also spied on at

least a dozen justice campaigns, including

the family-led campaign on the racist

murder of black teenager Stephen Law

rence in 1993.

The inquiry is aired by Sir John Mitting,

replacing Sir Christopher Pitchford, who

resigned in May last year after having

been diagnosed with motor neurone dis-

ease He died in October.

“It seems there has been no fundamen-

tal change”, says Kate Nash. “When the

State kills its citizens, it has to be held

to account. I want the full truth, includ-

ing how far up the military and political

chain responsibility goes. Jason Kirkpat-

rick is likewise entitled to the truth”.

In July 2014, an earlier inquiry – by the

police - into the allegations of misbehav-

iour by clandestine police, headed by

Derbyshire chief constable Mick Creedon,

reported that, in addition to the Lawrence

family, 17 other campaigns may have been

inf iltrated or disrupted between 1970 and

2005. These concerned deaths at the

hands of police or in police custody or

after contact with the police, or related

to murders which, it was claimed, had not

been properly investigated by the police.

Apart from Stephen Lawrence, the cases

included the deaths of Cherry Groce,

Rolan Adams, Wayne Douglas, Harry Stan-

ley, John Charles de Menezes, Joy Gardner,

Michael Menson and more.

In a related development,

The Times

reported in June that an undercover SDS

agent, “Sean Lynch”, had, between 1968

and 1974, targeted organisations active

in the early days of the Troubles, includ-

ing the Northern Ireland Civil Rights

Association. Darragh Macken of Belfast

law firm KLR Law, which represents both

Kirkpatrick and a number of the Bloody

Sunday families, told the

Times

“The period falls squarely into the time

that NICRA was organising the Bloody

Sunday march.

This is an element of undercover work

that has fallen completely under the

radar. The legacy investigations into the

Troubles have been effectively operating

with one eye closed. This could have

implications for other legacy investiga-

tions, including the Saville Inquiry into

Bloody Sunday”.

In 2015 the PSNI told the BBC the National

Public Order Intelligence Unit "did not oper-

ate in Northern Ireland".

At the same time, a spokesperson for the

Met said, when asked if the unit worked in

Northern Ireland, "we neither confirm nor

deny".

Calls for extension of the UCPI to the

Nor th have come from Amnesty, two former

Northern Ireland Ministers for Justice, David

Ford and Claire Sugden, and many others.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland

has also expressed concern. Two years ago,

af ter details of the British undercover oper-

ations in the North had become public,

Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton

told the Policing Board that the PSNI had

been “completely blind” to the fact that

undercover British units had been operat-

ing in the North, much less what they had

been up to. He described their posting to

the North as “madness”.

“All we know is what we didn't know –

that they were here”.

Kate Nash says: "Even after 12 years of

the Bloody Sunday inquiry and expenditure

of close on £200m, potentially crucial evi-

dence was missed, or deliberately hidden.

The same seems to be happening again.I

want to know whether ‘Sean Lynch’ played

any part in Bloody Sunday”.

Kirkpatrick commented: “I was under

surveillance in Northern Ireland and in

Britain. The inquir y cannot omit the Nor th

from its remit. If they hid ‘Sean Lynch’

from the Saville Inquiry, I wonder what

they are now hiding from the UCPI”.

The inquiry had been expected to com-

plete its work this year, but has been

delayed, mainly by applications for ano-

nymity by police witnesses.

Its report is not now expected until

2020.

“We knew that Northern Ireland was crawling with MI5, MI6, Military

Intelligence, Special Branch, etc., around the time of Bloody

Sunday. Now it’s emerged because of Jason Kirkpatrick’s case that

they weren’t the only ones…there were British police too”

A 2014 police inquiry into the allegations of misbehaviour by

clandestine police reported that, in addition to the Lawrence family,

17 other campaigns may have been inﬁltrated or disrupted between

1970 and 2005

Mark Kennedy, shady