Dramatic new evidence has come to light which casts fresh doubt on the impartiality of the Widgery Inquiry which the British Government set up in February 1972 to investigate the deaths of 13 unarmed civilians in Derry following an anti- internment march in Derry on Sunday, 30 January 1972. In its lead news item on this Friday's evening news bulletin (17 Jan), Channel 4 claimed that the late Lord Widgery, then the Lord Chief Justice of England, chose not to consider a mass of civilian evidence, including tape recordings of military radio conversations, which would have seriously undermined the evidence presented by the British Army. Channel 4 is regarded by many as the most authoritative news on British Television.
The evidence coincides with a new book which brings together much of the civilian evidence which was gathered by the National Council for Civil Liberties (now named Liberty), the London-based civil liberties organisation. In his book, entitled Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, Don Mullan shows that a substantial body of civilian evidence points to the fact that there was a British Army gunman on the city walls at the time soldiers from the Parachute Regiment were shooting civilians. This was confirmed to Channel 4 by a former British soldier who was on the City Walls at the time. The former British soldier also confirmed that this sniper fired three shots from the walls at demonstrators. Medical evidence confirms that three of those killed on Bloody Sunday, Michael McDaid, William Nash and John Young, could only have been killed by shots fired from the City Walls. Further evidence of a British Army gunman on the City Walls, is confirmed by tape recordings of military communications made at the time by a radio ham who worked in William Street. These show that the commander of the Parachute Regiment was aware of the existence of the British Army sniper.
In what is potential the most damning piece of evidence presented by Channel Four is a newly discovered memo from senior British civil servants at the time the inquiry was taking place which confirms that Widgery saw his prime duty to be to exonerate British soldiers and blame instead the demonstrators rather than to impartially seek the truth. The memo states that the Widgery Tribunal "will pile up the case against the deceased...but will conclude that he cannot find with certainty that any one of 13 was a gunman."
Don Mullan's book will be officially launched this Tuesday in Derry. Further new evidence which will confirm the extent to which Widgery chose to exclude crucial evidence from his inquiry which pointed to the guilt of the British Army will be revealed on Thursday, 30 January, the 25th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday killings. On that date the new Bloody Sunday Trust will be launched. The Pat Finucane Centre intends to post the new evidence on the internet as the same time as the launch is taking place in Derry.
Patrick Mayhew, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has refered the case of Paratrooper Lee Clegg back to the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. Lee Clegg, a member of the British Parachute Regiment, was convicted of the murder of Karen Reilly, a teenager who was shot dead by Clegg and other members of the Parachute Regiment. Clegg was released after having served only two years of a life sentence following a high profile campaign led by members of the Parachute Regiment and right wing British tabloid newspapers. It is claimed that new forensic evidence will show that it was another member of the British Army foot patrol who actually killed Karen Reilly
Public reaction in the North to the announcement has been universally hostile. Both Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein President and Dr Joe Hendron, MP for West Belfast, have condemned the decision. In a report in the Irish Times Adams is quoted as saying that it was 'yet another example, in a long line of others, of the cavalier attitude of the British Government to the Irish people killed by its armed forces."
A statement on the case issued by the Pat Finucane Centre said that "Lee Clegg is entitled like anyone else to have his case heard by the Court of Appeal if indeed there is fresh evidence. But the alacrity with which this case has been refered to the Court of Appeal contrasts sharply with the reluctance of the British Government to refer other cases to the Court of Appeal. We note the continued delay in refering the case of Danny McNamee to the Appeal court, nevermind the famous cases of the past such as the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. It is another example, as was Clegg's early release, of how the British Government operates different standards for Irish people to those it applies to its soldiers. Nor should it be forgotten that the main evidence against Clegg at his trial was provided by an RUC officer who was part of the foot patrol in West Belfast and who witnessed the killing of Karen Reilly by the British paratroopers."
Sectarian attacks on the home of Catholics living in Derry's Waterside district have continued. One of the attacks was at the home of former Irish League footballer Terry Leake. This is the second time that Mr Peake and his family have been attacked by Loyalist petrol bombers. The petrol bombing, which occured in the early hours of Tuesday morning (14 January), was the third such attack on Catholic homes in the area and caused damage to their downstairs living room. The Peake family were saved by the prompt action of their Protestant neighbours. In a rare show of agreement the attacks have been condemned by the DUP, Sinn Fein and the Anglican Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, James Mehaffey. Since the attack the Housing Executive has confirmed that three Catholic families have requested house transfers.
A Catholic RUC officer has been transferred from west Belfast to Crossmaglen following complaints he made to the Irish News, a Belfast morning newspaper. The burden of his complaints to the newspaper was that Catholic RUC officers were being deliberately overlooked when it came to the allocation of overtime and that he had had religious tracts and an Orange collarette left in his locker during the Drumcree crisis in July. The RUC officer at the centre of the dispute was based at the Grosvenor Road RUC barracks. This was the barracks where a solicitor was recently assaulted by an RUC officer as she visited a client and who was then physically removed from the station "for her own safety" (RUC statement).
A recently published academic study which was carried out by a Protestant researcher (Graham Ellison) based at the University of Ulster found that many RUC officers held strong sectarian attitudes towards both Catholic RUC officers as well as towards the nationalist community in general. His study found that hostility towards Catholic officers was "very, very common."
Mayor of Derry, Richard Dallas, an Ulster Unionist councillor, has been told by the Director of Public Prosecutions that he is to stand trial for his part in two protests last July in Derry in support of the Orangemen at Drumcree. According to the Irish News Dallas will face four charges under public order and road traffic legislation. Since he took part in the demonstrations in support of the Orange Order Dallas was stripped of all mayoral trappings by the SDLP and Sinn Fein.
Meanwhile two members of the Apprentice Boys' of Derry, a
loyalist
parading organisation of which Mayor Dallas is also a member,
were
convicted in the Magistrates Court in Derry following incidents
in the
city. Both men, William Young and David Semple, neither of whom
is from Derry
were found guilty of separate offences. Young, a marshall on the
parade,
was found guilty of striking a man who was trying to cross the
road.
Semple was given a suspended jail sentence and fined £200 for
throwing
missiles at police lines and towards the nationalist Bogside area
in
August. This is in marked contrast with the jail sentences
imposed on
nationalists convicted of such behaviour.
Return to Contents List.
The Northern Ireland's Women's Coalition, which had two members elected to the Northern Ireland Forum in the May elections, has supported the campaign to release Roisin McAliskey, eldest daughter of Bernadette McAliskey, on compassionate bail. In a statement the Women's Coalition stated that "independent medical reports on Roisin McAliskey state that her pregnancy is being complicated, not only by her digestive and muscular disorder and stress related asthma, but also by her current prison conditions.
"High security female prisoners are not normally sent to Holloway, (a women's prison in London) so Roisin McAliskey is being held in isolation. What this means is that emergency medical facilities can only become available to her after the mobilisation of special security staff. Ms McAliskey is clearly not getting the proper medical care appropriate to her condition."
The Women's Coalition also condemned the practice of strip- searching even when prisoners like Roisin did not have contact with their visitors. "We find this procedure particularly abhorrent in the case of a woman who is five months pregant. This is clearly a woman's issue. In 1982 in Northern Ireland a miscarriage was attributed to the distress experienced by a female prisoner who was strip-searched prior to an ante- natal visit. Medical practitioners have to be concerned at the outcome of such a procedure in relation to both their patient's welfare and that of the baby."
The Women's Coalition also stated their worries about Roisin's transfer to an all-male prison for several days last month. "The suffragettes at the beginning of the century worked tirelessly to expose the inhumanity of prison conditions. As we approach the next century, the Women's Coalition feels that we too have a duty to expose the conditions under which women prisoners are being kept. We in the coalition are deeply concerned about the well-being of this young woman and ask for an urgent reconsideration of her bail application."
It is expected that Roisin McAliskey's legal team will be arguing that Germany has no right to extradite Roisin because, under the European Convention articles, it refuses to extradite its own nationals. It is significant that the Irish Minister of Justice, Nora Owen, accepted this argument on Tuesday (14 Jan) when she released James Corry who was alleged to have been a member of the IRA unit wanted by the German authorities in connection with a mortar attack in Osnabruck.
In a statement issued by Bernadette McAliskey, mother of Roisin, she stated that "The German are not entitled to ask any of the European countries to extradite their own nationals from their own country. Therefore Germany in seeking the extradition of my daughter, in failing to provide any support papers until the last minute and in failing to provide anything more than the most questionable evidence on the charge, had no right to ask for her in the first place."
Visit PFC's
Roisin Page
or
Return to Contents List.
Conflicting messages have been emerging from church leaders as to whether any progress has been made in trying to resolve the situation in Portadown which last year and the year before led to the infamous Drumcree stand offs. Archbishop Robin Eames, the head of the Church of Ireland whose diocese includes Portadown, is reported as being "very hopeful" that a compromise can be found between the Portadown Orangemen and the residents of the Garvaghy Road. He said that he had been involved in exploratory talks with the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition and the Orange Order. However this statement was virtually contradicted today (19 Jan) when the President of the Methodist Church the Rev Kenneth Best, a minister who is based in Derry, said on the BBC that there were no discussions taking place on the Portadown situation and that he feared that unless some progress was made soon then Ireland could be slipping towards civil war.
There were further Loyalist demonstrations yesterday (18 Jan) outside Harryville Catholic Chuch in Ballymena despite the much welcomed support for those going to mass last Saturday (11 Jan) given by the new Grand Master of the Orange Order, Robert Saulter.