Two brothers of two of those killed on Bloody Sunday had a meeting with Patrick Mayhew, the British Secretary of State on Friday morning (14 February). They were accompanied at the meeting by John Hume, MP, MEP, the local MP for Derry, Don Mullan, the editor of the new book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday and Peter Madden, the solicitor whose is acting for the relatives of those killed. The two brothers, John Kelly and Michael McKinney spoke briefly to Mr Mayhew and presented him with the new evidence which is the basis of their demand for a new inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday which is when British troops killed 14 unarmed civilians on the streets of Derry in January 1972.
In comments afterwards John Hume described the meeting as a "significant occasion". He went on to say "I regard this meeting as very constructive and I think that the Secretary of State definitely showed that he is very sensitive to the overall situation."
Yet in an extraordinary interview given on radio the following day, Patrick Mayhew said that "it would be wrong" for the Government to apologise for the events of Bloody Sunday. Mayhew said, in a statement clearly designed to embarrass Hume, that "an apology is for criminal wrongdoing and there is nothing in the Widgery report to support that and therefore it would be wrong. It would be unjust to those who took part in the tragic events."
The second biggest selling newspaper in England and Wales, The Mirror has accused the British prime minister John Major of betraying the British soldier who was killed in Northern Ireland this week. It said that Major was putting his government's survival before peace in Northern Ireland. The newspaper said that John Mayor had allowed "the fragile and hard-won ceasefire to collapse into bloodshed."
Amnesty International, supported by several other international human rights group, have written to the British prime minister calling on him to overturn the findings of the Widgery Tribunal into the events of Bloody Sunday which they have described as "fatally flawed". They have called on John Major to open a new inquiry. The other organisations supporting this move by Amnesty include the US Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch and the Belfast-based Committee on the Administration of Justice.
In the letter sent to the John Major the groups argue that Widgery could not arrive at the truth of what happened because of the terms of reference of the tribunal, the close involvement of the government at crucial stages and the failure of Widgery to investigate all the evidence. "We urge you to respond positively and promptly to the evidence that has emerged, by setting up a new inquiry and making full disclosure in order to remedy this long-standing and grave injustice."
Public support for a new inquiry also has come from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. In a statement Terry Carlin, ICTU's most senior official in the North of Ireland, said "the admission by the prime minister of the innocence of the victims and the revelation of new evidence strongly reinforces the case for a full, independent inquiry and ICTU hopes that this can now be achieved.
Opposition, however to either an apology or a new inquiry, has come from Minster in the old Stormont regime, Roy Bradford. Writing in the pro-Unionist "Newsletter", Bradford said that to resurrect the "whole tragic incident would only renew old hostilities, make a wider settlement even more difficult, and further serve Sinn Féin to demonise the hated 'Brits'" He went on to say that "The shootings took place during an illegal march which, to quote Lord Justice Widgery, "created a highly dangerous situation." In evidence, Keith Simpson, the eminent Home Office pathologist, said that each victim had been killed with a single round, in other words they had been targeted, and that six of the 13 dead had firearms powder discharge traces on their hands, from which he deduced that they had fired weapons. Widgery held that the army had been fired on first. Now we are in no position to judge how far the Army over reacted or where the truth lies. But apologies by government in such a situation are pointless and inappropriate."
The SDLP Deputy Leader Seamus Mallon and former Labour spokesperson on Northern Ireland Kevin McNamara have publicly committed themselves to supporting the demand that the case of Crossmaglen man Danny McNamee should be subjected to a further appeal. They made their statement of support after they had visited McNamee in Full Sutton prison near York on Tuesday (11 February). Both Mallon and McNamara described the evidence against McNamee as flimsy and called for a new appeal "as soon as possible.
Danny McNamee was one of the six prisoners who attempted to escape from Whitemoor prison in September 1994 and whose prosecution collapsed last month. Speaking about this Kevin McNamara said "He felt he was getting nowhere. Had it gone to court his defence was going to be that he took part in the escape to draw attention to the fact of his innocence."
On Wednesday (12 Feb.) an all-party group of TDs and senators was established in Dublin to campaign for a new appeal. Channel Four, a British TV station, is expected to show a documentary within a few weeks which will cast considerable doubt on the original conviction, especially with regard to alleged finger print evidence which was produced against McNamee. The TV documentary will also allege that the Home Secretary has known since 1994 that convicted IRA member Dessie Ellis was responsible for constructing the bomb which killed British soldiers in Hyde Park, London and not Danny McNamee.
Details about the campaign to free Danny McNamee have been posted on the Pat Finucane Centre website.
The family of Pat McLaughlin, who was wrongly convicted on the aborted INLA bombing of Chelsea barracks are confident that his appeal will be heard shortly against his conviction. Pat McLaughlin, who comes from Derry, was convicted in 1986 in what his then solicitor Gareth Peirce described as the least amount evidence against an Irish person that she had ever seen. Since then new evidence has come forward, including an interview shown on a BBC Spotlight programme shown in Northern Ireland, which points to another miscarriage of justice.
Amnesty International on Monday last (10 Feb) issued an urgent action appeal regarding the conditions under which Irish Political prisoner Roisin McAliskey is being held in London's Holloway prison. Expressing fears for the health of both six months pregnant McAliskey and her unborn child, Amnesty has said that the treatment she is receiving at the hands of the authorities could amount to cruel, degrading or inhumane treatment. Ms McAliskey is considered by the British authorities to be a category A prisoner and so is kept locked in her cell for 12 hours a day. She is strip-searched daily and has been denied access to Holloway's mother and baby unit. There are fears that she will be handcuffed when giving birth and that she will be separated from her child at birth. There are also fears that, if she is extradited to Germany where she is facing charges relating to an IRA attack on the British Army barracks at Osnabruck, she will not be allowed to take the child with her.
On Thursday (13 Feb) Roisin McAliskey failed again at a magistrates hearing in London in a bid to obtain bail. Bow Street magistrates ruled to remand Ms McAliskey for a further four weeks. Her lawyers have also petitioned the House of Lords to have her extradition to Germany halted. After her hearing, two members of the Dail visited Ms McAliskey. One of her visitors, Eamon O Cuiv, the Fianna Fail spokesman on prisoner issues said that it was "incredible that a frail, 5ft 2in, woman who is six months pregnant, is categorised as the most dangerous prisoner in London's Holloway prison and a danger to the public."
Amnesty have urged people to petition the British and German governments demanding humane treatment for Ms McAliskey. In particular they are asking people to urge the British government to grant her bail if proper medical facilities cannot be afforded her while in prison.
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A 23 year old soldier with the Royal Horse Artillery Regiment of the British Army was shot dead by an IRA sniper in Bessbrook Co Armagh at approximately 18.30 on Wednesday night, (Feb 12). It is believed that the soldier, who was on duty at a permanent checkpoint leading into the border village, was shot with a Barrett Light 50 ‘supergun’ which was developed by the US military. It remains difficult at this time to assess the loyalist reaction to the killing. The parents of the dead soldier, named as Stephen Restorick from Peterborough, pleaded for their son’s death not to be used as a reason for more loss of life. The father said he wished “the politicians would sit down and get it all sorted out and finished so that nobody else has to go to Northern Ireland and get shot or bombed. All parties have got to talk, there’s no good excluding anybody, they’ve all got to talk, all relevant parties have got to talk“. In a subsequent interview to the “Irish Times” the father went on to say that “the ordinary people of Northern Ireland want [talks], but the politicians don’t seem to want to talk. We think that Britain should not be in Northern Ireland, we don’t seem to be helping them.” The death of Stephen Restorick marks the first fatality of 1997.
A former member of the SDLP has hit out at the BBC for overlooking verifiable evidence he had supplied them with for a Spotlightdocumentary on electoral malpractice broadcast last Tuesday (11 Feb). Gerry Murray, former chairman of Derry SDLP who resigned from the party over “electoral malpractice” in 1993 said that a reporter for the programme who had contacted him had seemed “totally uninterested” in his allegations of electoral malpractice by his former party colleagues in Derry.
The programme instead focused on alleged electoral malpractice by senior members of Sinn Fein. Citing as evidence for this allegation, Spotlight reporter Steven Walker said that top Sinn Fein members were registered more than once on the electoral roll. It should be pointed out that this practice is neither illegal nor does it constitute electoral malpractice. Furthermore Sinn Fein spokespersons have argued that being registered in more than one place on the electoral roll is a security measure to protect activists from the efforts of people trying to find your address, such as Loyalists.
During the programme, allegations against Sinn Fein were made by the SDLP’s West Belfast MP Joe Hendron. Ironically Dr Hendron has been fined for filing incomplete election expenses returns and is the only senior politician in Northern Ireland to be convicted under legislation outlawing electoral malpractice. Mr Murray, however, stands by his claims concerning the unwillingness of the BBC to investigate claims against other political parties besides Sinn Fein: “I stand over my allegations which centred on certain SDLP members in Derry being in illegal possession of approximately 200 application forms for postal votes” he told Friday’s (14 Feb) Derry Journal . He said he could now see why his evidence had not been included “because it did not suit the tenor of the programme” which he said had an “extreme anti-Sinn Fein bias”.
Upto thirty British MPs have signed a motion in the House of Commons calling for the early release of the two British soldiers convicted of the murder of a Belfast teenager Peter McBride (18). He was killed in September 1992 when he was shot in the back by the two soldiers. He was unarmed. The campaign to free the two soldiers concerned Scots Guardsmen James Fisher and Mark Wright is being led by former senior members of the British Army such as "Sir" David Scott-Barrett, a former General Officer Commanding in Scotland.
The campaign to release the two soldiers has been severely criticised. The mother of Peter McBride, Jean McBride, said that the campaign made a mockery of the justice system. "These people don't dispute that Peter was murdered but they want the murderers out of jail after just five years. They make me feel as if my son isn't important and doesn't matter - that he is just another young lad shot dead on the streets of Belfast." Jean McBride contrasted the situation where British soldiers convicted of murder were released after a couple of years sentence whereas Irish people similarly convicted served at least 15 years.
In a statement issued by Paul O'Connor of the Pat Finucane Centre, said that "there are several disturbing aspects to this campaign. Once again the sanctity of life where Irish people are concerned appeared to be worth less than regimental solidarity. The perverse argument that these two individuals have served longer than other convicted members of the security forces should in reality raise the controversial issue of lack of convictions where soldiers are concerned. What about the natural justice for the victims who are getting the message through this campaign that the killers were 'only doing their duty'? Was it their duty to shoot an unarmed civilian.
Paul O'Connor went onto say "Supporters for the two soldiers make the point that both were convicted by a lone judge sitting without a jury. We welcome their concern for the flawed nature of the Northern Irish legal system. Presumably their criticisms are also directed at the thousands of other cases where Irish individuals have been convicted under similar legislation. Shouldn't 'natural justice' be applied in these cases?"