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Bloody Sunday: only a new inquiry will do

This weekend has seen in Derry a variety of events organised by the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign to mark the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Widgery Report (18 April 1972). Following the killing of 14 unarmed demonstrators by members of the British Army during a civil rights march in January 1972, the British Government appointed the then Lord Chief Justice of England Wales, Lord Widgery, to head a tribunal of inquiry. Subsequently his report sought to blame the march organisers for the deaths, to suggest that a significant number of those killed had at some time been in possession of guns and explosives and that only members of the notorious Parachute regiment were involved in the shootings. He exonerated the soldiers, though he did concede that some of the firing had bordered on the 'reckless'. The repudiation of the findings of the Widgery report remain a key objectives of the relatives of those killed and the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign.

The weekend began on Friday (18 April), with the publication of the Bagglio report. This report, carried out by a qualified expert in evidence related to the firing of guns, seeks to demonstrate that some of those killed on Bloody Sunday were killed by a soldier or soldiers situated in the vicinity of Derry's walls. There was also a theatrical re-enactment of the meeting between British prime minister Edward Heath and Lord Widgery which took place two days after the Bloody Sunday massacre, a meeting which in the view of those campaigning for a new inquiry into the deaths of those killed and injured, seriously prejudiced the outcome of the inquiry. The re-enactment was done by Derry's infamous Toxic Theatre Group which includes Dave Duggan, the award winning script writer of Dance, Lexie, Dance Short speeches were made by John Hume, leader of the SDLP and Mitchel McLaughlin, National Chairperson of Sinn Féin.

Guest of honour over the weekend was Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, a daughter of the late Robert Kennedy, who has agreed to be a patron of the Bloody Sunday Trust which was established two months ago to provide an educational and human rights focus for the work around Bloody Sunday. Kerry was guest of honour at a dinner on Friday night hosted jointly by the Bloody Sunday Trust and the Justice Campaign. On Saturday morning(19 April) Kerry, who was accompanied on her visit to Derry by Michael Posner of the New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and by Martin O'Brien of the Belfast-based Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), laid a wreath at the Bloody Sunday monument in Rossville Street. She then attended a meeting of the Bloody Sunday Trust at the Rath Mor Centre in Creggan. Many of the relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday were also in attendance.

Speaking after the meeting, Robin Percival, chairman of the Bloody Sunday Trust and a member of the Pat Finucane Centre said:

"On this the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Widgery Report, we are very happy to announce that Kerry Kennedy Cuomo has agreed to become a patron of the Trust. She has excellent links to the Irish-American community as well as having established in her own right a strong commitment to human rights work. Though she was only able to be with us for two days, she was able to hear much of the work that members of both the Justice Campaign and the Trust are doing to preserve the memory of those killed and injured and to demand that even at this late stage that justice be done and an appalling wrong acknowledged.

It is clear to anyone with even a passing interest in the events of Bloody Sunday that the Widgery Inquiry was a whitewash and a disgrace. As we discover, almost by the day, new evidence concerning Bloody Sunday and sift through the existing known evidence, it is clear that Widgery began his inquiry with the deliberate intention to mislead and to lay false trails. In this he had the willing cooperation of the Government whose terms for the inquiry guaranteed that the truth would not be officially recognised. Even on the apparently straightforward matter of which soldiers actually carried out the killings, Widgery got it demonstrably wrong. It is now clear from the evidence that at least two other British Army regiments were involved in the shootings besides members of the Parachute regiment.

It is for this reason that the Bloody Sunday Trust and the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign have agreed this weekend to unambiguously reiterate our core demand. That demand is that we will be satisfied with nothing less than a new inquiry, international and independent in character, but which will have the full support of both Irish and British Governments and which will have the full legal and judicial powers to investigate the circumstances of Bloody Sunday but also the workings of the Widgery Tribunal itself which in our view itself was involved in serious wrong doing."

Over the next few days the Pat Finucane Centre will be publishing the full- text of the Bagglio report on the WWW as well as an excellent summary of the case against the Widgery Tribunal prepared by Jane Winter of British Irish Rights Watch, who is also a member of the Bloody Sunday Trust.
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Róisín McAliskey meeting quickly moves venue

A meeting of the Róisín McAliskey Justice Campaign in Derry on Wednesday (16 April) had to move venue rather quickly when a bomb warning was given to the Trinity Hotel in the centre of Derry where the meeting was being held. The main speaker at the meeting was Bernadette McAliskey who is the mother of Róisín who is currently being held in Holloway Prison, London pending an extradition to Germany.

During the course of her talk Bernadette McAliskey made the point that the campaign was now attempting to focus public attention and pressure on the role of the German authorities in keeping her daughter in prison. She said that while it was understanding that many people who would support the campaign for Róisín would want to concentrate on the role of the British Government and the RUC the fact of the matter was that Róisín would not be in her current position but for the German authorities. She said that was the German authorities who were creating problems with regard to bail.

Bernadette McAliskey also reviewed the evidence which existed against her daughter in Germany and said that it was almost non-existent. The key prosecution witness Manfred Scmidt was not able to identify Róisín. Also Annalise Scmidt, the wife of Manfred, who in fact had had more dealings with the alleged female members of the alleged IRA unit had not been shown photographs of Róisín. As for the finger print evidence, again there German authorities seemed unable to hold a consistent position. The fingerprint had apparently being found on a cellophane and wrapping paper but the location of where this wrapping paper was found had been changed. Bernadette said that at the moment in Germany they were taking legal action to have the case in Germany scrapped. She also mentioned that when Róisín had been originally arrested by the RUC it had nothing to do with alleged IRA activity in Germany but was part of an ongoing series of arrests by the RUC of young women in Tyrone who were being questioned by the RUC over the use of computers by the IRA to gather intelligence. It was because of her non-cooperation that she was threatened with action by the German authorities.

It was at this point that the meeting received word that an alleged UVF bomb warning had been phoned through to the Samaritans. The meeting adjourned to the Folk Village inside the city walls and continued there. As Paul O'Connor who was present at the meeting said: "Ironically, the UVF actually helped to build up support for the meeting as we were able to pick up more people on the way to the Folk Village".

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing ideas as to how best focus the campaign on the German authorities.

Further developments in Germany for Róisín McAliskey

We have received today (20 April) the following information from Germany concerning the developing situation there with regard to Roisin McAliskey.

Two further witnesses who had far more contacts with the alleged IRA unit in Osnabruck than Manfred Schmidt, the chief prosecution witness, have said that they can almost certainly exclude Róisín as a potential suspect. The German lawyer who is representing Róisín¹s interests in Germany, Elke Nill, has said that the federal prosecutor does not appear to want to take any notice of these statements which, however, remain on file. Further-more there is no indication in the files about where the alleged finger-prints of Róisín came from. Normally in Germany every piece of evidence is meticulously noted i.e. where it was found and when. However, according to British press reports, the fingerprints were found on the cellophane of a cigarette packet. Due to the possibility of transporting such a packet from place to place, this could therefore not be regarded as being very reliable evidence. It is for this reason that Elke Nill cannot understand why the authorities have not accepted the offers of bail.

Meanwhile Elke Nill has applied for two things in Karlsruhe on behalf of Róisín. She has applied for an appeal against a remand in custody as well as for a review of the remand in custody

Soldiers who murdered Peter McBride have case referred

The two British soldiers who murdered Peter McBride, a Belfast teenage and young father, in 1992 have had their case referred to the Life Sentence Review Board. The Board is expected to take a decision in October. The decision to refer the case of the two soldiers was made by Patrick Mayhew, the outgoing Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, on Thursday (17 April). The two soldiers were not due to have their case reviewed until late next year (1998) but following a successful application in the High Court, Belfast (on the revealing grounds that they had already served longer than either Thane or Clegg, the two other soldiers previously convicted of murder) Mayhew has decided to refer their case. In a statement the Northern Ireland Office said that " although Fisher and Wright [the two soldiers] committed a gravely serious crime there are exceptional mitigating factors in these cases which indicate than an earlier first review is appropriate. These mitigating circumstances include the difficult circumstances in which the soldiers were operating in the course of their duty and the fact that there was no premeditation. Review by the board does not imply that a decision will be necessarily taken to release the guardsmen on licence immediately after review."

In a statement issued by Paul O'Connor of the Pat Finucane centre, he said:

"The decision to refer the case of the two soldiers to the Life Sentence Review Board was expected and ominous. The Life Sentence Review Board is the British Government's fig leaf by which responsibility for releasing soldiers ahead of anyone else convicted of murder is made. This was the body that 'recommended' the release of Clegg, a decision which precipitated the resignation of one of its members, the Head of the Probation Service, who was honest enough to acknowledge the role of political interference and political bias. The Review Body is also the Body which has refused early this month to support the release of the Casement Three, despite the compelling nature of the evidence which suggested a miscarriage of justice. Over the next few months, the campaign to secure justice for Peter McBride and his family must now be clearly focused on the Life Sentence Review Body.

It is clear from one the Northern Ireland Office has said, as well as the spokespersons for the campaign to release the soldiers that they are trying to convey the image that Peter's brutal killing was carried out by soldiers acting in difficult circumstances and without premeditation. These arguments are entirely bogus. The reality is that at no stage were these soldiers under threat from McBride or anyone else. Thousands of British soldiers and RUC officers have operated in Northern Ireland in far more dangerous situations than these two soldiers and did not feel the need to kill anyone. As for premeditation, it is difficult to know what more evidence is needed of premeditation is needed when it is considered that the two soldiers chased McBride for several minutes, allegedly shouted warnings to him, defied an order not to shoot McBride and then went down on their knees to take aimed shots at McBride as they shot him in the back. This was no instant redaction to an event but a calculated acted of violence committed by soldiers on a young Belfast teenager."

For further details go to the Peter McBrideinformation page.
For further details about the latest on the Casement accused got to the Irish News website
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Suspects seriously and brutally assaulted

It is now becoming clear that the four men from South Armagh who have been charged with a variety of IRA-related offenses on Thursday (17 April) and Friday (18 April) were seriously and viciously beaten and injured as they were arrested on Thursday (10 April). One of the men is Mícheál Caraher who was seriously injured when he and his brother Fergal were shot by Royal Marines in 1990. (Fergal Caraher was killed). Details of the injuries were given in court in Banbridge, Co Down on Thursday (17 April). Martin McGinn had extensive haematoma in both eyes, lacerations to the nose, injuries to the right ear requiring stiches, injuries to the head requiring staples, lacerations on the shoulders, injuries to the arm caused by puncture wounds by rifle barrels and injuries to the lower back. So sever were Mr McGinn's injuries that he had to be taken to hospital after his arrest. It was also admitted in court that Mícheál Caraher had been admitted twice to hoispital after his arrest so sever were his injuries to his hands, chest and head. The other two men have also made compalints about injuries received at the hands of the security forces, including Seamus McArdle who has been charged in London with involvement in the Canary Wharf bombing in February 1996.