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UN Committee report

The UN Committee on Torture has this week called on the British Government to ban plastic bullets, close the interrogation centres and "reconstruct the RUC so that it more closely represents the cultural realities of Northern Ireland. The Committee also expressed concern at the "rules of evidence in Northern Ireland that admit confessions of suspected terrorists upon a lower test than in ordinary cases and in any event permits the admission of derivative evidence even if the confession is excluded." The UN report, published in Geneva, is certain to put renewed pressure on the British Government at a time when the Independent Commission on Policing is holding public hearings throughout the North. In addition the UN has recommended that the case of General Pinochet be referred to the public prosecutor with a view to initiating prosecution in England in the event that the British authorities deny the Spanish request for extradition.

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To dismiss or not to dismiss

The Ministry of Defence has informed the centre that an MOD legal team will respond "within days" to the challenges from the centre and from Madden and Finucane solicitors to the decision to allow the two Scots Guards who murdered Peter Mc Bride to remain in the British Army. We await their response with interest. As noted in the last update our intention is to travel to London in the near future with the Mc Bride family in order to lobby for a reversal of the MOD decision. Financial support for the continuing campaign is urgently required…..

Meanwhile the centre has contacted British Army HQ to inquire as to the status of a RIR soldier who was recently sentenced to three and a half years for possession of a loyalist submachine gun. We have now been informed that "administrative action is being considered" regarding the continued employment of the man by the MOD. Curiously enough no administrative action was considered in the case of the two Scots Guards until they had actually been released. In the past soldiers from the locally recruited regiments of the British Army, the former UDR and the RIR, were dismissed following court convictions. Soldiers from British regiments have been allowed to rejoin their regiments despite murder convictions.

More to follow.

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Danny Mc Namee Appeal

As reported last week the appeal continues in a London court of recently freed Armagh man Danny Mc Namee who was convicted of the 1982 IRA bombing in Hyde Park. This week the appeal court heard challenges to the alleged forensic evidence linking Danny to the bomb and a damning indictment of the non-disclosure by the prosecution of vital evidence during the trial. These are just two of the many disturbing aspects of the Crown case against Danny. In 1991 he was denied the right to appeal the original conviction. Since then his case has been referred to appeal by the new criminal appeal body set up to investigate miscarriages of justice in the wake of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four cases. Though Danny has effectively lost many years of his life behind bars there is now hope that he may finally win justice. A number of international human rights bodies have sent observers to London for the appeal. See details of the case on our web site.

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