FAMILIES gathered in common purpose even though some had never met before and met only as a result of their loved ones’ name being in the same report as everyone else. They were connected to each other in a spider’s web of dirty, filthy murder organised and facilitated by the British state in the South Belfast area, and the Police Ombudsman has at last reported.
 
Page after page of this report should make that statue of justice on top of the High Court weep. There was no law and there was no order. There was only murder and cover up of murder.
 
All of these families knew there was collusion from the first devastating day. Some were in the public eye from very early on. Others, remained private, coping as best they could as trauma enveloped their worlds. Those who spoke of collusion were accused of being republican propogandists, fantasists, and lots more. Those who fought tooth and nail to get this report published faced block  after delay after threat of injunction, from the PSNI.

 

When the Police Ombudsman writes that the families’ concerns about collusion are wholly justifiable this is public vindication of what they have always known – the British state is up to its neck in murder of citizens, through the use of proxy murder gangs.
 
Collusion deniability is now in the bin with Holocaust denial. To perpetuate the myth that there were a “few rotten apples” or “rogue officers” is to ignore that the existence of an entire security apparatus, involving the RUC, the British Army and Security Service (MI5). These groups met at levels of command from the operational to the very top of policy. This apparatus is detailed in de Silva’s report on the killing of Pat Finucane. 

Monthly Security Policy Meetings were attended by the Secretary of State, NIO security ministers, the DCI of Security Service, the RUC Chief Constable, the General Officer Commanding in the  North and the NIO Permanent Secretary. The Intelligence Review Committee met weekly and was attended by the DCI of Security Service, multiple senior representatives of RUC, army and “other agencies”. The Targeting Policy Group was chaired by the Assistant DCI of Security Service and attended by army and RUC seniors.

The Task Coordinating Group was a permanent unit in the RUC. It received all intelligence information from RUC, British Army and Security Service. The Joint Intelligence Committee, located in the Cabinet Office in London drew on this entire apparatus and fed information to the British cabinet.
 
Do not dare to spout the lie that the systemic practices which armed and facilitated murder, all to pro-British state advantage, were accidental. And do not dare present this lie as “balance”.
 
An RUC officer who owned the gun which was used to kill Theresa Clinton refuses to cooperate with the Police Ombudsman on how that happened. This officer is not doing anything illegal because the Ombudsman does not have the powers to compel him. We don’t know if he is in the ranks of the PSNI or in the ranks of the thousands of former RUC that work/have worked as civilian staff in the PSNI.
 
The families have done so much already, it is for the rest of us to bear witness, ask the critical questions and walk with them to justice.