SOLICITOR Niall Murphy has said that the Police Ombudsman’s report into collusion between Loyalist paramilitaries and the RUC in South Belfast is a prime example of why the British Government’s legacy proposals can never be allowed to happen.
Speaking at a press conference following the publication of the Police Ombudsman’s report, Mr Murphy said: “Those proposals in the command paper sought to close the Ombudsman’s Office. The purpose of the legacy proposals couldn’t be more clear on a day like this.
“They don’t want any more 348 page reports which condemn their police officers for colluding with multiple murderers.
“That is why they want to close this office and that is why these proposals can never be allowed to happen. This can never be allowed to become law.
“The British Government should be ashamed of itself today when one reads this report and one considers what their published proposals are to do. They don’t want any more operation XYZ reports.
“We have 400 other complainants awaiting reports like this. That is why they want to cauterize their liability and shut up the shop of the Police Ombudsman. That cannot be allowed to happen.”
Niall Conlon, son of Harry Conlon, a taxi driver for STS who was murdered after picking up a fare at the Devenish Arms on 14 October 1991, said that his father’s sole purpose in life was to provide for his family.
Speaking at the press conference he said: “We are now 15 years from we initiated our complaint with the Police Ombudsman. We are thankful to finally have received her report and the significant work undertaken by the Ombudsman’s office in this regard.”
Mr Conlon added that the findings were “shocking” and point to serious investigative failings.
“Amongst which are serious failings with the forensic strategies employed and the dissemination of vital intelligence to the investigating police and Special Branch,” he continued.
“The failure to search houses, the failure to question suspects when there were clear links to the murder and a failure to act on intelligence information for the planned UDA attack.
“That said, no findings, however strong can bring my father back.
“My brothers and I, will be forever indebted to our mother, who despite the tragic loss has shown a strength and drive to myself and my brothers over these years.
“This dignity stands in stark contrast to the actions and inactions of those involved in my father’s death.”
Mark Thompson from Relatives for Justice said the report lays bare the "unimaginable and complicitous actions that effectively constitutes a wholesale running of a terror death squad in this small part of our city by the RUC’s Special Branch.
“What is missing from this report are the roles of the British Army’s Force Research Unit and the security service MI5. The investigations into these agencies is beyond the powers of the Police Ombudsman but we know the agents that were involved, some of them cutting across these three agencies, Special Branch, MI5 and Force Research Unit.
“This report has touched upon 27 murders and attempted murders. Eight of the agents involved with the UDA were involved in these murders. Paid for by the Special Branch and other agencies who were working collaboratively.
“Although this report is limited to the 11 murders, an issue that we raised with the Ombudsman, she has said that she doesn’t have the resources to take on a comprehensive investigation that would encompass the 27 murders.”
Mr Thompson said that in that time period alone, between 1990 and 1994, 50 murders were carried out involving this same unit, across this city, involving those same agents.
“There was a failure to warn people, particularly Jim Clinton, Harry Conlon and Samuel Caskey,” he continued.
“The murder of Theresa Clinton may well have been prevented had Jim Clinton been told that on three separate occasions, he was being targeted and that a senior RUC officer made a decision not to warn him.
“There was the provision of live weapons to the killers, in particular to an agent that the Special Branch knew had the ability to reactive these weapons.
“There are countless opportunities to see what weapons and other items of key forensic and ballistic value, yet the decisions to withhold and not pass this information on were also taken.
“This constitutes, for clarity, an irrefutable and systemic policy of collusion across our city. We have no doubt about that.”
The Relatives for Justice CEO said that there have been many attempts to thwart the Police Ombudsman’s work by the police during the course of the publication of this report and other reports, along with previous Ombudsmen.
“There have been fictitious applications to the Belfast High Court by the very people that are the subject of the Ombudsman’s investigation. Former members of Special Branch have sought to tie their hands behind their back by gagging it,” he said.
“The PSNI have also been instrumental in withholding information and the Chief Constable has acted within the context of this report, in our view, to use public interest immunity at the behest of the other agencies that were also running these murder gangs.
“This was not just the Special Branch. It is one part of the jigsaw, one part of the puzzle. MI5 and the Force Research Unit were centrally involved in this issue as well and that needs to be examined too.”
