I know that your heart contains no bitterness after having heard of the tortures of others imprisoned without trial. I understand your distress at the recent ill-treatment of the remand prisoners. What possible justification can there be for holding you and the other 211 prisoners detained without trial? Are you hostages? Are you being held for ransom by Mr Whitelaw? Are you prisoners of war? Have you, like privy councillors and ex-ministers of government, threatened to liquidate your neighbours? It appears to the community here in Armagh that you and others, Jim Fields, are the victims of English political expediency. Other Catholic men have spent 12 years of their lives imprisoned without trial. Does Mr Whitelaw with the help of Special Courts intend to do the same with you and your fellow prisoners? Does he really have any idea of what constitutes fair play, equality, and treatment of men in accordance with human Christian dignity? Is it true that Mr Whitelaw intends to keep you in the Long Kesh cages over a second Christmas? The Christmas message of peace, good will, and family unity means little to those implementing the immoral procedures of internment. The ordinary citizen wants a lasting peace, based on justice. The ordinary citizen wants all internees released immediately.
Extract from the broadsheet ‘Whitelaw violates Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights’.
Visit to Long Kesh Appeal Tribunal
The Detention of Terrorists Order (NI) introduced on 7 November 1972 provided that the British Secretary of State could appoint commissioners to adjudicate on persons arrested and determine whether they should be detained. A person who was the subject of a Detention Order could also appeal to an Appeal Tribunal. Special tribunals were set up in Long Kesh Prison to enquire into cases of those detained. They soon became known as ‘Whitelaw’s Tribunals’. I attended three, one on behalf of Patrick McNally, the same parishioner who had been tortured in Ballykelly Barracks and who had been brought to Long Kesh Internment Camp from Crumlin Road Prison, and the others on behalf of Éamon Hannaway and Brian J. Rafferty, also parishioners. These appeals were conducted by the doyen Armagh solicitor, Gerry Lennon. The appeals of Patrick McNally and Brian Rafferty failed. Éamon Hannaway’s appeal was successful.
A Description of the Court
Tuesday, 14 November 1972, at 1.45pm a prison officer arrives at the door of Hut 82, Cage 9, and calls out the names of three internees. He tells them that they are to be taken to the ‘court’. A grey prison van is waiting at the gates of the cage. When the three men and their escort of four prison officers are aboard, it begins its short journey to Cage 14 where the commission to enquire into their cases is being held. On arrival at their destination, the men are taken, one at a time, from the van and are shown into a prefabricated hut where, under the watch of two prison officers, they are asked to wait.
Cage 14 where the ‘court’ holds session is at first glance indistinguishable from the other cages in Long Kesh Internment Camp, four long Nissen huts with grey brick gable walls, corrugated tin roofs and sides. Directly in front of three of these huts are the tiny prefabricated buildings where the internees will wait, be thoroughly searched, and have all their belongings and the contents of their pockets, with the exception of a handkerchief, placed in a canvas sack. After waiting for perhaps a half-an-hour, the prison officers escort the internees into the main hut where the ‘court’ is sitting. The main Nissen hut is partitioned into three areas, the commissioner’s chamber, the court-room, and a section made up of six small rooms severed by a narrow corridor, three rooms on each side. At the end of this corridor a small door opens up into the court-room.
The ‘court’ is a well-furnished room, the bare walls covered with sheets of brightly coloured insulating board and hung with scarlet and blue drapes. The floor is covered with a scarlet carpet. The main feature of the room is a large oval-shaped table of polished wood. The commissioner sits on a high-backed well-upholstered chair at the centre and to the right of this table. Above and slightly behind hangs a painting of the British coat of arms, complete with motto, honi soit qui mal y pense. The commissioner’s chair is situated at the centre and to the right of the table. To the right of the commissioner sits a stenographer with a tape recorder and a microphone placed in front of him. Immediately in front of the oval table are a desk and chair at which sits the commissioner’s clerk; on his desk are two microphones, one angled towards the crown prosecutor and the other towards the respondent. A few feet in front of him and facing the commissioner are two chairs, for the respondent and a prison officer. To the right of these two chairs is a desk behind which the crown prosecutor sits. There is a vacant desk and chair to the left and slightly behind the respondent’s chair.
Three doors open into the court-room. One leads into the corridor already described. One is a few feet from this, but concealed by a screen of red velvet curtains, and through it come the Special Branch to take their seats and give evidence hidden from the ‘court’. The third door in the opposite wall faces this. Through this door is the commissioner’s chamber, from which he appears.
A Tribunal Hearing
I wrote the following piece after appearing for the defence of Éamon Hannaway. It was published in Whitelaw’s Tribunals.
The Tribunal and the Appeal Tribunal are held within the now great complex of the Long Kesh encampment. Yellow and black signs point to a special entrance towered over by a military post and guarding soldier. A shout from the soldier and a few accent misunderstandings before you realise that you have to wait. A soldier finally comes through a little door, checks your name and identity with his pad, and then disappears only to re-appear immediately to re-open the big gate and admit your car. Then you drive across a great waste-land surrounded by barbed wire and corrugated iron sheeting. To the right a worm-eaten cabbage patch catches your eye. It reminds you of your ‘T. S. Eliot schooldays’. The next entrance is blocked by two Kosangas bottles. A soldier removes them and now you are through to a place where there is a little bit more life. It even cheers you to have your car searched and go into a wooden hut where there is heat and light! It is still even pleasant to dump the contents of your pockets and be amiably ‘run over’ by a smiling soldier. You go out clutching your permit which is now as valuable as a ration book. The two women witnesses have clambered into a van with two policewomen; the separation of the sexes of course for searching. You get into your own van. The solicitor is there and two other witnesses, the mate and father of the accused. And there are other lawyers who are putting their trust in their academic distinctions for their case, a formidable battery of learned lawyers.
The game we are playing is a different one. We know – the aunt, the girlfriend, father, mate, priest and solicitor – that our accused is an innocent man and we think that it will be a great compliment to the court to bring ourselves to it as human furnishings, because all the emphasis is on furnishing. One lawyer grunts in the van, ‘This court has all the incidentals down to the last detail. In fact half the courts in the country have not had the expense and detail of court trappings as this one has. It lacks only the essence of a court’. ‘But’, I remark, ‘how can judges and lawyers go through with this? Have they no professional shame?’ ‘My dear boy,’ he says, ‘they are Englishmen and you are a Hottentot’.
And true enough, when we disembark and go in, one is amazed at the beauty of the Nissen hut interior, beautifully painted, carpeted, separate rooms for lawyers and witnesses.
It is 10.30am. But it is an hour and more before any of us are called as witnesses. There has been much reminiscing about the beloved internee. His mate and girlfriend devour cigarettes. His aunt is womanly silent. I keep on building up their hopes, but not overdoing it. One poor internee was turned down at the first sitting of the appeal court the day before (and those who know him know how innocent and unfortunate he is). So today our lad stands a chance. Yesterday it was shown that the appeal isn’t just a formality by not releasing the internee. Today just might be the day it isn’t a formality by granting a release. But if our lad is r
eleased, even in this buffoon court, none of us are going to argue, because he will be going to his home that was lonely without him and his girlfriend will now plan her marriage. His mate will no longer go around like a lost dog. His father and aunt have prayed for fifteen months and have suffered. The father keeps mumbling of his release, ‘I can’t see it’. I try to reassure him.
Two policewomen and a policeman sit at the other end of the waiting-room. There is just that difference hanging in the air but it doesn’t prevent an odd loud groan from the witnesses on the injustice of internment. There was a time in Northern Ireland when you wouldn’t even have heard that groan. All are nervous about being called in. People have never been through this before. At last the bearded clerk comes in and takes out the first witness. And so the five of us are called in turn, his intimate friends, all rooting for him. As witnesses we go and come back as if we had been led to the slaughter.
My own turn comes. Into the corridor I go, at the top a small door marked ‘Private’. It reminds me somewhat of the atmosphere below deck in a submarine.
The clerk is mumbling something, whether I have any objection to the James Bible. Two things flash through my mind – how strange in these ecumenical days, and should I quip ‘James the Second?’ On the exterior I reassure him. I am going to be nice and grovel if that means the release of an innocent man.
The door opens. I enter the court-room. It seems very bright and is slashed with royal blue and scarlet curtains. I am instantly greeted by a dozen murmurs. The accused is seated. He reminds me of Christ, patient and forbearing. A look of suffering.
The swearing. I have already made a statement for the solicitor. He just runs me through it in question form. I answer the questions a little more elaborately. I know the shorthand is at work and the tape recorder. A testimony to the good character and good behaviour of a friend. The defence solicitor is at my right at a desk. The prosecutor is seated opposite. The prosecutor questions me – going back to the day of internment, was I surprised he was taken? would I accept his word? I would. Any more questions? I take my first good look at the tribunal. They are all smiling. All three grey grave men. The Irish traditional saying to beware of the smile of an Englishman tempts my good will. But they are still smiling. Is the adage true? I feel as if I would like to hear the rest of the proceedings but I have to leave.
It is one o’clock. We await the verdict in the waiting-room. The solicitor comes in. ‘Court adjourned until two o’clock. We can go to a canteen’. Another long hour of waiting but, if the tribunal has a working lunch, we console ourselves that the adjournment is a good sign. It all fits into the serious trappings of the show.
The court has been an extraordinary affair. The prosecutor can not open up the prosecution case too much because then he would reveal the secrecy of some of the RUC Special Branch officers’ testimony and this he cannot do. The defence lawyer is shadow-boxing too because he is not aware of all that he is supposed to defend, except that he knows his client is innocent and it is hard to prove that an innocent man is innocent. Our solicitor is very competent and so he shadow-boxes until the tribunal fixes on something that might at first seem a minor detail but it is something to go on and is soon torn asunder by legal ingenuity. All hypnotise themselves into a real court. There has been no precedent in this kind of court proceedings of appeal. The learned tribunal feels its way.
We are back at two o’clock. Twenty minutes later the respondent enters the waiting-room. ‘I am released’. Smiles and tears.
Brian Rafferty’s Hearing
My appearance at the tribunal hearing of Brian Rafferty culminated in an attack on my character from the ‘prosecutor’. Reference was made to my campaign against the ill-treatment of detainees in RUC interrogation centres and RUC barracks. I then wrote to the Rt Hon. Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State, on 6 July 1974:
Dear Mr Rees,
On 13 June, 1974, I went to the Maze Prison, Long Kesh Camp, as a witness in the Tribunal Hearing of Mr B. J. Rafferty, Armagh. I have serious reservations regarding the morality and legality in international law of these tribunals. This you know from the pamphlet Whitelaw’s Tribunals which was forwarded to you when you were an MP in opposition. Yet Armagh priests, Fr Malachy Coyle, Fr Peter Makem and myself, all of Armagh Parish, have participated to help wives and families.
The 13 June, 1974, was my third appearance as a witness in the Tribunal. I was put into an embarrassing position by the prosecutor and the commissioner. It is my opinion that the prosecutor set out to smear and discredit me with the allegation of association with the guilt of men taking part in illegal activities. He presumed such guilt on the part of all Catholics for whom I have made representations and who were arrested in Armagh City. It appears to me that he could only have attacked me on the calumniatory information supplied by the police in Armagh to discredit me as a character witness.
The commissioner astonished me by his lack of objectivity, presuming the accuracy of what might well be fictitious informers. It appears to me that he tried to get me to support the immorality of what he was doing. I was astounded at his lack of objectivity. I did not realise that the prisoner had such a poor chance. His remark that the prisoner had refused to come to the tribunal initially and therefore was an IRA man was ridiculous.
Mr Lennon, the solicitor, said he would not expose me again to such a tribunal. I wish your department to furnish me with a transcript of my interrogation, which I wish to forward to the Lord Chancellor. I am also making a report to the International Commission of Jurists.
The reply came on 24 July 1974 from Mr Rees’ private secretary, A. Huckle, Northern Ireland Office, Stormont Castle, Belfast.
Dear Father Murray,
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your letter of 6th July in which you referred to the review by a Commissioner of the case of Mr B. J. Rafferty, who is a detainee in H. M. Prison, Maze.
Although Commissioners are appointed by the Secretary of State they act quite independently and regulate their own procedure in accordance with the provisions of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1973. You will appreciate, therefore, that the Secretary of State is unable to comment on your criticisms of the conduct of Mr Rafferty’s review hearing in which you participated as a witness. Finally, you asked for a transcript of your cross-examination but I regret that it is not possible to provide this.
Poem – Long Kesh, 1974
Little flies, quivering and shaking with the wind gusts,
I look at the biological detail
of your wings.
Lightsome bloodless corpses,
glittering,
fluttering,
slightly caught on the silent strings
of the iron web,
mesh of grey, distorted vision.
Invisible men –
your escape is wider
wider than another day.
Raymond Murray, 1974
In memory of those who died in Long Kesh – Patrick Crawford, Francis Dodds, Éamonn Campbell, Patrick Teers, Hugh Gerard Coney.
III – TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT
Torture in Girdwood Park Barracks, 1971-72
Mgr Denis Faul and I recorded the torture of men in the RUC interrogation centres in the Palace Barracks, Holywood, and in Girdwood Park Barracks, 10 December 1971 – February 1972 in a pamphlet, published in 1972, entitled British Army and Special Branch RUC Brutalities. Among the torture methods used in Girdwood Barracks, Belfast, was the use of electric shocks. Patrick Fitzsimmons, John Moore and William Johnston of Belfast related their experience to me in Armagh Prison. Patrick Fitzsimmons had been a celebrated Irish amateur boxer.
Patrick Fitzsimmons
I was arrested on Thursday morning at 4.20am, 13 January 1972, in a house in Duncairn Gardens, Belfast. The soldiers came and arrested me and another fella. We were up the stairs. I had no shoes on. They started beating us. I was kicked down the stairs, beaten with batons. I was thrown into the back of a
saracen. I was told to stop shouting or else I would get more beatings. I was handcuffed to the other fella. We were beat in the saracen. I gave them my name there.
We went to Girdwood Barracks. We were kicked into the entrance of it. I had been hit in the groin with a rifle butt when arrested. We were still handcuffed. I was made sit in the room. An SLR was put to my head and I was told I was being taken out and shot. I was made to sit in this hall till an army sergeant came in. He asked which one was Fitzsimmons. I replied. He said, ‘You are just the little twerp I have been looking for the past two months.’ Another fella returned and I was taken away. I was taken down a corridor, three soldiers on each side. They had wooden batons. They beat me as I went down the corridor. We went to the commanding officer. He gave me twenty seconds to give names of my brother and other fellas and where they were staying. When I told them I didn’t know they beat me. They took me back up the corridor again. I was beat on the way up. I was put in the toilet. I was beaten with batons and rifles on the back of the neck and the privates. I was brought back down the corridor again, still being beaten by the batons. I was brought before the commanding officer again. I was asked had I thought where they were. I said I didn’t know. I was beaten again. I was taken out and made stand against the wall. The sergeant replied, ‘You are being taken out to be shot.’ Another officer came along. He showed me a photograph. When I said I recognised the photograph they said I was reprieved. I was then taken out to the back and handed over to the ‘duck squad’, the fellas with black soot on their faces. I was beaten up outside and kicked. They put me in the saracen and kicked me in the saracen as it was taking off. There were four soldiers in the saracen with me. We made a lot of circles. I thought I was still in Girdwood.
State Violence Page 6