State Violence

by Raymond Murray

  Once the remains arrived home only the McCann’s household was subject to intense harassment. Their home was literally surrounded back, front and side by British army saracens. Only on the morning of the funeral, 16 March, did they withdraw.

  Quite unusual for the funeral of IRA members there was no British army or RUC presence, despite the fact that the families had been threatened with a repeat of what happened at Lawrence Marley’s funeral when the RUC saturated the area and had refused to allow the remains to leave the Marley home until the Irish tricolour was removed from the coffin.

  Many believe that the absence of the police and the attack carried out by a grenade-wielding gunman in the cemetery was no coincidence. In this attack three mourners were murdered. The killer made his retreat towards the motorway, which runs beside the cemetery. Parked on the motorway was a Ford transit van, and it seemed as though this was the killer’s accomplices waiting to help make good his escape. When the killer was overpowered near the motorway, the van quickly left the scene. It was claimed later that this was an undercover RUC van. A number of questions arise: why didn’t they intervene to halt the slaughter of mourners and how did the sectarian killer know that there would not be the usual police presence? Many believe that there was direct collusion between the so-called security forces and this murderer.

  The Inquest

  Five independent civil liberty organisations, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Inquest, the National Council for Civil Liberties (London), the International League for Human Rights (New York) and Amnesty International – all of which had observers at the inquest – have criticised many aspects of the proceedings and have called for further inquiries into the killings in Gibraltar.

  The Amnesty International report stated that the inquest failed to answer ‘the fundamental issue ... whether the fatal shootings were caused by what happened in the street, or whether the authorities planned in advance for the three to be shot dead’.[8]

  The inquiry by its very nature was not equipped to determine the truth. The British authorities, which might have had an interest in concealing aspects of the truth, had access prior to the inquest and during it to identities of witnesses, their statements or possible statements and were to some extent able, on grounds of availability, to dictate the order of calling some witnesses.

  In contrast, our legal advisers had virtually no information except one ballistics’ report and a pathologist’s report.

  Amnesty International in its report expressed its concern ‘that the legal representatives of the deceased’s families were significantly and unfairly disadvantaged in comparison with the representatives for the other interested parties. The system is inherently weighted against the deceased’s families in preparing for cross-examination’. Our lawyer, Mr Paddy McGrory, received the other forensic reports after the inquest began. He did not receive any of the witnesses’ statements in advance, and even during the inquest he did not receive the statements made by security force personnel shortly after the incident. Without access to these statements in advance he was not able to cross-examine witnesses on the basis of what other witnesses, who testified at a later stage, said about the same incident. Thus, for example, he was not able to question the soldiers, who testified in the second week of the inquest, about information which was presented in later weeks by police officers and civilian eye-witnesses. He also did not have witnesses’ earlier statements to compare with their court testimony.[9]

  Our lawyer faced numerous obstacles including for example the price of the court’s daily transcripts being increased from 50p to £5 per page. Because the price was so prohibitive our lawyer could not avail of them – not so the British Ministry of Defence.

  The use by the British government of Public Immunity Certificates prevented Mr McGrory, our lawyer, inquiring into many matters such as the planning of the operation, including the role of the ‘accessories before the fact’.

  Finally there was the coroner’s summing up of the evidence to the jury, in which he told them to avoid an open verdict. By doing this he unduly influenced these eleven men. This is especially true as after six hours of discussion the jury was deadlocked, divided 7 to 4 in favour of a ‘lawful killing’ verdict. In normal circumstances an open verdict would have been a likely compromise, but this had been ruled out. The coroner then recalled the jury and gave them what seemed like an ultimatum to return a verdict. Two hours later they returned stating that they found, by 9 to 2 – the smallest majority allowed – the killings lawful.

  Despite all the disadvantages faced by our solicitor, Paddy McGrory, a man with lifelong experience as a lawyer, he firmly believed that the verdict went against the weight of the evidence, that it was a ‘perverse verdict’.

  Seven Year Quest for Justice

  The United Kingdom government insisted that the Gibraltar Inquest, despite its fundamental flaws, was the final word on these controversial killings. It consistently thwarted through the use of Public Interest Immunity Certificates any attempt by our families to have our case examined in the Northern Ireland courts.

  Eventually we brought our case first to the European Commission of Human Rights and then in February 1995 to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. On 27 September 1995 – seven years and six months after the actual killings – the court found the British government guilty of having unlawfully killed our loved ones. It was a landmark decision, it being the first time that a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights was found guilty of breaching Article 2 of the Convention, the Right to Life.

  The British government said it would ‘ignore’ the verdict. The deputy Prime Minister went as far as to say that the government would do the same again. Almost exactly a year after the verdict a young Irishman, Diarmuid O’Neill, was shot dead in very similar circumstances in a house in London.

  The stance of the British government must be viewed as quite unacceptable. If Britain continues to refuse to operate within the constraints of law, both national and international, if it continues to refuse to meet its specific obligations with regard to the ‘right to life’ under the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, then it must be ostracised and no longer treated as being part of the democratic family of nations.

  Desmond Grew and Martin McCaughey shot by the SAS, 9 October 1990

  The phone call shattered the silence of my bedroom. Pieces of sound seemed to shower down around me. To get a call in the night when you are on priestly duty always brings a sense of foreboding of tragedy. Almost in one action I pulled the light-string and lifted the phone. The quiet voice, so quiet, contrasted with the clamour of the phone. ‘This is the police. There has been a shooting. A priest is needed. Go out the Moy Road until you come to Trainors’ pub. Turn right and go on a mile until you come to a school. There is a road to the right opposite it. Turn down the road and go on until you come to a two-storey white house. There will be police there with a red light. Then you will be brought to the scene of the shooting’. I said I would go immediately.

  I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to three. I dressed hurriedly and took the holy oils and blessed sacrament with me.

  As I drove out the Moy Road, the silence of the night pressed against me. There was no traffic. Only the heavy stillness of night. I had asked no questions. I thought to myself: Is somebody wounded? Is somebody dead? Who could it be? Then a sudden thought, quickly dismissed, ‘Is this a trap? Was it really the police who phoned?’

  I followed the directions. I met no car or person. Then as I turned right at the school, a red car halted at the junction coming from the other direction. A man in civilian clothes, but obviously a policeman, called out to me that I was on the right road. The white house soon showed up in the dark and then the waving blood-red light. I was directed by gestures to park my car. A group of uniformed police stood in the shadows. Nobody spoke.
There was white tape, familiar sign of an incident, across a lane leading down by another house. A policeman came forward from the other side of the tape and introduced himself to me as an inspector. He was polite and friendly, so different from the sullen phalanx of uniforms I had just passed through. He guided me to the scene, past a farmhouse to an open yard. He told me two men were dead and that one of them was Desmond Grew. There was an open empty mushroom shed, of the old arc-shaped type. It had no frontage. A light was shining inside and there was a white car in it. In front of the shed was an apron yard of concrete. In the half-light I looked down at the black forms of two bodies lying on the ground. The inspector then directed his flash lamp on to them. The two men were lying within a few yards of one another, sprawled out. Beyond their heads, lying on the ground, were two Kalashnikov rifles. I said the Act of Contrition, gave them conditional absolution and anointed them. I recognised Dessie Grew. He was very badly shot in the head. The blood from the heads of the two men was thick and clotted and the dark intestinal-looking brain matter shone slightly red in the poor light. They were dressed in casual denim-like clothes, unmasked. The butt of a pistol protruded from a trouser pocket of Martin McCaughey. All was silence. I prayed at length. The bodies looked so small and thin and even vulnerable in death. We seemed to stand towering over them like giants. Such an impression I have experienced before at scenes of fatal accidents. Perhaps it is psychological, the power of life lording it over death.

  I never asked any questions while I was there. I was on a spiritual mission. Anyhow, I knew I would not get answers. I learned, however, that they had been shot at mid-night. What happened? From my experience of writing a book on the SAS, I would ask: Were the weapons discovered and were they staked out? Did the two men come to move the weapons only or to pick them up for an IRA action? Could they have been taken prisoner, considering the soldiers were in a strong superior position? Were they shot without warning, with or without the rifles? Were they shot in cold blood and were the guns then planted beside them? To date, 1997, there has been no inquest and no explanation given. Only the police and soldiers who were present at the shooting know the full truth. Will they tell it?

  On my way home my thoughts strayed to a lovely sunny autumn day in 1969. I was visiting the house of the Grew family who then lived in Knockaconey in my parish, a short distance as the crow flies from the scene of this shooting. Mrs Grew was peeling apples at the table. The front door was lying open. Suddenly two schoolboys ran in and pitched their schoolbags in the corner. They seemed delighted to see the priest. They wanted someone on whom they could bounce their ideas and questions. A running commentary on current politics, particularly that of the People’s Democracy, flowed from them. I can still see their eager excited faces. Little did I imagine that the same two boys would be shot dead some years later in the ‘troubles’ which were then just beginning. Séamus was shot dead along with Roddy Carroll on 2 December 1980 in one of the County Armagh ‘Shoot-to-Kill’ killings that were the subject of the Stalker Report. Both men were unarmed. Desmond was shot dead by the SAS on the night of 9 October 1990.

  Memorial to Fergal Caraher, 30 December 1991

  On 30 December 1990 Fergal Caraher was shot dead by the British army in his native village of Cullyhanna, County Armagh. His brother Mícheál was severely injured in the same incident. He was twenty years of age, was happily married to his wife Margaret and was the father of a one-year old son, Brendan. His father Peter John, a local farmer, and his mother, headmistress at the local primary school, are highly respected people in Cullyhanna. The nationalist population regarded the killing as part of the Shoot-to-Kill policy of the British government in Northern Ireland. The killing so affected the local community that they formed the Cullyhanna Justice Group in March 1991. With the aid of the Irish National Congress and other groups they organised an inquiry into the shooting. The inquiry, held in Cullyhanna, was made up of five international jurists chaired by Michael Mansfield, QC. Its aim was to inquire into the fatal shooting and wounding and also look at the Shoot-to-Kill policy. Four jurists found that there was ample evidence to charge the soldiers with murder and all the jurists raised questions about the Shoot-to-Kill policy. Mr Mansfield withheld his findings because of news he received from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Twelve days after the launch of the jurists’ report two Royal Marines, L. Cpl Richard Elkington (25) and Marine Andrew Callaghan (21), were charged on 5 February 1992 with the murder of Fergal Caraher and with attempting to murder Mícheál Caraher and causing him grievous bodily harm. On 23 December 1992 the two soldiers were acquitted. The soldiers from 45 Commando claimed they fired twenty shots at the brothers’ car at a checkpoint to save another soldier they believed was being dragged away on the bonnet of the car driven by Mícheál Caraher. The Lord Chief Justice, Sir Brian Hutton, said he could not rely on the accounts given by the civilian witnesses for the defence or on those given by the accused and Marine B. He said the scientific evidence gave some support to the claim that the soldiers opened fire because the car hit Marine B and carried him off on the bonnet. He said he had to acquit them because he had a reasonable doubt of their guilt.

  Reporting on their work over two years, before the trial, the Cullyhanna Justice Group, published the following account of the incident:

  ‘On Sunday 30 December 1990, the car of Dr Donal O’Hanlon broke down in the South Armagh village of Cullyhanna. As he tried to fix it, two locals, Liam Murphy and Mícheál Caraher, drove past and, seeing him in difficulty, stopped and assisted him in trying to re-start the car. Oliver McArdle, a qualified mechanic, arrived and succeeded in fixing the car. Oliver and the doctor then left.

  ‘As they drove off, Mícheál’s brother Fergal drove up in his white Rover. He got out to pass the time of day to his friend and brother. A patrol, consisting of four member of the British army, appeared and began questioning the three. They asked their names and addresses and checked the registration number of both cars. The patrol then left.

  ‘After a brief discussion the three agreed to go to Dundalk in Liam Murphy’s car. Fergal decided to leave his car in the car park of the local bar, the “Lite ‘n’ Easy”.

  ‘As Liam followed behind he remembered that he was to leave his car with his wife who was in the local shop a few hundred yards past the car park. He explained the problem to Mícheál. He told him he would drop him off at the car park where he could tell Fergal that they would take the white Rover and he himself would meet them further down the road. Approaching the car park, both cars were waved through a British army checkpoint.

  ‘When he parked his car Fergal was approached by a soldier. Mícheál then arrived to tell his brother of the new arrangements. Fergal asked the soldier, ‘Are we right?’ The soldier nodded. Mícheál decided to drive the car. He pulled out of the car park. Several of the soldiers then opened fire on them without warning. Both brothers were hit within seconds of each other. Mícheál, seeing the condition of his brother, continued driving in an effort to find a doctor. Liam Murphy and Jimmy Quinn, who had heard the shots, followed the car and found it about half a mile down the road.

  ‘Fergal Caraher was pronounced dead at 4.20pm on arrival at Daisy Hill Hospital, Newry. Mícheál was rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, where he underwent emergency surgery.

  ‘That night the British army, through the RUC, released a statement implying that the car had failed to stop at the checkpoint and that two members of the British army patrol had been knocked down, one of whom was carried some distance by the car.

  ‘The next day several eye-witnesses made statements to a local solicitor contradicting the British army’s statement of events. At the funeral of Fergal, his father made a public statement that the family was not satisfied with the statement from the authorities. He called for an independent public inquiry’.

  Unveiling of Memorial to Fergal Caraher, Fr Raymond Murray, 30 December 1991

  This evening we have gathered together to
remember, in a loving and spiritual way, Fergal Caraher aged 20 years shot dead by the British army Royal Marines Regiment a year ago today. In the same shooting his brother Mícheál was severely injured. Tragedies come to us as they came to God’s own Son unbidden and unwanted. A tragedy is an occasion for deep and anguished faith. In the past year Fergal’s parents, wife and brothers and sisters have had to offer to God a weight of grief and tears. Our prayer for them throughout the year has been that the Spirit of God’s consolation would enfold them in his loving arms and strengthen their faith in the immense happiness, glory light and joy that surrounds Fergal in the everlasting life. May eternal light shine upon him.

  Whilst we tread our pilgrim way here on earth we must live in charity, truth and justice. The great torch light procession we have seen here tonight not only reflects the 345 people killed by security forces but all the deaths. The death of any human person diminishes us all. We are all aware of the great mountain of suffering of all bereaved people in this sad and too long a conflict. There is an emphasis, however, this evening on this category of deaths by government forces because the tight control of media by the British government authorities attempts to hide the truth that more than half of these 345 deaths were unjust killings and sometimes murder. There has been no redress or justice for the families of victims of government killings. The cover-up not only includes senior officers in their forces but also civil servants, judiciary bodies and elements in the British cabinet.