pira informers

The RUC and the Cosa Nostra

On 6th June 1990 there were, on conservative estimates ,100  RUC informers among the PIRA in Belfast.

Each had a team of  handlers, probably four in number, to cover sickness, leave etc. Four hundred so far.

The handlers had bosses; sergeants, inspectors, chief inspectors, superintendents etc.  Let’s estimate a further fifty senior officers.

Four hundred and fifty so far.

Then the meetings had to be covered by E4A and others, each one, day by day. Maybe another 100 officers , who would have seen the likes of Scappaticci, Sean Maguire, Brian Gillen etc “singing like canaries” in car parks in Hillsborough, Holywood , Helens Bay etc.

Five hundred and fifty.

The there was the “Hen House” where women, in serried ranks typed up the transcripts of the recordings of the meetings. Another fifty, at least.

Six hundred now.

Move to the civil servants in the NIO and others who read the ‘product’.

Then the Director of Public Prosecutions and his staff…

I’m rounding it up at seven hundred.

Maybe a third are dead.

But out there , today are several hundred people who could help the victims. They could tell the awful story of state involvement in supposedly terrorist murders.

Only a few  have spoken out.

Why? Like the Cosa Nostra , the silent ones  are motivated by money. Patten payments. Big pensions.

Before turning attention and criticism on the republicans, victims should ask themselves-why the silence? The answer is that the relevant RUC officers and civil servants are corrupt. Like the Mafia.

Who? Think of Flanagan, White, McQuillan , Matchett and Mains, all still earning  from the misfortunes of the victims and failing to tell the truth.

This is the real tragedy of the Troubles.

Why Drew Harris is not to be trusted

Readers of this blog will have read my previous articles about the murders of my parents and my attempt to obtain justice for them.

During this campaign I have engaged, inter alia , the RUC, the PSNI, the HET , the Police Ombudsman and others.

A recurring theme, like “Blackpool” through a stick of rock , has been that there is no intelligence as to the killers. Every organisation has said the same thing.

Consider this. The two most deadly areas of conflict in the Troubles were South Armagh and North Belfast. It is likely that these two areas received the most attention from the security forces.

The “supremo” re intelligence in the PSNI is Drew Harris. He is presently Deputy Chief Constable.

In 2014 , when he was an ACC , I raised with him , again, the issue of intelligence, either before , during or after the murders. I had pointed out the persons whom  I alleged were informers to the PSNI, MI5 or the Army. [See previous blogs]. All agencies had told me that no such intelligence existed.

He said in a letter to me dated 11th August 2014, “Whilst is [sic] not appropriate to comment upon the governance arrangements that exist in relation to the exchange of intelligence between agencies, I can assure you that both the SCRT and the HET had full access to all available information and intelligence during the course of their respective Reviews.”

I recommend to you that you read Ed Moloney’s blog entitled “The Tom Oliver Killing-Transcript of Drew Harris’ Testimony to the Smithwick Tribunal”

Aside from the specific references to the killing, Mr Harris is plainly uncomfortable about the twenty pieces of intelligence [not silver] which had lately been laid before the tribunal at his hand.

Where have they been all these years, was one question.

Mr Harris placed these items of intelligence before the tribunal in October 2012. When his testimony  was read into the record, the tribunal had been hearing evidence for 124 days.

More importantly, North Belfast was riddled with PIRA informers. Sean Maguire, now SF/IRA publicity director , operated there. The  command structure encompassed Gillen, Spike Murray, Scap and McGuinness. All likely informers.

To suggest that no intelligence exists for 1990 in North Belfast ,  comparable to that in 1989   in South Armagh, is a lie and a desecration of the memory  of a man who served the RUC and of a woman who was an “innocent victim”

It’s time ‘men’ like Harris and others who populated Special Branch stood up and admitted what they did and the level of collusion between the State and PIRA.

Or are they just happy to spend their pension in Marks and Spencer ?

Does National Police Memorial Day prick any conscience?

 

The partial repayment of a debt

Today I lodged papers with the Police Ombudsman. Details will follow. Essentially, I contend that PIRA was so completely penetrated by the state in 1990 that the murders of my parents were the state’s responsibility. This the police failed to investigate. I have given details of the PIRA informers, whose names I know and I have asked the Ombudsman to examine all state files. The exercise has taken a year of my life, which I have gladly given, for my parents. Other events have given me this opportunity, which I failed to take for twenty four years. A number of people who treated me badly during that time and who gave me no support will have their own God to answer to. I thank those who have stood by me through all my travails for these years. I thank those from both communities, who, in the last twelve months have given me information and insight. The PSNI and the PPS failed to come up to the mark. Let’s see if the Ombudsman is hewn from different wood.