Raymond Gilmour, special branch informer, has much to say , in his book, about Martin McGuinness. Gilmour has requested a meeting with the PSNI. It is reported that he wishes to give evidence against McGuinness in respect of a number of murders.
The PSNI have refused to tell me whether or not a meeting is scheduled or has in fact taken place.
Mairia Cahill , in an interview with Michael Reade on LMFM said that Adams “was responsible as a head of an armed movement for the murder and torture of thousands of people on this island”.
Readers might imagine that a grand niece of a member of the Army Council is well placed to know that.
One hopes that the PSNI have obtained a statement to this effect from her and submitted it to the deputy director of the PPS for consideration with the rest of the file.
January 1990
Handler: “Denis , the big bosses want an update. Who is on the Army Council at present?
Denis: “Gerry, Pat Doherty, head of intelligence; Joe Cahill, Martin McGuinness, Kevin McKenna, Mickey McKevitt and Slab.”
Handler: “Great, and is McGuinness still head of Northern Command?”
Denis:”Of course”
In Policing the Shadows, by Holland and Phoenix, a book written posthumously about Ian Phoenix, who was in RUC Special Branch, the authors state at page 215: “most of the information gathered on the paramilitaries and their links lay idle in police files and was never exploited”
Moral of the story: a succession of Chief Constables ignored [or were instructed to ignore] the activities of PIRA senior figures because of the “peace process”. Alternatively, McGuinness was “the Fisherman” a tout and therefore untouchable. As one commentator has said, why sacrifice Donaldson at the time of the Stormont arrests unless the State had higher placed informants?
When a “volunteer” attaches a bomb below a retired policeman’s car in Belfast, he [or she] is the last person in a chain that stretches back to PIRA Northern Command and perhaps beyond. Volunteers did not go out and plant bombs on a whim. The police officer will have been targeted. The area will have been scouted and his movements monitored. Other Republicans, such as staff in hospitals, may have given vital information. The proposal to kill X will then be put up the chain and approved by the head of Northern Command, in 1990, McGuinness. The under car booby trap bomb will be made by one of a small group of people and authorisation given for it to be delivered to the active service unit who will be responsible for going out and placing it.
Each person in the chain is complicit in the eventual murder.
I have asked the Chief Constable a series of questions relating to the above scenario. So far he has declined to give me any meaningful answers.
Soon I will set out the questions and readers may judge for themselves.
Too many victims have been fobbed off by the RUC, PSNI and HET with the excuse that there are “no evidential opportunities”. It all depends on where you look.
As the anniversary of this atrocity approaches it is important to bear in mind that McGuinness approved this bombing. A classic PIRA attack. An associated bombing failed. The time is approaching when I will set out my case against him as not only the murderer of my parents but as one of the mass murderers of the last century. Coming for you, Fisherman!
When Barra McGrory replied to my request for an investigation into McGuinness, regarding the murders of my parents, he said: “I have no reason to believe that there has not been a very thorough and comprehensive investigation of their deaths” That was when it had slipped his mind that at all material times he had been McGuinness’s lawyer.
That reply was last May, now, five months on, I am told that the PSNI and the PPS are to meet to discuss my concerns and allegations.
Readers may recall that Barra McGrory, on the basis of a Panorama programme, requested the Chief Constable to investigate the behaviour of the Army. When I asked him to carry out a similar exercise in respect of Martin McGuinness, he refused, then said that he had not refused , then delegated the decision to a senior member of his department.
Now the Attorney General has decided, on the basis of the same programme , to order new inquests into the deaths of Daniel Rooney and Patrick McVeigh.
I have today requested that the A-G order fresh inquests into the murders of my parents on the basis of extensive publications , over the years, asserting that McGuinness was head of northern command PIRA and that he approved the murders of my parents. I also request that the voluminous State intelligence on McGuinness is made available to the Coroner.
Let’s see how even handed the response is.
I first asked the DPP and the Chief Constable to make further enquiries into what I allege is the involvement of McGuinness in the murders of my parents, in May this year.
After insufficient responses from the PSNI, I gave them one final opportunity to respond, before I set out here the allegations. That matter has been with the DCC, Harris, for several weeks.
Having undecided a decision he had made against me, Barra McGrory delegated responsibility , on 5th June, to his Senior Assistant Director, Stephen Herron. He promptly went on leave. On 12th September, Mr Herron promised me a reply “within two weeks”.
I am still waiting.
I suppose I have to join the queue behind the decision whether to prosecute Adams, the review of Adams in respect of his brother’s case and the review into the cases associated with Ms Cahill .
If you lived in a community where, over the years , people said “Joe Bloggs does all the burglaries about here”; you might expect that Joe would have a few convictions. If he had none you might wonder why. Ponder also when several of the local newspapers say; “Joe Bloggs is a burglar” and Joe does not sue for libel.
As with Joe, so with Martin. Soon , I will list all those who have accused him of membership of PIRA, of being on the army council [though it was never an “army” because they bleated like sheep when the SAS dealt with them], and of being head of northern command. Volunteer McGuinness has never sued. You can work that one out.
Today’s statement from the PPS appears to be a tacit admission that there was a lack of supervision and joined up thinking in respect of the cases relating to Ms Cahill.
Once again it also appears that the Director is professionally embarrassed by his past representation of Sinn Fein/PIRA and is unable to carry out his function as a government law officer.
Meantime the letter promised to me by the PPS by 26 September has not arrived and no explanation has been offered.
seftonblog 