By Harry Hutchinson
(Labour Northern Ireland, Mid-Ulster branch, personal capacity)
Northern Ireland Public prosecutor, Barra McGrory, recently ruled that there was insufficient evidence to bring thirteen suspects, including two police officers, to trial. This is despite the suspects being named by a serial-killing double-agent, Gary Haggarty, who worked for the ruthless Ulster Volunteer Force as well as the CID.
Haggarty was recruited as a state informer in 2010 and has admitted to 500 criminal offences including five murders. He recently turned on his loyalist colleagues and state-handlers after pleading guilty to these crimes. However, in order to avoid a heavy sentence, Haggarty chose to accept an ‘assistance offenders’ deal, where, by naming other criminals, he will receive a drastically-reduced sentence. As Haggarty has already spent three years on remand, he will effectively walk free from court.
One of Haggarty’s handlers was named in court as Special Branch officer Dougie Buchanan. Despite serious allegations made against Buchanan, no investigation will be carried out and he will be effectively protected by the state.
The British Secret Service operated clandestine control over Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. It was estimated that state informers in the IRA in the early 1980’s numbered as many as six hundred.
Almost all of the inquiries carried out on major atrocities to date, point to the fact that Special Branch/MI5, either: 1) knew of an expected attack; 2) allowed the attack to proceed; 3) did not inform the local police of an imminent attack; 4) colluded with paramilitaries in the attack and/or 5) covered up evidence and did not carry out a proper investigation after the attack, despite in some cases knowing the killers to continue killing. All of this in aid of protecting state informers.
Of the worst atrocity during the troubles, the Omagh bombing, Special Branch failed to pass details of the town centre bomb to local police. In the inquiry, the RUC’s handler was told ‘ the bomb will be allowed to go through to protect the informer’. Twenty-nine people were killed in the subsequent explosion.
Likewise, in the Shankill bomb, the IRA operative was a police informant, who tipped of Special Branch. The bomb was allowed to go through, again, almost certainly to protect the informer.
At Loughinisland, six were killed. The inquiry ruled that the ‘RUC did not carry out a proper investigation in order to protect the informer’. Possible collusion between RUC and paramilitaries.
At Keady, two killed. The Glenanne gang was made up of LVF/UDR members and police. Special branch knew the identities of the bombers: no one questioned.
At Kingsmill, ten were murdered. A survivor claimed there had been an English accent among the killers. Does special branch/MI5 know it was the voice of state assassin Robert Nairac?
At Claudy, nine were killed. Priest James Chesney was allowed to transfer to Donegal, despite him being known to Special Branch as director of Republican operations in South Derry.
The list goes on and on.
The state used a special unit known as the Force Reserch Unit (FRU) to infiltrate the paramilitaries. The FRU colluded with the Loyalist Ulster Defence Association in directly killing an estimated fifteen civilians. ‘Stakeknife’, the code-name for a state informant positioned at the very top of the IRA, killed an estimated eighteen people.
It is doubtful if there is one atrocity during the troubles in which Special Branch or MI5 were not acting to protect their informers at the expense of civilian lives and causalities. Almost all the inquiries to date prove this to be the case. The war was allowed to continue until the sectarian capitalist Unionist and Republican parties came to an agreement to Govern. However, the tactic of state control of the paramilitaries goes on in the criminal underworld of territorial control.
October 25 2017
