On the protection of sources…
Following on several detailed discussions on Slugger (here and here) of the accusations by Martin Ingram about the loyalities of Martin McGuinness based on what he claims is a confidential MI6 transcript document of a Kathy Johnston offers these thoughts on the protection of sources.From Kathy Johnston
“Liam Clarke knows that the Now Chief Constable Hugh Orde told the family of Mr Notorantonio that my claims that he featured within the Brian Nelson files and that he had been involved in the Stake knife story was true. Mr Clarke sat on that story because his sources did not want the story in the Public Domain. The Newspaper (the People) that did carry the story received an immediate Injunction, forcing that paper to publish a blank page in recognition of the states desire to stop the story from being told. The Injunction made it clear that no mention of the murder could be made and further more a second injunction prevented the paper from telling the world that it had been injuncted in the first place.”
Hugh Orde, who was in charge of the Stevens Inquiry investigation at the time, told The Sunday Times in October 2000 that he had found no link between the Notarantonio murder and Stakeknife. In December 2000 he met the Notarantonio family to tell them that he had no evidence to confirm claims that Notarantonio was killed to protect Stakeknife. He also told them that Stakeknife did exist. In January 2001 Orde confirmed this to The Guardian.
MI brings up the question of injunctions. No action has been taken against the Sunday World – they weren’t, for example, injuncted against publishing their advertised follow up on Martin McGuinness or MI’s article last Sunday. Nor did they have to submit copy to the D Notice Committee, who made no moves to stop any organisation publishing this story, including Slugger. And Sunday World has not been contacted about the alleged J118 document by the police.
When Liam Clarke and I published authentic secret documents – telephone transcripts of MMcG’s conversations with Mo Mowlam and Jonathan Powell – in the paperback edition of our unauthorised biography of Martin McGuinness in April 2003, our house was raided by heavily armed police officers under the direction of Hugh Orde, by then PSNI chief Constable. They seized journalistic contact books, sack loads of personal, legally privileged and journalistic material, computer discs, a laptop and three hard drives. They imaged the laptop and the three hard drives. Simultaneously they used a battering ram to force entry to The Sunday Times office before seizing material from it. They arrested us at two o’clock in the morning and held us at Antrim PSNI station for 23 hours, during which time we were separately questioned by detectives in four interviews each. We were re-arrested the following month and questioned again when we answered police bail. After a year and a half the police sent us a letter advising us that the DPP had decided that we should not be prosecuted ‘at the moment’. That is what happens when you publish genuinely secret documents.
We never at any time revealed the names of our sources for anything in the book – not under police questioning, not to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry when we gave evidence to them. We didn’t perjure ourselves with the police, nor with the Bloody Sunday Inquiry either – even when we had to answer to the threat of a custodial sentence for contempt. That is easy – you just have to say no and keep your mouth shut. MI is obviously aware that we have not revealed his true identity nor his whereabouts despite legal pressure to do so.
Nothing of any evidential value was found in the raid on our house and The Sunday Times office. We haven’t discussed the identity of any of our sources, nor their nature, with anyone and I stress that MI does not know who any of them are. Neither has anyone been convicted in connection with the book. Although one person was charged with leaking us stuff, he was found not guilty.
[i]It reeks of Martin Mc Guinness having
the class, decency and fortitude[/i]
Classic, Maura. Can this be the same Comical Marty who high-tailed it on horseback to Derry something in the manner of Captain Lundy all those years ago?
PS my security word is horse**!!!!
Nevin
I suppose you believe that story as well about ‘Fisherman’ being the codename?
None of the two Martins have come out of this smelling of roses. Both had more credibility before any of it started. I don’t think McGuinness is an agent but unlike Maura I don’t think he emerges untainted by the mud that has been thrown. As for Ingram, when in a hole ….
Hi Creggan, did you read my post about Comical Marty collaborating with ‘traitors’ in the British establishment? How would that make him a tout?
PS Fisherman seems a bit too obvious ….
can this be the same comical marty
nevin
do you mean like a clown without the makeup, thats how he was described by some big wig years ago.
Jhn I don’t think he’s an agent either, but hes definitely got some questions to answer.
‘ I don’t think McGuinness is an agent but unlike Maura I don’t think he emerges untainted by the mud that has been thrown. ‘
Does anyone emerge untainted when mud has been thrown at them, really? And is this Ingram’s true intention? Thus, if some of the mud sticks, does this destabilise republicans?
On the other hand, unfounded accusations like this about Mc Guinness have been around a while, right? Yet Nationalist voters have voted for Mc Guinness repeatedly in elections. I would need to go check his vote and compare the numbers as these allegations surfaced, so I am not sure if there has been any effect, but the fact remains that Nationalist voters have confidence in Mc Guinness. And I dare say, they will continue to do so.
A nice piece to go to bed reading.
Gerry guilt!
He hasn’t helped in the McGuinness saga
By Gail Walker
06 June 2006
The reports in the Press naming Martin McGuinness as a British spy have taken on a momentum of their own. And Gerry Adams hasn’t helped.
Firstly, it seems wild horses couldn’t get the two SF leaders in front of the same camera. Secondly, Adams’s claim that the reports were aimed at getting Martin killed introduced a whole new dimension.
The claim drew attention to the real jury sitting in judgment. It’s like The X Factor. Louis, Sharon and Simon can opine all they like about the acts, but it’s the phone-in voters who really count.
And, as we know, you certainly don’t want to be voted off the show by the texters of west Tyrone and south Armagh.
You don’t get to return to a quiet career in panto once Stumpy and Squinty make their minds up.
Instead of damping the crisis down, Gerry only inflamed the situation, reminding everyone how high the stakes are.
Just imagine how intense the scrutiny of Martin’s career is among republican veterans who have seen the integrity of their movement trashed over the last 18 months by the revelations about Scappaticci and Donaldson.
Grubby allegations
The fact is, republicans are now prepared to believe anything about anybody.
After all, the suspect is a former Minister for Education in a partitionist Northern Ireland government at Stormont.
For some Provos, that alone makes the current grubby allegations seem insignificant.
The sheer volume of information coming out about McGuinness’s career as a Chief of Staff of the IRA – his flawed management style, if you like, as he appointed acknowledged touts to senior positions – can only fuel the paranoia in the ranks of the IRA.
The organisation believed its own propaganda about how noble it was. Yet republicans, it turns out, were just as keen on the brown envelope stuffed with fivers as their loyalist counterparts.
But it was republicans who harped on and on about the collusion between elements of the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries. They knew very well that the British aim was to infiltrate and eradicate those gangs.
Propaganda
But SF went for the easy and – as it turns out – very stupid propaganda line. The British, they maintained, were running loyalist gangs so that loyalists would kill Catholics for them.
Now it’s clear that MI5 and MI6 and all the other security wings were running dozens of agents within the IRA. Not to kill Protestants on behalf of the Government, but so that the IRA would be dismantled from within.
History might say that’s exactly what happened. Even worse, some in the IRA might say that, too.
So it made sense for Gerry to introduce the idea that someone who wanted Martin McGuinness killed would simply use false allegations of being an informer to get the IRA to do it.
As the relatives of many IRA men murdered by the IRA as informers know, that’s exactly what’s been happening for years. The rest of us are only finding out now just how corrupt and nasty and futile and pointless – and unnecessary – the whole damn so-called ‘war’ was.
She is right, the two Gerry`s have been very careful over this one , they know the stakes are high. They know he is in trouble with the grass roots of the Ra.
I will sleep well tonight, I bet Lucky is tossing and turning.
Martin
Mick,
Quote from Johnty Brown. “The ex-CID man recalls Haddock crying like a baby and confessing to the 1993 sectarian killing of Catholic woman Sharon McKenna.
But Haddock was not prosecuted because he was a protected Branch agent.
Another not in the public interest. The place is littered with them, do the lot of them. Handlers and Touts.
Martin
But it was republicans who harped on and on about the collusion between elements of the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries. They knew very well that the British aim was to infiltrate and eradicate those gangs.
Propaganda
But SF went for the easy and – as it turns out – very stupid propaganda line. The British, they maintained, were running loyalist gangs so that loyalists would kill Catholics for them.
Now that’s what I call British propaganda!
How much did you pay her Marty?
Gail Walker
Johnty Brown
Ingram, how many names do you intend to throw into this cesspit of yours? You have spent the last week, NOT talking about your phony documents and ridiculous assertions re: Mc Guinness, but searching for some source, ANY source, that will lend you some credibilty.
Like in your ‘career’ you have failed!
Ingram says: ‘I will sleep well tonight, I bet Lucky is tossing and turning. ‘
Hmmmm I’ll bet he is giving you as much berth as the rest of us.
And you expect to be taken seriously as a political player.
I hate to say it but , LOLOLOLOLOLOL
A question for the artist known as’ Ingram’
Are you on the brew ??
Has Pete Waterman been on to you about starting a pop career ??
Are you going to do your GCSE in English next term ??
“A nice piece to go to bed reading”- Ingram
What? And there was me thinking that you lived the ‘high life’?
No ‘Easons’ around your neck of the woods?
Danny
‘Ingram is making a point about Brian, that is known and accepted in Republican circles and you know it so stop playing games. It weakens any argument you may have.’
I don’t recognise that it is ‘known and accepted’ in republican circles. You seem to be following the MI theory of just because it is repeated often enough it takes on a grain of truth.
MI,
come on now, quoting extensively from a chat romm as if that contains a modicum of truth. BTW trailing Gail Walker in as some sort of character witness signals bottom of the barrel time. Who next, Lindy Mc Dowell?
jacky/martin/mi6/whoeveryouare
you have been trying to use eamonn mccann contribution to RFA to back up your claims, i had a feeling you would as soon as i heard the interview. you were delighted when mccann confirmed a detail about franko touting in the stickies.
but you seem to ignore the rest of what mccann said. he does not believe your claims about mmcg, and he said having know the man for a long time, he would need a mountain of evidence to believe you.
you don’t even seem to have a molehill …
Now there’s an idee: Jack and the molehill