het – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

OPONI wants more history, less inquiry…

John Ó Néill on November 24, 2011, 10:00 pm

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Over at The Detail, Barry McCafferty is reporting that the Police Ombudsman’s office is now saying that it can no longer investigate the killings of anyone shot dead by a police officer during the Troubles. “A test case in the Supreme Court (House of Lords) earlier this year has confirmed to us that we cannot investigate deaths from the Troubles which have previously been investigated unless there is new evidence.” The Ombudsman spokesman said it would now ask government to introduce …

HET Report on Kingsmills

Turgon on June 16, 2011, 11:29 am

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The News Letter today has details of the HET report into the Kingsmills massacre, the full report of which will be released to the families today. From the News Letter: On January 5, 1976, a Ford Transit minibus was carrying a mixed workforce of 16 home from work in Glenanne to Bessbrook. Five were Catholics and 11 were Protestants. Four of the Catholics got out at Whitecross, while the remainder continued on the road to Bessbrook. As the bus cleared …

Government apologises over Majella O’Hare killing

Turgon on March 28, 2011, 1:30 pm

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Another of the wrongs of the past forty years here in Northern Ireland has been acknowledged. The BBC are reporting that the government has apologised in writing to the family of Majella O’Hare who was killed by a soldier in Whitecross Co. Armagh on 18th August 1976. Miss O’Hare (aged 12) was on her way home from church when she was shot in the back by Private Michael Williams. At the time Williams claimed that he was returning fire on …

Call for HET to investigate Joanne Mathers’ murder

Turgon on March 16, 2011, 11:35 am

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This year is census year and is the thirtieth anniversary of the murder of Joanne Mathers. She was collecting the census returns in Londonderry when she was murdered by the IRA. The 29 year old mother of an infant son had taken the part-time job to earn some extra money. On April 7, she had just gone to a house on Anderson Crescent in Derry when a man ran up to her, grabbed her clipboard with one hand, put a …

Mount Vernon investigation explains HET bias…

Mick Fealty on March 15, 2011, 6:58 pm

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Interesting addendum to Turgon’s post earlier in the day, on the PUP’s call on the HET for it’s bias. Now there is, as Turgon points out (and repeated in the PUP protest banners on this UTV clip), a strange absence of any prosecutions of non dissident Republican paramilitaries. But there’s an explanation as to why the UVF is so well represented in the prosecutions, the investigation of one unit, the one operating in Mount Vernon. And, as pointed out in …

Basil McCrea and Brian Ervine on the HET

Turgon on March 15, 2011, 1:08 pm

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The News Letter is reporting Basil McCrea expressing concern about potential bias in the work of the Historical Enquires Team. An FoI request has apparently revealed that all but one of the 71 arrests they have made has been of loyalists. McCrea appears to support the attempts to arrest loyalist criminals but points out that since the majority of the murders here were committed by the IRA, significant resources should also be devoted to the arrest of those criminals. He …

Loyalist terrorist found guilty of sectarian murder

Turgon on February 28, 2011, 9:28 pm

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Sectarian murder victim Alfredo Fusco and his bride on their wedding day Another of the bereaved families from here finally got some degree of justice today. Loyalist terrorist Robert James Clarke was found guilty of the sectarian murder of 53-year-old Alfredo Fusco in his York Road café on 3 February 1973. From the BBC report: Mr Justice McLaughlin said there “was no innocent explanation” for the fact that fingerprints belonging to Clarke were found on the door which Alfredo Fusco …

35 years after Kingsmills HET report due next week

Turgon on January 5, 2011, 10:23 pm

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Today is the 35th anniversary of the Kingsmills massacre. There was due to be a remembrance service this morning at the site of the murders. The News Letter is reporting that the HET is due to release its report into the murders next week. It is in the context of events such as Kingsmills that one should view the claims of the supposed Republican “intellectual” Sheehan that the conflict here was “quite civilised.” From the News Letter Colin Worton was …

Time to admit the limits of dealing with the past

Brian Walker on June 18, 2010, 8:07 am

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It is pretty clear that the State – or a part of it at any rate – is moving towards closing legal process in three years for dealing with the past and that anything further will be dealt with and funded privately. In the wake of the Saville report, nothing is to be gained by Westminster and Stormont prevaricating about this any longer. On Monday David Cameron referred all further cases to the Historical Enquiries Team which in March the …

The jury is out (for some)

Blank on June 17, 2010, 2:28 pm

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With the publication of the Saville Report focus is now shifting to the possibility of prosecutions, some paratroopers are already under investigation by the Public Prosecutions Service over perjury at the inquiry but it is unknown if any criminal investigations and/or prosecutions will take place over events on the day. The DUP’s Peter Robinson has called for no prosecutions I think from a political point of view I have to say that I do not believe that there is anything …