Supt Bob Buchanan

Smithwick: “the evidence keeps pointing back to the desire of the IRA to acquire information as to how the British Security Services had gotten advance warning of the IRA ambush on Loughgall Police Station…”

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As the findings of the Smithwick Tribunal report [RTÉ-hosted 22mb pdf] continue to be digested, it’s worth recalling the reported concerns of “members of the PIRA” in May last year. The Smithwick Tribunal is becoming a “significant issue” among republicans who are concerned it is uncovering information on past murders, the tribunal has been told. According to a précis of intelligence information gleaned by the PSNI within the last year, and aired at the tribunal this morning, “members of the PIRA are …

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The hyperlocal probing into the past: 9.12.11 round-up

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On Friday, the probing of the past trundled onwards: at the Smithwick Tribunal into the deaths of Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan, who were shot dead by the IRA in 1989; and, at the inquest into the death of Daniel Hegarty, who was shot dead by a British solider during Operation Motorman in July 1972. There is an interesting contrast in the reporting of the Smithwick Tribunal proceedings on the BBC and in the Irish Times, with the BBC reporting on Jeffrey …

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Judge Smithwick: “I therefore anticipate that I will be able to submit my final report by the end of May 2012.”

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Having expressed his concern at the 30 November ‘deadline’ initially imposed by the Irish Government, Judge Peter Smithwick has now formally requested a 6 month extension for the tribunal he chairs.  From the Irish Times report The tribunal, now six years in existence, began its public hearings only in June this year. Judge Smithwick stated in his letter that since the public hearings had begun, a number of people previously unknown to the tribunal had come forward with potentially important information, …

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