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Collateral Damage Film (Transcript) |
(www.stakeknife.eu)
Twitter:
@seankellyis
(17)
Emphasis, where used, is
mine.
*
Collateral
Damage
(Context)
1) Voiceover lends introduction against the background of four young
Australians acting out the parts of Stephan and Lyndal
The film director starts off by depicting theatre on a tourist barge
plying a course on a Dutch canal. A portrayal of good life that would be
repeated in other scenes.
Susy Fraser, sister of Stephan, introduces balance and filial love.
Roy Melrose, father of Stephan, is also filmed one to one. A once solid
man, articulate, now emotionally vulnerable, made so by unbearable loss.
Coulthart in this and in other clips paints a human scale that is
primary and not subordinate to the pursuit of investigative journalism.
2) Background film shows a Donna Maguire actor blazing away with an AK
rifle to which she seems to have an unrequited attachment, and two male actors
discharging pistols.
A macho prelude to filming the murder of the two men in Roermond square.
A display of military competence not likely in IRA reality. That said, almost
anybody can image a two-handed pistol firing (in-combat) mode for camera.
Likewise any fool can pull a trigger. Tragically, as history informs,
fewer know when not to.
An attempt at a Hollywood style action flick.
3) This section deals with the status of the two shot Australian
solicitors, both employed in
Their short haircuts and British registered car marked them out as
British troops from nearby German bases. They looked the part.
It was enough – a decision to murder was made without further appraisal.
As Roy Melrose hauntingly put it: “[Stephan] seemed to be the wrong
person in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
If it were only as simple as that.
4) A chance stop-off at Roermond by the couples for a meal is translated
by film sequences. Observing antipodeans acting in locum tenens replicates
other historical images in my mind. An evasion from the purported goal of the
film – a substitution of style for substance.
Ian Fraser, Stephan Melrose’s brother-in-law, ponders on the IRA. His judgement
likewise reflects on the morality of modern warfare. It also misses the point
in the search for truth – a wider truth comes not from the IRA but from those
who made their actions possible.
The republican movement was extensively infiltrated. Its structures were
conducive to penetration and susceptible to a long standing intra-national
control by manipulation, hence the elsewhere made claim of a “driving force
within and without”.
It is entirely plausible that those structures were formulated and
implemented by agents of state acting under direction. The state through its
agents too often had an easy hand at knowing things, even if the showing of
that hand was not expressly overt.
I’m saying the film’s direction is a misdirection. That misdirection is
in its superficial concentration and portrayal of one IRA team in isolation
without questioning the bona fides of
those within and extending the questioning to linear attachments. A
concentration on only one spoke in a buckled wheel.
There was no exposure on the extent of interstate light touch control
and influence on the republican movement, done at a remove, done more easily at
the macro than micro level, done more easily abroad than at home, done where
paper trail ventures exist - like investments and business scams - areas where
easily directed at a profit republicans would associate.
Without understanding this, and more, one cannot come close to
concluding the reasons for a tolerance of so much of what the IRA did and why.
The modus operandi of intelligence agencies is self appointed. Owing
nothing to the sovereignty of the people it is a contradiction of that which it
avowedly stands for.
Therein reposes the truth why so many lives were lost. A judgement not
confined to the Irish dimension of terrorism but one universally contained
within the shadows of the democratic process, and elsewhere.
Search for truth from one and you contest all. Fraternal, cooperative,
mutually tolerant, they are on issues of common concern or challenge, almost
seamless.
Cruel and without morality. The liberal-left-human rights public face,
legal, political and media, or the body of its names, by whom many are blinded and seduced and from whom the
search for redress is predicated by virtue of their standing, is not against
them, it is part of them. Quietly the hares trot along with the hounds.
A rule of the thumb way to measure the insidious permeation and control
of the system by such influences is to use the nine out of ten template, a play
on an old piece of rural folklore, see one vermin count ten.
In respect of shadow state the principle translates, uncover one
strategically positioned asset-name, count nine out of ten.
One snapshot defines them as lightning rods who as they are at one with the
lie, the part above water, are anathema to the truth, that below water.
Alike a magnet for “whistleblower” and whistleblower.
Floaters of the former (ostentatiously). Sinkers of the latter
(silently). It is not what you see and know about them but that you do not see
or know which tells the story.
A story that has nothing to do with whistleblowing: one that’s designed
to deflect and suppress while acting out false representations of democratic
freedoms.
If what I say makes you any wiser as to why you don’t know, you will still not know what you don’t know.
That’s because the real function of
the “whistleblower” is unseen in the whistleblowing. I refer to national
security secrets the “whistleblower” may not be privy to.
“Whistleblowing” – the greatest intelligence deception unknown. The holy
of holies is a lie.
Part of the theatre is for the “whistleblower” to suffer to be attacked
but stoically accept the brickbats. The cause they serve, should a need to
salve a troubled conscience arise, is to say it’s for the greater good, one to
which many have had long and covert attachment.
Besides when the sun sets over the mountain, they will likely be
beneficiaries of a largesse beyond the laudatory – money stolen from the taxpayer and beyond.
Only the cognoscenti will know they are cheats; and they being family in the main, will stay silent.
The lie is not so much in what the “whistleblower” is telling but what
the telling sets out to achieve: often a determination to do down the search
for or the exposure of truth elsewhere.
Ownership of the public audience. Control. Direction. Even at times
entailing the sacrificial toppling of an inconvenient authority figure.
Who best to lead the way and take the “whistleblower” by the hand? The
big names of course. Who own the big
names? None other than those who own
the “whistleblower”.
If you say I am speaking tongue-in-cheek, pray tell me why I have spent
most part of 40 years on the road without support from any source.
I have however come up against many holocaust deniers. I allude to the
mini-holocausts created by agents and agencies of state: an unaccountable
fraternity with a codified immunity to preside over us like God.
Deniers found paradoxically even at the highest political level in
offices of state charged with enforcing law and order on behalf of the people.
Perversely a primacy that subordinates the welfare of the people to
egregious national security practices.
An arrogation of power that sets aside by one part (example,
M15/Intelligence and Security) with the derogation by another part (example,
Home Office/Department of Justice) the rights, freedoms and sometimes the life
of the citizen.
An abdication of duty that goes far beyond British and Irish
jurisdictions.
Even more bizarre is the offence of these political lie enforcers acting
out a game of non-existence for agencies subordinate to their own office.
Farcical were it not for a copious spilling of blood on the streets, as
it was during the Troubles.
Intelligence agencies are staffed by criminals for whom death, maiming
and property destruction is tolerated in the judicious management of paramilitary operations.
An end choice that indubitably resulted in countless unnamed victims,
fellow nationals included - civilian, police, military, political, but not for
themselves or their own blood.
Murder and maiming by vicarious endorsement, by one definition.
Extra-judicial killings at a remove, another.
In yet another context – a war crime.
Tyranny by any definition other than when in state employment, it seems.
And by a remarkable feat of cleverness, for how else can it be described,
understanding that canters fortuitously unseen by our free press and elected representatives.
What do you say of police officers who remained silent knowing their
colleagues suffered death and maiming in compromised terrorist operations?
A text book example of the hidden face of democracy in action.
*
[By the good grace of Twitter I have variously
sought the definition of a “war crime” and posed other questions of a germane
nature. I cite three tweets.
(01.10.19) @seankellyis Do governments
vicariously attach to war crimes through intelligence agencies allowing compromised
terrorist operations to proceed in acceptance of the potential consequences,
like murder, maiming and property destruction?
(02.10.19) @seankellyis McDowell, Andrews,
Higgins, Robinson, Ardern, Gillard, Swinson, Turnbull, Pelosi, et al, one day
you will realise you heard a child cry and walked away. The child has many
names. One of them is Nivruti Islania, 6 months at death. Read stakeknife.eu
sections 15 to 17.
(09.10.19) @seankellyis to @Amal-Style1: Is
the handle of “human rights” lawyer a sales pitch? Read my recent tweets and
then read stakeknife.eu section 13 and sections 15 to 17 and come back to me
with the definition of a “war crime”. My direction is to MI5 and the murder of
Heidi Hazell [in a compromised IRA operation].
Did I get a return? Ask another silly
question.
I add a slight variation to another tweet put
up one year later.
(17.10.20) @seankellyis Sir Keir Starmer KCB,
QC, MP, Leader HM Opposition. Further to my letter of Monday 05.10.20 on the
Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill.
You heard a
child cry, squirmed, and walked away. The child has many names. One of
them is Nivruti Islania, six months at death. Like Heidi Hazell and others,
murdered by the Security Service. Your decision not to vote against the CHIS
Bill was cowardly and shameful. Secret State xxx+ Innocents o.
Please read stakeknife.eu sections 7, 13 and
15 to 17.
Reel forward to
(23.05.22) @seankellyis Why was IRA agent
Infliction, a mass murderer by vicarious attachment, inordinately privileged
and protected by a cohort of intelligence agencies and silent politicians, when
an innocent Irish citizen, in another context, was set up to be murdered by the
same agencies?
An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin TD, and Minister
for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney TD, have an insight to what I am saying,
including, in respect of the Taoiseach, identification of the face behind the
Infliction mask.
Yet, in my experience, both will delegate
responsibility for “correction” to the wrongdoers – the accursed manipulators
of secret state – when their actions are exposed by somebody with the fortitude
to tell the truth.
After forty years at the receiving end of a
collective of intelligence agencies, I know they only do ownership. Yes – lock,
stock and barrel. They think they are God. and will deny victims the right to
independently effect correction.
I ask if the computer savvy among us would
read my websites statemurder.eu and stakeknife.eu Following-on, would one kind
person consider questioning ministers’ Martin and Coveney on these matters?
By silence and lies politicians and the media
hide secret state wrongdoing. When the suborned effect cover-up and partake of
generated controversies, it falls to others to make our masters accountable.
*****
[Note: On
In particular, tweet two, the second
paragraph, was deleted – dumped – by Twitter. They no doubt acting at the
behest of the relevant Irish national intelligence agency.
Bereft of a core part, the remainder tweet was
rendered meaningless. It was deleted.
The collective forces of state imposed
censorship on an old man trying to do his duty.
I am not allowed to fight back. The public is
not allowed to know. Exposition is thwarted. National state-inter-state
wrongdoing prevails.
My
Advice, spreading the word, whatever, is
welcome.
Maybe a reader would inform An Taoiseach,
Micheál Martin TD and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney TD, of
this censorship – censorship by Twitter in their name?
Do Messrs Martin and Coveney approve of
censorship? If not, ask them to break their silence.
Indeed, given his buy-out intentions, you might
inform Elon Musk. Another billion $US off the Twitter price!
*
The names of some parties sacrificed to the
operational mores of security agencies are contained variously within this
website.
As a prelude to giving greater detail anon, I
mention one name: Nivruti Islania.
Nivruti was shot dead with her father
Maheshkumar, a Royal Air Force corporal, in a compromised IRA operation on the
continent in autumn 1989. Mrs Islania escaped physical injury.
Nivruti was six months old.
She is part of what I am fighting for.
Please help.]
*
In the latter months of 2020 I forwarded
letters by registered post to fourteen British members of parliament at the
House of Commons, London SW1 OAA. Within a narrow variation, the content of one
missive replicated the content of others.
An additional letter was dispatched to a
“human rights” lawyer.
(A direction that might indicate a sense of
humour – this notwithstanding the letter having a serious relevance.)
The dispatches alluded to the same sensitive
content. From no recipient was received an acknowledgement or return. It would
seem a “gagging” order was imposed on the mail.
Self imposed or by established protocol, I
know not.
Readers, you have my permission to ask the parties
listed below for a copy of the communication and the reason for their failure
to respond. I hope all parliamentarians’ will be forthcoming to any request
that might be made.
Consequent of an outside interest there maybe
a movement to justice by disclosure.
Please give assistance to the parliamentarians
by helping to release them from state imposed constraints.
For forty years justice has been denied to me:
I suggest this is because of the application of protective protocols to benefit
the involved UK/Ireland intelligence agencies, namely the Security Service/MI5
(
(The bombing of the Mt. Gabriel radar domes in
south west Ireland in September 1982 has undoubtedly influenced “the
application of protective protocols” indicated above.)
In failing to represent my interests in 1983,
the
Parliamentarians recently written to are:
James Brokenshire MP [now deceased]; Liz Saville Roberts MP; Diane Abbott MP;
Zarah Sultana MP; Rebecca Long-Bailey MP; Sir Keir Harmer MP; Kevin Brennan
MP; Margaret Greenwood MP; John
McDonnell MP; Dan Carden MP; Marsha de Cordova MP; Sarah Owens MP; Navendu
Mishra MP; Kim Johnson MP.
From all came forth a deadly silence. Silent
to the welfare of their own citizens and maybe even a constituent. Yet all are
as capable of doing what I am doing but will not do it.
Please ask why.
Perhaps the difference between myself and
authority sources is, they observe the notion, the lie, of non-existence of
intelligence agencies in our midst. I do not.
The legal profession and our “free press” seem
equally circumscribed by the same unseen and unspoken constraints.
The salaries and pensions of parliamentarians
are stained red by the blood of people who did exist – those murdered and
maimed by the actions and inactions of national security agencies over many years.
The lost.
If the lie of non-existence were acted out
with the salaries and pensions of politicians, you would soon see the protocols
of silence biting the dust.
Readers, if you hold strong feelings on the above
disclosures, with more unsaid, and have a genuine concern for truth and
justice, please get involved.
PS. My non-internet connected computer (Compaq
7500) has long been without its HP 1410 PSC printer, which makes life very
difficult. If a HP 1410 or a compatible working model printer can be found, I
will happily purchase it.
A letter to HP on the subject went unanswered.
*
5)
Naming the IRA team most culpable for the Spanos and Melrose deaths elevates
and isolates. Even romanticises. The micro concentration avoids the bigger
picture of European wide republican operations.
Probably every interconnection between the IRA in Europe and between
home command and Europe was compromised.
The implications and consequences of this possibly best explains the
extent of the dereliction of duty by national agencies.
Their priority is the control and direction of paramilitary forces,
ultimately to “constitutionalise” them, bring them in from the cold, by
chipping away at an ever diminishing and recalcitrant rump, by sidelining and
neutralising on one hand, and on the other, by the promotion of agents and
assets, shaping their popular appeal by media and political direction, inverse
funding and broad screen attachment (poets, artistes, writers, academics, celebrities,
carpet baggers, others).
Manipulation. Carrot and stick. End game virtual ownership.
In the meantime, along the long and bloody travail it is the unwitting
and the innocent who pay the price.
Mr Coulthart concentrates on painting a micro picture of the event. He
selectively borrows from record, the already known, and fails to uncover.
Background film makes Donna Maguire and Gerard Harte out to be bigger players
than they are.
A portrayal of blunderers and worse whose bloody “successes” were
realised through aberrant state practices.
Another magic roundabout formula determines that certain promotional
labels and nom de guerre’s given to
republican’s by security writers over the years had their origin in an MI5
lexicon. Thus at times by making the onside out to be offside a false
construction of a formidable adversary is shaped.
By a further design, a name
promoted from without and aided by the within, grows to bigger things. That is
the theory and at times the practice.
Continuing in this drift, by attaching a bogus image of elusive
professionalism to continental bombing teams, fraternal agencies can translate
a failure to apprehend to a failure to detect. A confidence trick to cloak a
knowing from an easily manipulated public and a credulous republican movement.
A dissembling made possible through the good offices of the mainstream
news media, without whose comfort and facilitation intelligence agencies would
be rendered speechless.
Susy Fraser, sister of Stephan Melrose, ponders painfully on the cruel
execution of her brother and his friend Nick Spanos.
As the modus operandi of MI5 made possible the murder of the two
Australian’s, it too made possible the murder of British citizens.
Likewise, their German counterpart, BND, by fraternal cooperation, share
in the culpability for these murders and the murder of a German citizen.
In concentrating on the IRA, the film emphasis failed to identify on
whose shoulders ultimate responsibility for the murders lay, state servants
whose privileged ways detach them from the consequences of their actions or
inactions.
Privileges so precious and profane the “sovereign” people are excluded
from knowing about them.
6) A contemporary clip of Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein leader, giving a statesmanlike
performance in an attempt to mitigate the murder of the Australian men. Gearóid
Ó Barrfhóde, Top Turf Gerry, talent spotted from a long way off.
Don’t they pick their political terrorists well?
7) Concentrates on the recovery of the weapons used in the murder of
Melrose and Spanos and the soon after arrests of the IRA team. It fails to
state that the arms cache had connection to the murder of Heidi Hazell, the
German wife of a British army sergeant, on 7 September 1989, the murder of
Royal Air Force corporal Mick Islania and his six month old daughter Nivruti on
26 October 1989, and would be later used to kill major Dillon-Lee on 2 June
1990.
These deaths resulted from the actions of the same IRA unit, even if
there was a shuffling of the pack in a game played in two halves.
So, who murdered Heidi Hazell? The Security Service did. No, not
directly. They pulled the strings, not the trigger, an agent did that.
Another likewise compromised IRA unit was active on the continent up to
July 1989, when broken up by arrests.
Dessie Grew, who was said to have been involved in the Islania killings,
a consideration also omitted, was shot dead by the SAS near Loughgall on 9
October 1990.
A targeted execution almost certainly undertaken as a protective design
on behalf of and with the sanction of MI5: a pre-emptive strike to obviate
against difficulties to do with extradition warrants for his arrest and
transfer to Germany?
*
In confining ourselves to the narrow window of
the 1980’s, the biggest threat to the British military on the European
continent (excluding Gibraltar) came not from the IRA but from MI5. It was they
who allowed compromised IRA operations to take place in acceptance of the
potential consequences, like death, maiming and property destruction.
A position of management control made possible
by the cooperation of fraternal counterparts in France, Belgium, Holland,
Germany and Spain, who would observe a constructive silence consequent of the
actions or inactions of MI5.
So too their muckers in the Intelligence and Security branch (aka Crime and
Security) in Ireland.
A rapport that reached beyond facilitation and
sharing to protective cover-up. I imply a mutual tolerance and
inter-dependence. One in which the abiding protocols are more important than
lives.
The generalities of this fraternal
indivisibility is nigh 100%, as was, I opine, MI5’s knowledge of IRA movements
and intentions emanating from Ireland, north and south.
I allude to logistics, quartermastering and
financing of the on the ground presence of the continental ASUs, who were in
turn additionally compromised by informer participation and association.
Below is a selective snapshot of a larger
cohort who paid the ultimate price of this fraternal indivisibility.
Nivruti Islania (whose father, a Royal Air
Force corporal, was also murdered); Heidi Hazell (whose army husband was a SNCO
in the REME); RSM Richard Heakin (Royal Regiment of Wales); Cpl. Steve Smith (Royal
Tank Regiment); Major Michael Dillon Lee (Royal Artillery); and others also
sacrificed to the operational mores of the controlling agency – MI5.
Where would the IRA be without MI5? Read on
and learn more about the consequences of this perverse relationship.
[The directly above text was typed at near end
March 2019. On Saturday 30 March 2019 a message was conveyed to me that could
be construed as an act of intimidation. A suggestion that I play ball – or
else?
Is this because I constantly seem, without
effort, to be able to circumvent inducements to end the search for truth? A
failure not of me but down to an esoteric understanding to which I am a passive
if committed adjunct, even if “blind” to in its immediacy.
An understanding that is beyond the ken of
national security agencies. As likewise the cruelty in their control is beyond
the ken of ordinary folk.]
*
See below extract from the book, Bandit
Country, topped up by minor additions.
Bandit Country – By Toby
Harnden (1999), PP 161-162. (2000 p/b. edition, PP 223-224.)
“Another Drumintee man, Paul Hughes, who is closely related to the
Surgeon, was arrested in woods on the Dutch-Belgian border in June 1990 and charged
with the murder of Nick Spanos and Stephen [sic] Melrose, two Australian tourists mistaken for off-duty British soldiers, in Roermond
in Holland the previous month.
“He was acquitted and extradited to Germany where he was charged with
the murder of Major Dillon-Lee, who had been shot dead a fortnight before
Hughes and his alleged comrades Donna Maguire, Gerard Harte and Seán Hick had
been arrested. All four were
acquitted but judge Wolfgang Steffan said: ‘It is clear they are members of the
IRA and [P162] trained as IRA volunteers. It is also clear that they were
members of an active service unit.’ On the final day of his trial in Holland,
Paul Hughes had told the court that it
was inexcusable for a ‘liberation army’ to make mistakes. ‘All death is
regrettable but civilian death is even more horrific,’ he said.
“The AK 47 rifle used to shoot Dillon-Lee had also fired the bullets
which killed Mick Islania, an RAF corporal, and his six-month-old daughter in
Wildenrath in Germany [on 26] October 1989.
“One of the key areas within the Surgeon’s domain was ‘bomb alley’ – the
three mile stretch between Cloghogue and Killeen which had claimed the lives of
24 people between 1971 and 1992. The victims of IRA operations masterminded by
the Surgeon and carried out there included: Constable Doak and her three
colleagues killed in the Killeen bomb in May 1985; Lord Justice Sir Maurice
Gibson and his wife Cecily, blown up in April 1987; three members of the Hanna family, blown up in July 1988; and
Detective Constable Louis Hamilton, abducted and shot in September 1990. As well as his own men from Jonesborough and
Drumintee, the Surgeon would often also bring in members of Len ‘Hardbap’
Hardy’s Newry unit for attacks close to the A1. Like Paul Hughes, Hardy had been
active during the IRAs continental campaign; after being arrested [on 12 July
1989 as he stepped off the Rosslare ferry from Cherbourg] with Donna Maguire,
whom he later married, he was sentenced to five years for possession of
explosives.”
[A released Donna Maguire would later return to the continent and again
partake in compromised IRA operations, like the 27 May 1990 murders of Stephan
Melrose and Nick Spanos.]
Kevin Fulton made no mention of Hardy going to the continent in his 2006 book Unsung Hero. The
book, like the celebrated Stakeknife spoof, is bereft of index. Other
observations on Unsung Hero: a)
(P 71) “Conor was my friend, Niall was my friend. That led to introductions to
some of the Provisional IRAs major players in Dundalk. I met Leonard Hardy, or
Hardbap as he was known, a Belfast Provo wanted for a whole range of bombing
offences. His common-law wife was Donna Maguire, who would later be arrested
for terrorist offences on the continent.” Note excision of Hardy’s
participation in continental IRA activities and his Rosslare arrest with
Maguire.
b) (P 84) “By now Leonard Hardy - Hardbap - had risen to the rank of OC in
Newry. He started asking me about my time in Berlin with the British army. Soon
he made it clear he was trying to establish the feasibility of launching
terrorist attacks in Germany.
“He told me that the IRA had an active service unit there that had
launched some successful operations in the eighties.
“The Belfast hierarchy felt it
was time to resume the campaign in mainland Europe. Would I be willing to
discuss what I knew, in confidence, with two senior IRA men?”
Fulton would suggest to the men good prospective British army targets in
Germany. Weeks later he was given £2,000 to go to Germany and carry out reconnaissance
work.
(P 86) “In September 1988, I took the ferry from Rosslare to Le Havre.”
Straight off Fulton was under “so obvious, so blatant” surveillance in France.
He aborted the mission and returned home, still expressing puzzlement at this ostentatious
surveillance.
A game of mime without credits.
Were the French, knowing of Fulton’s coming from the British, and acting
at their behest, saying there were enough compromised IRA operatives floating
about in Europe at the time, two of whom had just been arrested in Germany,
without inviting more.
An at a remove close-down for policy reasons.
Was the Gibraltar IRA inquest of that month a cut off point (but not
just that immediate to the inquest)?
c) (P 91) Fulton became “Conor’s bright new trainee in the art of bomb
making.”
d) (PP 98-104) Fulton is involved in fertiliser bomb making “towards the
end of 1988.”
e) (P 107) Hardbap and the Warrenpoint bomb which killed a young woman
shop worker (12.04.89).
So, between April 1989 and his Rosslare arrest on 12.07.89, Hardy
travelled to the continent. His absence and location likely known to Fulton
and, via him, his handlers, yet there is no mention of this in his overly
circumscribed and self serving book.
In truth, the authorities were overloaded with other sources for
information on continental IRA activity. Fulton’s silence and the reasons for
it is the point.
Note: Fulton’s book smacks of heavy vetting and/or self censoring. Does
the unsaid speak volumes?
*****
8) Concentrates on an exercise of pedantic teasing on the guilt but
failure to incriminate the IRA team.
Coulthart excludes two things: a) The whole sorry story of the Troubles
has countless cases of legal-judicial corruption and manipulation. In the UK, Ireland,
Europe, United States and elsewhere if a geographic spill-over resulted. b)
This typically down to state agencies protecting its interests or those
pursuing its interests by abuse of due process.
“Harte was found guilty of murder but within months he was out of jail.
The investigators bungled, they prematurely released photographs identifying
the IRA team before eye witnesses were interviewed. So Harte, Maguire, Hick and
Hughes all walked free on appeal.”
Did they bungle or was it a deliberate abuse of due process to assist
state interests: a protective design on behalf of an agent or agents of state?
A job for the boys in the shadows who fear not the challenge of
inquests, courts of law or tribunals.
To them all humanity is a dough ball made to be pushed and poked into a
given shape or direction, needing only time and a prudent pulling of strings to
conclude efficaciously.
Indeed the ways and powers of shadow state are formulated to outwit
courts of law, tribunals, etc. Judges do not see that which is not put in front
of them and that which they do not see they blindly disregard. What I am saying
is that which you know about something is often worth a lot less than that
which you do not know.
And that which you do know is usually given by liars. In intelligence
games, bet on it.
Coulthart does not pursue a background search. Accepting the position,
he engages one to one with Ian Fraser and then his wife Susy. In pitching at
the Fraser’s he omits investigation and the asking of “hard questions”
elsewhere. Intended or no - a neat close down.
On the way he avails of the trusting Melrose family. Only the IRA are
accountable for their actions - but not agencies of state who at a remove allow
the prosecution of IRA actions and are by democratic deficit put beyond
scrutiny.
A law for one but not all. Thanks in part for this is down to the curse
of a judicial mindset that accommodates a legal process unduly restrictive on
one part and protective on the other.
[Note:
Reference to court proceedings in the
Collateral Damage film is limited. To impart a greater but by no means full
contextual balance to events inside and outside of the court, I intend to type
in four reports from The Irish Times of Wednesday 3 April 1991, at the end of
this document.
These relate to the IRA unit involved in the
Roermond, Holland and other continental European actions.
An additional newspaper article from the
Evening Press of Wednesday 3.July 1991, has now been included. These reports
are for, in the main, the benefit of an Australian readership, who will not
have the same easy access to historic records as Irish or British citizens.]
9) Mr. Coulthart’s thwarted Hollywood ambitions again take hold in the filming
of the Roermond square murders. While no doubt filming was done separate from
the presence of the Melrose family, at least I hope so, he then takes the
emotionally traumatised family members through the order of events leading to
the deaths.
An inclusion some might opine was as unnecessary as it was of
questionable taste and judgement.
Whatever, dramatisation again replaces investigation. The film is a
costly collation of cinematographic portrayals made out to be documentary
exposition. In keeping with these things, it will probably win a media award.
10) “[Voiceover] One explanation for why so many murders may have gone
unpunished comes from the shadowy world of espionage.” Coulthart then wheels in
Kevin Fulton to explain.
To make known the philosophy of MI5, he employs an agent/asset of MI5.
That seems to me to leave one’s obligations to objectivity open to question.
Mr. Coulthart’s contention that MI5 could have prevented the murders is
arrived at by a staged exchange between himself and Fulton. What is said is
undermined due to the source and a failure to corroborate. Designed questions
return desired answers.
Following a question, Fulton says to Coulthart: ”I’m positive [MI5]
would have known there was an IRA hit team in Europe.”
Had the claim come from the man on the moon, it would not have been less
credible. Yes, MI5 did know of the IRA presence in Europe. So too the involved
fraternal counterparts on the continent, but nothing was done and murders were
committed.
Murders that could have been prevented.
Fulton is “positive” that MI5 would have known there was an IRA “hit
team” in Europe, but doesn’t elaborate. Nor is he asked.
Coulthart: “What sort of a person is Gerard Harte?” Fulton: “No doubt he
is well capable of killing.” Let’s do a take on that.
Coulthart: “What sort of a person is Kevin Fulton?” Citizen: “No doubt
he is well capable of killing.” Any difference?
Questioner and questioned go easy on using tags like MI5 and the
Security Service, interchangeable labels for the involved British intelligence
agency.
They also blind-eye the implications and participation of other Europe
wide national intelligence agencies, without whose cooperation MI5s overarching
reach would not have been possible. In this fraternal mix reposes a shared
responsibility for the consequences of what was earlier called a “dirty war”.
All wars are dirty. Especially paramilitary wars. Too often because they
are driven by forces from within beholden to shadow state interests. The national
interest attacks the national interest - or at least that as defined by those
who define the national interest. A dichotomy little understood by the majority
of the “sovereign” people.
A tug-o-war competition with one coach shouting instructions to both
ends of the rope.
The main agencies involved in this bloody “for and against” war with the
IRA were the UK, Ireland, US, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Spain.
(Introduce specific areas of arms smuggling and you add more countries.)
Filming again toils on the human dimension leading to the murders, this
done by voiceover and added to by interviews of family members. Questions put
to the latter possess no merit in a supposed investigative design. They seem to
be there to compensate for a negation of that design.
Unkindly put: padding. I say that with respect for the Melrose family
whose pain and frustration I know and understand well.
Their use in on-the-ground filming was to me a further abuse of those
punished people. If making for greater appeal to a lay viewing audience, it did
not advance the search for truth.
It muddied the failure.
11) “But it is what Fulton can now reveal about this man, Desmond Grew,
that is especially interesting. Grew helped plot the IRAs European attacks,
including Roermond, and he visited the hit team shortly before the
killings. ‘[Fulton]: Grew had been sent out to the continent to them
because they were actually doing nothing, they were pissing it up as someone
actually, as he’d said, they were able to, thought they were on
holidays.
“So Grew actually went out, chastised them and put the thing up and
running again.’”
No clarification on how Grew “helped plot the IRAs European attacks.”
And no mention by Kevin or Ross or in Fulton’s book on Grew’s alleged
involvement in the murder of a six month old girl and her RAF corporal father
on 26 October 1989.
Enlightenment on this would have been much more “interesting” than that
mentioned but was not forthcoming.
It would help put into context the stomach churning intellectual evasion
contained in the next paragraph.
Coulthart: “A British agent, you believe, knew that Desmond Grew was
going to Europe?” Fulton: “Yes.” Coulthart: “Is that something that you
believe British intelligence would admit now?” Fulton: “No, they would never
admit it. You see, this is what your viewers, people, would have to understand.
This is a covert war. This is ‘Dirty
Joe’ actions everywhere.” Coulthart: “But if they knew that there was an
IRA hit team in Europe, why didn’t they go and arrest them and stop them?”
Fulton: “But see, sometimes to protect an agent, you’ve got to let, you call it
a firebreak, you let things happen.” Coulthart: “So the protection of a source
was more important than the protection of innocent civilians?” Fulton:
“Sometimes.”
Implicitly put, there is neither justice nor remedy in matters evolving
from the operational actions of intelligence agencies.
In a harmonious question and answer session, Ross and Kevin make the case
for ceasing the pursuit of truth, it is embarrassing, as Kevin knows, and best
left untouched.
By corollary such deaths are deemed extra-legal and permissible in the protection of a source.
Innocents sacrificed to shield the guilty, be they state agencies or agents of
state agencies.
By inversion, an MI5 sanctioned IRA trump card. It is as cold and brutal
as that.
[On its own the above revelation is a heinous breach of trust by state
for the welfare of its citizens, yet not less than another two perverse
implications lurk in the tail of this methodology.
One: A compromised action given its head for operational intelligence
reasons is by default a win for the
perpetrators and enters the history books as such. It must be so, for
correction would affirm a grievous neglect of duty by state interests.
I am confident many major republican “successes” repose in this black
hole.
Two: A compromised action given its head for operational intelligence
reasons is by default a freedom to escape and fight again on another day.
The October 1984 IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton is one lived
out consequence of that protocol.]
Susy Fraser, cornered by the film’s endorsement of this philosophy, asks
the question: “Why didn’t [MI5] do something? They are as responsible [as the
IRA for murders].” Coulthart, the intelligence cognoscente explains: “Because
if the British did have somebody
inside the IRA who was telling them about the operation , and they did!”
Susy Fraser: “A conflict of interest, maybe?” More a licence to kill.
One made possible by a corrupt system, a bent due process, a suborned
media, a denial of accountability, a failure of representation – in another
word, leadership.
Obeisance was not to blood, to truth, to justice. Not to nipping it in
the bud so it wouldn’t happen, but to a culture of silence.
Protocols systematically enshrined in the shadows of the democratic process. Obscene truths
that need repeating.
For the forsaken no history book unfolds their sacrifice, no roll of honour
lists their names. It’s as the state would have it.
Ross Coulthart: “A British agent, you believe, knew that Desmond
Grew was going to Europe?” Fulton: “Yes.”
Given how deeply the IRA was infiltrated, it is probable that a number of
agents knew of this, including some on the ground in Europe.
However, the question is singular. A reference to one person.
Is there a reason for being coy about the identity of this agent? Was
the question framed to facilitate evasion by a person cited to me as a “professional
witness”, one schooled in deception with an innate disposition for living the
lie to himself and others?
Does the answer lie in the fact that FULTON IS THE AGENT?
Should Kevin Fulton again present himself as a witness to an
investigative body, here’s a wish list of questions to put to him for helpful
elaboration:
1) The 1 September 1989 shooting and serious injury of two King’s
Hussars in Munster, Germany.
2) The murder of Heidi Hazell, German wife of a British army sergeant
shot near Dortmund, Germany on 7 September 1989.
3) The murder of “Mick” and Nivruti Islania, a Royal Air Force corporal
and his six month old daughter, shot at Wildenrath, Germany on 26 October 1989.
Kevin has the answers.
It will come as a surprise to the majority of the sovereign people to
learn that it is not only banana republics who allow agencies and agents of
state to murder their own citizens with impunity.
Intelligence agencies are above the law: they can at a remove allow for
operational intelligence reasons the prosecution of murder by agents of state
and indeed non agents of state without being accountable in law.
“National interest” and “state privilege” are terminologies used to
preclude disclosure.
Part of the “democratic” system
that people unknowingly pay taxes and send off their sons and daughters to die
for.
As already said, other national agencies apart from MI5 will have known
of the IRAs continental presence. Desmond Grew’s involvement was a convenient journalistic
device to introduce a door stepping stunt with Gerry Adams.
Was the script already drawn up and waiting in the wings?
12) “But the blood on Desmond Grew’s hands didn’t stop Gerry Adams from
giving the oration at his funeral less than a year later.” In the context in which Adams
operated that is the very reason why he should be there - to promote himself.
Grew was murdered by the SAS, and by giving his funeral oration Adams
vicariously attached himself to the deeds of the fallen. It was part of his
constituency to claim the limelight, occasions sometimes brought on by the
blood sacrifice of others.
Another act of symbolism was a rite of passage photoshoot of Gerry Adams
and Martin McGuinness carrying Grew’s coffin.
A synchronised example of the push and pull principle in operation. One
put in a hole, others on a pedestal.
Continuing in that vein, you may have picked up that Adams was a photo-creep long before the term selfies
was coined: a celluloid counterpart in the game of vicarious attachment.
Truly a mad world where now aspiring Sinn Fein politicos photo-creep on
the master-creep, seeking to up their political standing and public appeal by
photographic simile with a flesh and blood embodiment of a cut-out image –
plastic man himself.
An arm chair general, Adams was in it for the long haul. No Michael
Collins he. Militarily, more in the de Valera/Markievicz mould.
His presence at the Stormont event would be known. Duly informed,
Coulthart and camera turned up to doorstep.
Even if party to IRA army council policy decisions to give operational
directions, Adams would not have been involved with their implementation or in
the selection of personnel and the resulting choice of targets.
So the specifics of IRA actions in Europe and elsewhere would have been
outside his remit and likely outside his knowledge.
That would include Roermond.
The door-stepping of Adams had more to do with clapperboard gamesmanship
than investigative pursuit.
Yes Adams is a liar. All politicians’ have an aversion to truth – he
more than most. It is integral to his history and territory.
The bitter realisation by his former comrade, the deceased Brendan
Hughes, a real soldier for the cause whether or no you agree with the cause, that
his once pal Gerry Adams was less than he thought him to be, if understandable,
in no way reflects on events at Roermond on 27 May 1990.
Adams’ film inclusion was chaff.
If in politics there is no such thing as bad publicity, the “interview”
did Adams no harm; besides, who votes for him in Australia and who cares in
Ireland?
Ed Moloney, an old favourite, will have like profited from the
publicity, a nice little earner for his book Voices From The Grave.
Responsibility for the Roermond murders lay squarely with the IRA team
on the ground, they chose the target and carried out the executions, and the
state agencies who allowed them the unfettered freedom to do so.
In respect of the national security agencies knowing the locations of
IRA teams on the continent, their rented properties will have been put under
surveillance and almost certainly electronically monitored.
This apart from having informers within.
13) In this section Ross Coulthart further questions Roy Melrose,
Stephan’s father, and Ian Fraser, Stephan’s brother in law. I get angry when
reading his queries.
They are one dimensional and irrelevant to a search for truth.
Are they “filler” for a rush job film? Was a proper investigative
alternative too long a proposition for a pressing schedule? Or off the agenda?
One notes there was no successful door-stepping of Gerard Harte and
other male team players, north and south of the border, though their places of
residence were surely as well known.
14) Whatever for Gerard Harte and others, Donna Maguire was a soft
touch: a captive audience for Coulthart, camera and microphone.
Did her “interview” live up to expectations?
An expensive film. How much did it cost? Who picked up the tab?
Who researched, advised and facilitated on the background personnel
involved – professional actors apart – in its making?
One thing I am confident of, it was a wide ranging cooperative effort.
For Stephan’s wife Lyndal, the extended Melrose family, and the unseen
Spanos family, I have great sympathy.
Immeasurable is their loss.
Cruelly robbed of that most precious by the IRA and complicit state
agencies in unholy alliance, was their abuse added to by the Collateral Damage resurrection and
portrayal of Roermond events?
Has Donna Maguire downloaded the YouTube version?
END
*
Should you wish to read more investigative
material on security matters, these deriving in large part from personal encounters
with intelligence agencies, the web addresses below may be of interest.
www.statemurder.eu
(mirrored
at)
www.seankellydublin.eu
*
Twitter: @seankellyis
(Do you have a Twitter, Facebook or other social
media account? If so, would you please publicise the above web addresses. Thank
you.)
*****
ADDENDA
(Articles From The Irish
Times, Wednesday 3 April 1991)
The Irish Times, Wednesday 03.04.91 – Seán Flynn, in Roermond. Page 1. “3 acquitted by Dutch may face
German charges. THREE Irish people acquitted of the murder of two
Australian tourists in Roermond may be extradited to Germany later this year to
face murder charges in connection with other IRA attacks. * “A fourth accused
person, Gerard Harte (27), of Lurgan, Co Armagh was given an 18-year prison
term yesterday for the murder of Stephen Melrose and Nick Spanos in front of
their wife and girlfriend, respectively, in Roermond last May. However, lawyers
for Harte will shortly appeal against his sentence, and the public prosecutor
has indicated he may contest the acquittal of Harte’s co-defendants.
“In delivering one of the most severe
sentences in Dutch legal history, Judge Emile Bakermans said that Harte and
persons unknown, in a crude attack, shot the two unsuspecting tourists with a
Kalashnikov rifle and a revolver from point-blank range. * “After the
acquittal, the three other defendants, Mr Seán Hick (30), of Glenageary, Co.
Dublin, Mr Paul Hughes (27), of Newry, Co Down, and Ms Donna Maguire (24), also
of Newry, were rearrested on foot of German extradition warrants. The Roermond
court had already approved their extradition but an appeal is due, probably in
June.
“Dutch lawyers for both the state and the
defence predicted yesterday that the three would be extradited. Mr Hick and Mr
Hughes are wanted in connection with the IRA murder in June 1990 of Major
Michael Dillon-Lee in Dortmund, the attempted murder of a policeman after this
attack and a Semtex explosive attack on a base at Largerhagen last May.
“Ms Maguire is wanted in Germany in connection
with an IRA bomb attack on a British Army base at Hanover in July 1989 in which
corporal Stephen Smith was killed. She has also been linked by German police to
an IRA attack on another military installation at Osnabruck.
“Yesterday, the court hearing the Roermond
case ruled that the murder and conspiracy charges against the three were not
‘legally or convincingly proven’. The public prosecutor, Mr Jo Lauman, has
indicated, however, that he may lodge an appeal against the acquittal of the
three. The lawyer acting for Harte, the only one of the four not wanted by the
German authorities, said she was shocked and surprised by his 18-year sentence.
Ms Mary Hegeman said it was clear that the Dutch public opinion wanted someone
to be convicted for the murder.
“Mr Wim Van Bennekom, for Mr Hughes, said he
was at a loss to explain why the court had accepted evidence of identification
against Harte but refused to accept evidence of identification against the
others. * “He said that his client, who had described the IRA as a ‘liberation
army’ during the proceedings, was ‘lucky to have had an extremely fair court
and an extremely fair hearing. But given the nature of the charges, the court
had no option but to acquit him,’ he said.
“In delivering their verdict, the three-judge
court, sitting without a jury, was severely critical of the prosecution case,
which the judges labelled repeatedly as ‘vague and imprecise’. The acquittals
represent a severe embarrassment for the Dutch prosecution service, which had
prepared a 7,000-page book of evidence in the case.
“Mr Hick, and Mr Hughes and Ms Maguire were
all acquitted on charges of murder and/or conspiracy to murder and membership
of a criminal organisation, the Provisional IRA. Harte was also acquitted of
the membership charge. On that charge the court said that ‘it was not clear
what actions the defendants were linked with.’
“In the case of Mr Hick, the judge ruled that the
case against him had not been proved satisfactorily. There was insufficient
evidence of his involvement in preparations for the murder, let alone the
killings themselves, the court said. * “The court also found the case against
Mr Hughes to be unsatisfactory. During the trial, evidence had been given of Mr
Hughes’s alleged involvement in the theft of a Mazda car used by the Roermond
gang. Yesterday, the court ruled that the prosecution had failed to establish
who stole the Mazda and why.
“After acquitting Mr Hughes, the judge looked
towards him and said: ‘Good luck to you.’ The court also found that the case
against Ms Maguire ‘was not sufficiently or convincingly proven’. The
prosecution had failed to explain why and where Ms Maguire was allegedly in possession
of forged passports.
“The acquittal of the three defendants has
already caused something of a furore in the Netherlands. In recent months the
Dutch media, which has been able to publish full background information during
the actual proceedings, has consistently speculated that the state had failed
to prove their case. Yesterday, the prosecutor, Mr Jo Lauman, refused to
discuss the verdict as he hurriedly left the court.
“The judge said he could be satisfied that
only the case against Harte had been proven. Harte, with others, had he said,
wilfully taken the lives of two tourists ‘after calm deliberation’. Harte, with
others, had driven into the town square of Roermond on May 27th, got
out of his car with a loaded gun by his side and walked towards Mr Melrose and
Mr Spanos. He then, from a short distance, fired shots which killed the two
men, the judge said.
“A date for the extradition hearings for Ms
Maguire, Mr Hick and Mr Hughes is expected to be fixed within the next week.
END
*****
The Irish Times, Wednesday 03.04.91 – From Seán Flynn, in Roermond. Page 2. “IRA strategy outlined in
evidence. THE ROERMOND trial provided a unique insight into the workings of
the IRA on the continent. During the six weeks of the trial the notion that the
IRA operated with a smooth professionalism and in utmost secrecy was
undermined.
“Their was little apparent effort to melt into
Dutch society. * “Instead, a 19-year-old woman was used to hire a ‘safe house’
in The Hague and she emerged as a key prosecution witness at the trial.
Typically, a prominent car hire company was the source of one of their getaway
cars.
“Essentially, the prosecution case in the
trial was that the four accused, including Gerard Harte, had been ‘recruited’
by the veteran IRA figure, Desmond Grew, to help launch a series of attacks on
British army personnel on the continent. Grew was shot dead by the SAS in
Northern Ireland in October 1990. According to the prosecutor in Roermond, he
still cast a long shadow over the proceedings. ‘It was Grew who organised the
IRA unit operating on the continent. Grew was getting older. There had to be
fresh blood in order to get blood. Grew was the spider in the web’.
“The two Australians, Mr Stephen [sic] Melrose
and Mr Nick Spanos, who were both commercial lawyers based in London, were shot
after they were mistaken for British servicemen on May 27th last.
They had travelled with their wife and girlfriend respectively for a long
weekend. Shortly after 11 pm they left a Chinese restaurant and walked back
across the market square at Roermond towards their British registered Citroen
car.
“As the others sat inside the car, Mr Melrose
took a tripod from the boot and prepared to take photographs of the local town
hall. In a statement read to the Roermond trial Ms Vicki Koss [sic] described
how she had been sitting arm in arm with her boyfriend, Nick, in the back seat
of the Citroen.
“’I heard a series of loud shots and then more
muted noises. Nick pulled me down. I looked at him. I could see that a bullet
had entered his head and he was bleeding heavily. It was obvious from the
wounds that he had been shot at point blank range. When I got out of the car
Stephen was lying face downward with the tripod beside him. He had been shot
through the side of his head. It seemed that the bullet had gone through his
head and out the other side. I started screaming’.
“The brutal murders of the two tourists were
not isolated incidents. In the three years before the murder there had been no
less than 11 separate incidents in a 25-mile radius around the Dutch border
with Belgium and Germany. Local police, who lacked any specialist knowledge of
the IRA, had enjoyed scant success in the hunt for the Provisional unit
responsible.
“After the Roermond murders the police offered
a reward of £35,000 for information leading to the arrest of the killers. By
mid-June, some three weeks after the killings, the reward had failed to draw
any useful intelligence and there was speculation that the investigation was
being scaled down. But on Saturday, June 16th, the police received a
phone call from a farmer in Turnhout, Belgium, which would, quite by chance,
provide the breakthrough in the investigation.
“On the day, a Belgium farmer and his son
heard gunfire on their estate. On investigation, they found Harte, who told
them that he had been picknicking. Nearby, they found a Kalashnikov rifle and
assorted ammunition in the woods. The farmer went to contact the police and
again met Harte, whom he detained until the police arrived. During the follow
up search at Turnhout police found 500 grammes of Semtex explosive, a car bomb
which was ready for use and assorted bomb-making equipment.
“Subsequent forensic examination of the
Turnhout cache indicated that the Kalashnikov rifle and a handgun found at the
scene had been used in the Roermond killings and in two other IRA attacks.
“During the Roermond trial the prosecution
contended that the construction of the car bomb was similar to that used in two
earlier car bomb attacks in Neubergen and Bielefeld in Germany. They also said
that cartridges found near Turnhout were from the same batch as cartridges as
found at the scene of the murder of Heidi Heysel [sic], the wife of a British
army sergeant in September, 1989.
“The prosecution case at Roermond rested
heavily on this forensic evidence but the evidence of a 19-year-old Dutch
woman, Ms inagrid [sic] Hiejman [sic] was equally crucial. Ms Heijman gave
evidence that in October 1989 an IRA member known to her as Martin Conlon told
her how the IRA killed an RAF corporal and his infant son [sic] at Wildenrath.
According to Ms Heijman, Conlon also attempted to use her to set up murders of
British soldiers by luring them from a Roermond pub into a back alley where an
IRA team would be waiting.
“In a sworn statement to the court, Ms Heijman
described how she had rented a flat in The Hague on behalf of Conlon, which was
later used as a ‘safe house’. In April 1990, Conlon introduced Ms Heijman to a
man, probably Desmond Grew. Shortly before the Roermond killings she was
introduced to Harte at an Amsterdam disco.
“Shortly after the Roermond killings, Ms
Heijman received £300 in the post from another source and paid the rent on the
flat in The Hague for the last time. * “Police found Harte’s fingerprints in
the flat.
“During the trial two witnesses identified
Harte as one of the people in a car speeding away from Roermond after the
killings.
“Meanwhile, the prosecutor at Roermond denied
during the trial that Ms Heijman was given immunity from prosecution. ‘It is
still not clear whether a prosecution case can or should be initiated against
her,’ he said.”
END
*****
The Irish Times, Wednesday 03.04.91 – From Seán Flynn. Page 2. “Suspects tried by non-jury court. THE
TRIAL of the four Irish persons accused of the Roermond killings was heard by a
panel of three judges sitting without a jury. * “The use of a non-jury court is
not confined to terrorist cases in the Netherlands. Less serious offences are
disposed of by one judge sitting without a jury.
“In the Netherlands young lawyers can train as
judicial officers immediately after graduation. During a six-year training
programme they can gain practical experience at the bar, with the public
prosecutor’s office or in a court registry. * “The Roermond judges were all in
the mid-to-late 40s.
“In the Netherlands a case will already have
been pared down to its essentials by the time it reaches court. * “The public prosecutor
and the defence lawyers agree on issues of contention; only those witnesses
whose statements are disputed are summoned to court.
“The proceedings in the Roermond case were
precise and well structured with no time wasted. As a result, the Roermond
trial was a relatively low-key affair, lacking the theatre which might surround
a similar case in Ireland or Britain. * “The main prosecution witness, Ms
Ingrid Hiejman [sic], a 19-year-old student, did not give evidence in court.
Instead, the prosecutor simply read passages from her statement to the court.
“The absence of a jury meant that the lawyers
for both the prosecution and the defence could be interviewed by the media
during the actual trial.
“In the run up to the proceedings Dutch
newspapers were allowed to publish full background information and photographs
of the accused persons. Some of the witnesses in the case told the court that
they recognised the accused from photographs which had appeared in Dutch
newspapers.
“The Dutch authorities were clearly anxious to
ensure that their law and procedure were fully understood by the 100 or so
visiting journalists. English language pamphlets on Dutch legal procedure were
given to journalists while simultaneous translation facilities were also provided.
“After each sitting a legal expert also came
into the press room to take questions.”
END
*****
The Irish Times, Wednesday 03.04.91 Page 2. “Harte had links with IRA leadership. Gerard Majella
Harte, jailed yesterday in the Netherlands, has a record of committing IRA
offences and was extradited from the Republic to Northern Ireland in 1986.
Security Correspondent Jim Cusack reports.
“GERARD Majella Harte, who was jailed for 18
years yesterday for the murder of two Australian tourists in the Dutch city of
Roermond last May, first appeared in courts on IRA-related charges in 1979 when
at the age of 16, he was accused of petrol-bombing an Orange Hall in Lurgan, Co
Armagh, causing more than £75, 000 worth of damage, and of possessing a firearm
and petrol bombs. He was remanded in custody at St Patrick’s Training College,
but absconded before his trial and went into hiding in the Republic.
“Harte, who comes from Lurgan, was arrested
three years later by gardai after an armed robbery in Dundalk and was sentenced
to four years’ imprisonment for possession of firearms. During his time in
Portlaoise Prison Harte was one of the group of IRA prisoners there. * “On his
release in 1986 he was served with an extradition warrant relating to charges
he had previously faced in Northern Ireland. His extradition was ordered by the
District Court and appealed to the Supreme Court. However, Harte again
absconded while on bail and remained in hiding until August 1988, when gardai
arrested him. By this time the Supreme Court had approved his extradition and
he was sent across the Border.
He appeared before Craigavon Court on charges
of causing malicious damage, stealing a shotgun and throwing petrol bombs in
1979. He was tried at Belfast Crown Court in December, 1988, and sentenced to
12 months’ imprisonment. When time spent in custody on remand was taken into
account, Harte was left with only a few months of his sentence to serve. He was
released in August 1989 and became involved again in IRA activity.
“It is believed that Harte’s connection with
the IRA units operating on the Continent sprang from his close association with
Dessie Grew, a leading member of the IRA, who was shot dead in Armagh on
October 9th last by the British Army. Grew and another IRA member,
Martin McCaughey, were shot dead in a farmyard at night by undercover soldiers
believed to have been members of the SAS. Both IRA men were armed with rifles.
“Grew is believed to have been the organising
force in the most recent phase of the IRA’s campaign on the Continent which,
between 1987 and June 1990, caused the deaths of six British servicemen, four
civilians, including the two Australian tourists, a German woman married to a
British soldier and the six-month-old daughter of an RAF corporal. More than 50
people were injured in the attacks, some of them seriously.
“Security forces here, in Britain and on the
Continent are satisfied that the IRA structures which supported this campaign
were destroyed by police action leading to arrests in Germany, the Netherlands
and France. Since last June, when Harte was arrested, there have been no
further IRA attacks on the Continent.
“However, the IRA has shown that it can suffer
losses of members through arrests in Britain and yet continue to regroup and
mount attacks, and gardai and other European police forces strongly suspect
that the IRA will attempt to restart its campaign on the Continent.
END
*****
(An Additional Inclusion)
The Evening Press, Wednesday 03.07.91 – “RAF wife
attacks freed Roermond defendant. Three of the four
await German extradition proceedings. Isobel Conway, Roermond, Holland.
“Gerard Harte today walked free from the same
Dutch court that just three months ago sentenced him to 18 years in jail.
“Harte insisted on coming out the front
entrance of the court building and he was mobbed by waiting cameramen and
reporters. * “It took 20 policemen to protect the slightly-built 27-year-old
Lurgan man. As he was jostled along a woman came from the crowd and tried to
attack him. Harte was shaking and in tears as policemen pulled him to the
safety of an adjoining building.
“The woman identified herself as Mrs Leoni
Moreland, the wife of a serviceman who has just left the British air force
because of ‘the IRA murder campaign here’.
“Harte was said by his lawyer to be ‘trying to
pull himself together’ after his dramatic acquittal this morning. Along with
his three co-defendants had protested their innocence throughout the long-running
Court saga here.
“The other three, Donna Maguire (24) and Paul
Hughes (27) of Newry, [Co. Down] along with Seán Hick (30) of Glenageary, [Co.
Dublin] were meanwhile returned to prison to await extradition proceedings to
Germany.
“The three judges ruled that the prosecution
had insufficiently proven that the defendants were executing the aims of the
IRA. They were being charged with being members of a criminal organisation
which carried out murders and bombings. The court ruled that this had not been
proven and whether they were members of the organisation was not a determining
factor.
“Last week Harte was dramatically acquitted in
the Dutch Court of Appeal of killing two Australians. Last April he was
sentenced to 18 years in jail when found guilty of the IRA double killing of
two Australian tourists. The victims were mistaken by two masked IRA gunmen for
off-duty British servicemen.
“But today in a further dramatic courtroom episode
the three judges who had originally struck out IRA membership charges against
the four upheld their earlier ruling.
“Now Hick and Hughes are expected to be
quickly handed over to the German authorities. They are wanted there in
connection with a bombing at a British Barracks near Hanover in May 1990 and
the murder of a British Major Michael Dillon-Lee at his home in Dortmund four
days after the Roermond shooting.
“The lawyer for Hughes, Mr Willem Van
Bennekom, said he would be handed over before the end of the month when the
extradition detention warrants ran out.
“Donna Maguire is indicted over the bombing of
a barracks at Osnabruck in June 1989 and the car-bomb killing of a British
serviceman in Hanover a few weeks earlier. She appealed the German extradition
request and a decision from the Dutch High Court on it is expected shortly.
“During the retrial of the four on IRA
membership charges here last week, the Roermond public prosecutor Mr Joe [sic]
Lauman called for unconditional five-year sentences. He said it was a shame
that the Netherlands did not have anti-terrorism legislation so that ‘realistic
punishment for organisations like the IRA could be introduced’. He was stated
to be bitterly disappointed over today’s dropping of the charges.
“All four defendants smiled and shook hands
with their lawyers as the Court announced their acquittal. Leaving the
courtroom Paul Hughes yelled with joy and raised his fists high in the air. A
friend of Gerard Harte meanwhile told the Evening Press that he was so sure
that he would be acquitted that he renewed his passport earlier in the week. In
a phone call to his wife Elizabeth last night he said that he would walk free
and that he would come out the front of the building because he had nothing to
hide from anyone.
“Mr Van Bennekom said that as far his client
Hughes was concerned there was less evidence in Germany concerning his alleged
IRA involvement. He said he could not speak for the other people whose
extradition is in hand.
“The lawyer said he could understand the
feelings of grief and anger on the part the famil[ies] of the IRA victims
because their murderers had not been found and convicted. But he warned that
the whole concept of justice was a very delicate thing, and they must realise
that the frontier between justice and retaliation and the finding of the truth
had to be strictly legal.
“Mr Van Bennekom said there was a big
difference [in] the concept of justice between Great Britain and Holland.
“Harte’s lawyer Ms Marian Hegeman said he had
told her that he got a fair trial in Holland and that he had believed that
would not have been the case had he been tried in England. “
END
*
Should you wish to read more investigative
work on security matters, these derived in large part from personal encounters
with intelligence agencies, the two top listed web addresses below may be of
interest.
On Saturday 6 August 2016 I found the said web
addresses to be unavailable on the Internet when doing a routine check. I will work
to have them reinstated next week.
If any of my web addresses are down at a
future time and the reader wishes to view them, write to me and a CD will be
forwarded.
Please help to have the truth of these events
propagated. It is very important for those who have been lied to and denied
justice.
www.statemurder.eu
(mirrored
at)
www.seankellydublin.eu
*
(for
that just read)
www.stakeknife.eu
Twitter: @seankellyis
(Do
you have a social media account? If so, would you please publicise my web
addresses?)
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