SHAMEFUL IF TRUE…
By David Vance On February 17th, 2012
Northern Ireland police documents about an IRA bombing that killed 12 people at La Mon House Hotel have disappeared, victims’ relatives claimed today. The hotel, located outside Belfast, was targeted in one of the most horrific attacks of the Troubles, with many of those killed in February 1978 burned beyond recognition by a fireball.
Interviews with IRA men, original papers from up to 100 detectives and notes about a warning call and a car used by the bombers have not been recovered by independent investigators reviewing the case, families said. They have now renewed calls for a full public inquiry into the bombing. In a statement today, they claimed: “It would appear to the victims that key documents were removed from the files with the view to protecting IRA members who today may be involved in the peace process at the highest level.”
The highest level? I wonder who they might mean. I suppose we could ask former DUP MP Iris Robinson who, using Parliamentary privilege in 2003, named GERRY ADAMS as of one the guilty. Of course five years later, her Party was able to stomach that detail and enter Government with him. I wonder at what point she changed her mind regarding her assertion? Did her husband endorse what was said?
Your headline says it all. If true it is disgraceful.
What? The superduper warriors of the ‘gallant’ RUC were incompetent and they, their predecessors in the
Keystone CopsPSNI or both are colluding in some kind of cover up?Say it aint so!
I winder if the evidence was deliberately destroyed?
http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2003/may21_evidence_destroyed.php
“It would appear to the victims that key documents were removed from the files with the view to protecting IRA members who today may be involved in the peace process at the highest level.”
And who could be surprised? “All for the greater good, old boy”.
“All for the greater good, old boy”
Is that the same excuse for the evidence destroyed in my link Peter?
From the moment it was decided to treat with terrorists instead of seeking justice, the victims and bereaved became an inconvenience.
Paul
The IRA victims of the SAS are not in the same league as the dog club victims of the IRA at La Mon.
Sorry. And there’s me thinking that we were talking about the “loss” of evidence.
They also speak about Pat Finucane & Bloody Sunday. Were they “in the same league?”
Bloody Sunday (26 dead) had a public inquiry that lasted five years and cost over £400 million. La Mon (12 dead) has had no such inquiry. And the reason is obvious.
It was politically essential (to the peace process) to have the Bloody Sunday inquiry and it is equally politically essential (to the peace process) to avoid any further investigation into the perpetrators of La Mon, who remain free to this day.
26 dead ?
Unlike Bloody Sunday there was a criminal investigation into La Mon Peter.
“Two men were tried in connection with La Mon. Eddie Brophy was acquitted of the bombing but convicted of IRA membership. Robert Murphy was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was freed on licence in 1995″
For what it’s worth I believe that there should be an inquiry into La Mon if the evidence has been lost.
Paul
Get real son. You and me both know that La Mon will never be investigated now. One manslaughter conviction is all that there will ever be.
Obviously relatives have every right to be upset if evidence is missing but it is quite a wild leap to suggest it was destroyed to protect the police process. Who could have given such an order?
If documents are missing then RUC incompetence or malice is probably responsible.
Paul McMahon is struggling to find evidence of an naked sectarian campaign on Genocide against the Protestant Community. I suggest he try the Kingsmill and La Mon links from this website for starters. May be he should google Darkley Mission Hall, Tullyvallen Orange Hall or Altnaveigh. With a little bit of effort, I think he could work some of this out and even work out the common religious connection between all of the victims. It was not that they were leading anti-proletariat advocates in the struggle for a brave new Ireland of equals!
The bigger question in all of this is when will the security services release their files into the action of some of the Stormont protagonists. I would have thought that Martin and Gerry must have done something from when they left the Catholic death squads in the early 1970s until 2007. May be they could brief us as with tangible evidences of what they actually did. They both seem to be able to speak with authority on behalf of the Republican movement without having any involvement.
Pat Finucane – Willie Frazer’s website ask some very pertinent questions:
http://victims.org.uk/s08zhk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=181&Itemid=5
PSamuels
There was a vicious and grotesque descent into naked sectarian killing on both sides during the troubles , but it is a stretch too far for anyone to say that there was any genocidal campaign in Northern Ireland.
So P Samuels I dare to have the insolence to question your “Nazi genocidal tactics of a nakedly sectarian war against the innocent Protestant population” narrative by asking you for proof and I’m “struggling to find evidence of an naked sectarian campaign on Genocide against the Protestant Community?” (sic). The disgusting attacks which you list are well documented but labeling these as genocide? How did the IRA know that those attending a function for the Irish Collie Club at La Mon would be exclusively Protestant? That leaves a combined total of twenty seven victims accumulated through the other attacks you mention. Genocide, in a conflict resulting in thousands of deaths? As I said, hyperbolic much?
If you are looking for evidence of a genocidal – type campaign along the border may I suggest that you google the Glenanne Gang?, (their Dublin – Monaghan bombing attack in 1974 alone killed 33 innocent civilians). As I’m sure you know this nakedly sectarian death squad comprised of both RUC & UDR personnel and were very prolific at murder with a conservative total of 97 victims being attributed to them. In terms of your “Nazi genocidal tactics” remarks would it not be more pertinent to suggest that the UDR, (such as weeping Willie’s father), the RUC and/or various loyalists were waging a genocidal type campaign against the Catholic community in counties Armagh, Tyrone & Down?
http://www.seeingred.com/Copy/2.1_CODE_weiraff.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenanne_gang
It’s also interesting to see how professional victim Willy attempts to sully the character of Pat Finucane by implying that as he had three brothers in the IRA then he must also have been. No doubt weeping Willy would also agree that as Larne TUV councilor Jack McKee’s brother Bobby was a member of the UVF then Jack McKee must also be a member.
What you &whining Willie are attempting to do is take a number of incidents, separate them from context and portray them as a prolonged, prolific norm. The only Nazi quality of your contributions surrounding these despicable acts is your Gobbelsesque tendency to rant for propaganda purposes rather than engage on the issue.
Willie does know about victims though. Some of his family and associates created quite a few, that’s why he should be excluded from the Whitecross “walk”