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MARCH 2002
ST PATRICK’S DAY TRIP TO WASHINGTON
Very warm thanks to the Dunfey family for once again inviting me to attend the American Ireland Fund Gala Dinner in Washington, which was, as ever, a glittering occasion. I also attended the Global Citizen’s Circle event honouring David and Daphne Trimble. Many thanks also to the South African Embassy for their kind hospitality. However, as always, this trip was mainly about work, and we had very useful meetings with President Busgh’s special advisor, Richard Haass, with Congressmen Chris Smith and Richard Neal, and with Brian McKeon, Chief Counsel to the Committee on Foreign Relations. Thanks to Elisa Massimino, Raj Purohit and Fiona Doherty of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights for facilitating these meetings.
PATRICK FINUCANE
Members of the Finucane family were also lobbying with us in Washington. In an unscheduled encounter with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, John Reid, I was dismayed to hear him tell the Finucanes that he did not mind if the proposed international judge’s examination of their case took 100 years so long as the truth was discovered. He also declined to guarantee the preservation of the existing evidence in the case, or to set a time limit on the exercise.
The Stevens police investigation team have today arrested another loyalist, Mo Courtney, in connection with the murder. All these loyalists could have been arrested ten years ago if the Special Branch had been doing its job properly. As it stands, although the Stevens team are just doing the job they were asked to perform by the government, the net effect is to delay proper consideration of the much wider issues raised by this murder.
castlereagh
incident
The St Patrick’s Day insider raid on Castlereagh Special Branch office raised more questions than it answered. We have written to Minster of State Jane Kennedy seeking assurances that none of the papers stolen were in any way connected to a number of cases on which we are working, including those of Patrick Finucane, Rosemary Nelson, Robert Hamill and Billy Wright, all of whose cases are due to be considered by an international judge.
sergeant joe
campbell
We have sent a comprehensive complaint to the Police Ombudsman concerning the murder in 1977 of RUC Sergeant Joe Campbell. His family have been researching his murder for the past 15 years, during which alarming evidence has come to light which suggests that fellow police officers were involved in his death and may have acted in collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.
third party
intervention
Earlier this month we joined the Committee on the Administration of Justice and Amnesty International in seeking leave to intervene in an appeal by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to the House of Lords. The Northern Ireland courts had ruled that the NIHRC was barred from itself making third party interventions, in this case to the Omagh inquest, because it had no statutory power to do so. The Lords gave us leave, despite objections by the Coroner. The case was heard on 11th and 12th March, and judgment was reserved. It would be deeply ironic, as well as a breach of the Paris Principles on national human rights institutions, if NGOs are free to make interventions while the NIHRC is not.
SEAMUS LUDLOW
On 4th March I travelled to Belfast to meet the Police Ombudsman together with the family of Seamus Ludlow, who was murdered in1976, allegedly by northern paramilitaries. She is looking into the RUC side of the police investigation of the murder.
BILLY WRIGHT
On 8th March I was in Belfast again to meet Brice Dickson, the Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, to discuss the murder of Billy Wright, who died in the Maze prison in 1997. Although he was murdered by other prisoners from INLA, there are a number of unanswered questions about his case that suggest that there may have been official collusion involved.
THE RIGHT TO LIFE AND INQUESTS
On 20th March I attended a very interesting seminar organised by Inquest on the future of the inquest system in the light of last year’s rulings in the cases of Jordan et al v UK. A major piece of work in the coming weeks will be out submission to the fundamental review of the inquest system established by the government, partly in response to these rulings.
research into
public inquiries
Many thanks to Sarah Connolly, Niamh McClean and Damian Sherwood of the University of Essex for their help into our research project on public inquiries.
Jane Winter,
Director,
27th March 2002.
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
