Inquiry to reassess Widgery's 'fatally flawed' findings

Blair insists evidence justifies new tribunal into Bloody Sunday

by Aidan Hennigan, Mark Hennessy
and Liam O'Neill
THE BRITISH government bowed to pressure yesterday and announced a new judicial inquiry into the killing of 14 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry 26 years ago.
Tony Blair gave the go-ahead for the inquiry after the Irish government issued a damning assessment of the Widgery Tribunal, the original investigation into the 1972 tragedy in which Parachute Regiment members fired on marchers in Derry's Bogside.
Britain may have to apologise to victims' relatives if the inquiry overturns the Widgery Report.
An Irish government assessment, published yesterday, which played a crucial role in persuading Mr Blair to set up the inquiry, claims new material provides fresh grounds for the belief that soldiers "wilfully shot and killed unarmed civilians."
If the inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville and two other judges, accept this evidence they will have little alternative but to overturn the 1972 report which the Irish government assessment concluded was "fatally flawed".
If Widgery is overturned, official sources, in Dublin, said last night it would be a serious indictment of the British government of the time and Britain would be bound, at least, to offer an apology.
Mr Blair told a solemn House of Commons the inquiry will be able to subpoena witnesses and compel the disclosure of documents.
The Prime Minister insisted the inquiry is fully justified. Contrary to expectation, he did not make a formal apology to the victims' relatives, but the point was made that it would be inappropriate to do so in advance of the inquiry.
But he did express regret at the loss of life. ''Bloody Sunday was a tragic day. We must wish it had never happened. Our concern now is simply to establish the truth, and close this painful chapter once and for all," he said.
Inevitably attention focused on the former Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, who approved of the conclusions of Widgery at the time. He promised Mr. Blair he would make available any evidence that was required of him.
Evidence will be taken in Derry, Belfast and London. The hearings will be open to the public at the judges' discretion. A critical question is how witnesses would be treated in giving evidence if there a possibility that they could be prosecuted. They were told that immunity would be a matter for the tribunal which could refer cases to the Attorney General for consideration.
Relatives of the dead said they believed the inquiry could herald a new beginning for Anglo-Irish relations, though they insisted that Sir Edward Heath had to be called to give evidence and an account of his role.
John Hume said: ''It's in the interests of everyone the truth be established.''
Mr Blair's announcement also won a warm welcome from the bishop who tended the dead and dying.
Dr Edward Daly — he was Bishop of Derry at the time and film footage of him waving a white handkerchief in front of an injured man became the most enduring image of the day — said: ''This has been a festering sore for 26 years and it's about time it was healed, and the truth is a great healer.''
But not everyone welcomed the inquiry. David Trimble, prompting cries of 'shame' in the Commons, said: ''Opening old wounds like this is likely to do more harm than good.''

Gardaí net £400,000 cannabis haul as major drugs operation is foiled

by Brian Carroll
Security Correspondent
GARDAI´ have foiled a major drug-dealing operation in Cork with the discovery of almost £400,000 worth of cannabis in a heavily-wooded area about 10 miles outside the city.
The drugs were bound for distribution mainly in Cork city and county, and probably further afield to dealers in Limerick and Kerry, by one of four gangs operating in the southern capital.
The seizure came after a two-day search operation involving over 40 officers. Gardaí from the Cork North and Cork City divisions, together with members of the Cork City Drugs Squad, used sniffer dogs to isolate the drugs among dense woodland in a remote part of Cork county.
The gardaí were acting on intelligence gathered during a long-term surveillance operation on members of a lesser-known Cork city drugs gang.
This is thought to have been the largest ever consignment of drugs handled by this particular gang, and with close on £500,000 worth of drugs believed to have been involved altogether, gardaí were privately hailing a major coup last night.
Gardaí are continuing to search a dense woodland area at Knockraha, near Glanmire in County Cork, following the seizure of 14 kilos of cannabis resin on Wednesday and the further discovery of 25 more kilos yesterday morning.
Yesterday's search began at first light and quickly uncovered two separate bails of cannabis with a street value of £250,000. The search, which at its height involved over 40 officers under the direction of Superintendent Kieran McGann, Cobh, has now been scaled down.
However, gardaí believe there may yet be more drugs concealed in the wooded area, and it is understood the woodlands are being kept under guard while searches continue.
Two men were arrested and detained under the Drug Trafficking Act on Wednesday after being monitored by gardaí leaving a wooded area at Leamlara, County Cork.

Shock heart disease level to be tackled by Minister

by Jim Morahan
HEALTH MINISTER Brian Cowen, yesterday, declared "war" on heart disease — the country's second highest killer which claims 40 lives every day.
Mr Cowen's national plan envisages more surgical facilities to reduce waiting by public patients and a preventive programme to tackle the causes of heart disease.
At present, 1,650 people are waiting for surgery, some for more than three years.
It's planned to tackle this backlog and guarantee access to cardiac surgery within six months of going on the waiting list.
Ireland is to get its first lung and heart/lung transplant surgery unit, at Dublin's Mater Hospital.
Irish cystic fibrosis patients currently have such surgery in the Unitied Kingdom.
The Minister said such surgery — a medium-term goal — would begin "as soon as the planned service can guarantee results at least on a par with those achieved internationally."
New cardiac surgery units will be located in Galway University Hospital — with 300 operations the annual target, and St James' Hospital in Dublin (450 operations.)
Extra cardiac facilities will be put in place at Cork University Hospital. Surgery capacity at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, Dublin is to go up by 40%, equal to an extra 100 operations.
An expert group, being appointed by the Minister, is expected to develop an integrated national programme of action by the middle of this year.
The Irish Heart Foundation welcomed the initiatives.
For many years it had been advocating the need for such a national plan to prevent coronary vascular disease (CVD).
Ireland has the highest death rate from the disease in the EU.
Many of the 1,800 deaths before the age of 65 from CVD might have been prevented by adopting a healthier lifestyle, such as healthy eating, regular physical activity and not smoking, the foundation said.
"Today we are effectively declaring war on heart disease," Mr Cowen said at yesterday's launch. While one-third of all premature deaths (in people under 65) was caused by CVD, it was even more shocking that our death rate was twice the European average.
CVD was going to continue to present a major challenge in the years ahead. A worrying trend was the increasing numbers of young people, women in particular, taking up smoking. The sedentary and inactive lifestyles of a significant proportion of the population was also a major risk factor. Despite changes in our dietary habits, we were still anticipating problems with obesity in the next century.
Currently, seven heart surgeons carry out 1,400 adult operations in the public sector, but there are about 1,500 adults on the waiting list. This was totally unacceptable, the Minister said, when there was no waiting list for private patients.
Neither could he accept that 70% of children should have been waiting for six months or longer. "I have met the parents of children awaiting cardiac surgery and I have been moved by their plight," Mr Cowen said. He wanted to express his personal commitment to the parents of cystic fibrosis sufferers, who had campaigned for many years for an Irish heart/lung transplant service, that they would develop that service. Prof Maurice Neligan, the noted heart surgeon, said the Mater Hospital would train the new staff required for the expanded services around the country.
He estimated 40-50 intensive-care nurses would have to be recruited and trained, as well as other specialist staff. A three-year training programme should begin now.

Army snipers probably shot victims from Walls

by Mark Hennessy
Political Correspondent
NEW ballistics information, backed by three top international experts, indicates strongly that British Army snipers shot dead some of the Bloody Sunday victims from The Walls of Derry, the Government's investigation said.
If backed by a tribunal of inquiry, the information would mean that a significant portion of the Widgery Tribunal would have to be dismissed, particularly its version of the events which occurred around barricades on Rossville Street on The Bogside.
The experts' testimony, supported by local doctor Dr Raymond McClean, shows that three of the dead had wounds which could only have been received if they were fired down on by trained marksmen equipped with high-velocity weapons.
The post-mortem reports were never fully explored by Widgery in his report. Widgery failed to call medical experts, including Dr McClean, who would have cast serious doubt upon the evidence given by Parachute Regiment soldiers. The statement given to Channel 4 News by one Royal Anglian Regiment soldier that shots were fired from the walls has been backed up by statements taken from four other soldiers taken in the days after the massacre.
However, this corroboration only entered the public arena last year, when it was found by University of Limerick Professor Dermot Walsh in the Public Records Office after the passing of the 25-year secrecy rule.
The Widgery Report is fundamentally flawed: "It was a startlingly inaccurate and partisan version of events, dramatically at odds with the experiences and observations of civilian eyewitnesses. It failed to provide a credible explanation for the actions of the British Army.
"It was inherently and apparently wilfully flawed, selective and unbalanced in its handling of the evidence to hand at the time.
"It effectively rejected the many hundreds of civilian testimonies submitted to it and opted instead for the unreliable accounts proffered by the implicated soldiers. Contrary to the weight of evidence and even its own findings, it exculpated the individual soldiers who used lethal force and thereby exonerated those who were responsible for their deployment and actions," it went on.
"Above all, it was unjust to the victims of Bloody Sunday and to those who participated in the anti-internment march that day in suggesting that they handled firearms or nailbombs or were in the company of those who did.
"It made misleading judgments about how victims met their death.
"The tenacity with which these suggestions were pursued, often on flimsy or downright implausible grounds, is in marked contrast to the many points where significant and obvious questions about the soldiers' behaviour are evaded, or glossed over.
"There have been many atrocities in Northern Ireland since Bloody Sunday.
"Other innocent victims have suffered grievously at various hands. The victims of Bloody Sunday met their fate at the hands of those whose duty it was to respect as well as uphold the law.
"However, what sets this case apart from other tragedies which might rival it in bloodshed, is not the identify of those killing or killed, or even the horrendous circumstances of the day. It is rather that the victims of Bloody Sunday suffered a second injustice, this time at the hands of Lord Widgery, the pivotal trustee of the rule of law who sought to taint them with responsibility for their own deaths in order to exonerate, even at that great moral cost, those he found it expedient to blame.
"The new material fatally undermines and discredits the Widgery Report. A debt of justice is owed to the victims and their relatives to set it unambiguously aside as the official version of events.
"It must be replaced by a clear and truthful account of the events of the day."

Paratroopers completely lost control, soldier recalls

by Aidan Hennigan
A PARATROOPER who was on duty in Derry on the day of the killings, now an officer has written anonymously about the events of that day and is critical of the action of the Paras.
The officer, writing under the name of Tom Jackson in the London Evening Standard suggests that the Paras got the word to go after a single high velocity shot was fired.
He explained: "In theory, what followed involved some 400 soldiers and the crowd of 25,000 whose march had by then degenerated into rioting.
"In reality the bloodiness of the day centred on a small number of men in Support Company and a complete loss of command and control by those charged with keeping Para aggression in check.
He also asserted: "There was obviously a complete lack of command and control at platoon and section level — it was bad, very bad."
He spoke of a company Sergeant Major who agreed with him.
Speaking about Bloody Sunday many years later in a television documentary he quoted the Sgt. Major.
"I feel very guilty about the subsequent effect of that day. I think it was badly handled by everybody, by me the Platoon Sergeant, the individual soldiers and our superiors.
He said that others felt the same way including a member of Support Company who received a mention in dispatches:
"Little more than a year later he not only left the army but had thrown away the little piece of gold-braided board."

Jack Lynch rushed to hospital

FORMER Taoiseach Jack Lynch was rushed to Accident and Emergency at the Meath Hospital, Dublin shortly before 10pm last night.
His condition was described as not life threatening. He is to remain under supervision at the hospital.
The 80-year-old native of Cork city who is living in Dublin had been in poor health recently. Last year he spent several months in hospital. 

Telecom Eireann sends out warning on sex lines

by Tony Purcell
A NATIONWIDE campaign warning parents about sex lines has been set up by Telecom E´ireann after Fine Gael's Deputy Michael Finucane expressed concern about the "scourge" of the operations.
Last year Deputy Finucane drew attention to the issue after parents in west Limerick told him of huge phone bills they had received.
An investigation into these bills revealed that sex line calls had been made using international lines at a cost of up to £1.75 per minute — unknown to the parents.
Deputy Finucane asked the director of Public Affairs at Telecom to make consumers aware that these lines were operating, some at least being directed to Guyana, South America.
Telecom E´ireann, in a special promotional leaflet posted out to all subscribers this month, has issued a warning about these international numbers.
Information services such as weather and traffic reports use Irish numbers which begin with the digits 1500, Telecom points out, and the service overall is regulated by an independent regulator.
Services of an explicit nature, however, are accessible only by having a PIN number and are available only on a special prefix, a regulation which they say has effectively meant that these services have largely ceased to operate here.
However, there is such regulation at international level and these explicit services are being advertised using international lines.
"Telecom E´ireann can bar access to these numbers from your phone," the leaflet warning reads.
But the downside of this is that the customer would be barred from making any international calls at all. However, help is at hand.
An itemised bill can assist people in monitoring calls.
Telecom E´ireann offer a free service on 1904 to help answer any further queries.
"I am very pleased they have taken up my suggestion and have provided people with the information.
"At least now, people are aware of the situation," said Deputy Finucane.

Way clear for Haugheys to proceed with action

THE way was cleared for C J Haughey and members of his family to proceed with their action to stop the Moriarty Tribunal investigating their financial affairs when agreement was reached, yesterday, over documentation being sought by them.
The agreement came unexpectedly in the Supreme Court when following suggestions from the bench, lawyers for the Tribunal agreed to make controversial documentation available to lawyers for the Haughey side on a confidential basis. An application is expected to be made to the High Court next week to set a date for the hearing of the main action and it may begin in mid-February.
The dispute between the sides over documentation had already been before the High Court for two days and was at hearing for most of yesterday in the Supreme Court by way of appeal. Costs of the proceedings to-date are estimated to be well in excess of £50,000, but a ruling on who pays them was left over until the main action. During a brief adjournment in the late afternoon, the Tribunal side gave a copy of a confidential letter sent by it to the Government Chief Whip — and among the documents over which there had been a dispute — to the Haughey side.
Having read the letter, counsel for the Haugheys indicated that it was not needed, although it was stated they could not have appreciated the relevance of it until they had seen it.
Earlier, the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, had stated that when counsel for the Haughey side read it, it would be seen there was nothing of any consequence in it.

Bid to honour Kitchener may not stand the heat of local opposition

by Donal Hickey
LORD KITCHENER, the Kerryman who pointed out that Your Country Needs You during the First World War, is about to create a war of his own years after his death.
A major row is brewing over a proposal to erect memorials in Kerry to the man described by some of his fellow countrymen as a British war criminal.
Lord Kitchener, who was born at Gunsboro, near Listowel, was blamed for atrocities in the Boer War and remembered for his recruiting campaign for the British Army during WW1.
The Historic Monuments Committee of Kerry County Council will soon be considering a proposal to erect plaques to Kitchener at Gunsboro and at a church near Ballylongford, where he was baptised.
Well-known Cork Irish language enthusiast Pádraig O´ Cuanachain yesterday said that objections would surely be raised to the erection of any memorial to a war criminal who was involved in atrocities against civilian populations, especially during the Boer War, in South Africa.
"He rounded up hundreds of Boer women and children, whose menfolk were away fighting, and put them behind barbed wire where they died like flies without medical attention," he said.
As Kitchener's tactics were also felt in India and Egypt, Mr O´ Cuanachain, stressing that he was speaking as a private individual, said there would undoubtedly be strong representations from Indian and Egyptian ambassadors.
Cllr Tim Buckley, said: "It's only a case of putting up a plaque so that people will know where Kitchener came from. We're not honouring him, or anything like that."

Epileptic youth died after being punched and kicked

by Diarmaid MacDermott
A 19-YEAR-OLD epileptic man died after he was punched and kicked by three men during a night's drinking session in the grounds of a Monaghan school, a court heard yesterday.
Patrick Maguire from Clones, Co Monaghan suffered a cardiac arrest in Monaghan Hospital; was successfully resuscitated, but died after a second cardiac arrest.
Three men who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Maguire between May 13 and 14, 1996 were remanded by Mr Justice Brian McCracken for sentencing next Wednesday at the Central Criminal Court. They are John McCafferty (22), a native of Coleraine, Co Derry, with no fixed address; Seán Bell (21), of Latlurgan, Monaghan and Keith Byrne (19), of Cortolvin Road, Monaghan.
The court heard that McCafferty was a former British soldier who served with the Royal Irish Regiment in Kuwait, the Falkland Islands and Cyprus and who had fled Northern Ireland after he fell "foul" of the UDA because of his involvement in crime and drugs in the Coleraine area.
Supt Edward Murray told prosecuting counsel Mr George Bermingham BL that Mr Maguire, who was an epileptic, and the three accused went to the grounds of St Mary's Boys' School in Monaghan with a carry-out of beer and a bottle of whiskey.
Bell accused Maguire of "spiking" his drink on a previous occasion with medicine, which resulted in Bell being arrested by the gardaí. Bell punched Maguire and the other two accused then joined in the assault. Maguire was repeatedly beaten and kicked all over his body.
The assault continued over a period of time and Mr Maguire was dragged through a field.
A passerby noticed Maguire around 3.30 a.m., and the gardaí and an ambulance were called.

Silage seepage killed hundreds of local fish

by Will Hanafin
AN ACCIDENTAL silage effluent seepage killed "hundreds of fish" on a West Cork river, a district court heard yesterday.
Farmer, Tom Bryan from Ballymana House, Lisbealad West, Dunmanway, pleaded guilty at Dunmanway District Court to a of permitting or causing deleterious material to enter a river at Glasheenahiela on May 17 last year.
Solicitor for the South Western Regional Fisheries Board, Mr. Vincent Coakley described the fish kill as "a serious pollution incident".He accepted a submission by solicitor Mr. Gerard Corcoran that the seepage had been accidental following an underground seepage.
Bryan was fined £75, with £150 costs and expenses of £518.
tor Mr. Gerard Corcoran that the seepage had been accidental following an underground seepage.
Bryan was fined £75,150 costs.

Nurses call for scheme change

by Dan Collins
A threatened strike by public health nurses, over what they believe is an impracticable child vaccination scheme, could plunge the health boards into administrative chaos.
The whooping cough scheme at the centre of the row was "not sufficiently flexible or user friendly to result in a maximum level of take," Mr Liam Doran, deputy general secretary, Irish Nurses' Organisation said.
Nurses were annoyed by the fact that the scheme was drawn-up without their input.
The nurses believe the new scheme is less accessible than the one it replaced. "Basically, what health board public nurses are looking for is a combination of the best features of both schemes," Mr Doran said.
The new scheme, which has been in place for over a year, switched the responsibility for whooping cough and other child vaccinations from health board clinics to GP's placing the onus for generating awareness of the scheme on health board nurses.
INO members believe recent increases in whooping cough cases are directly related the flaws in the new scheme.

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