The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #96257   Message #1879039
Posted By: GUEST,CrazyEddie
08-Nov-06 - 09:09 AM
Thread Name: BS: Alleged British state colluded in Murder
Subject: RE: BS: Alleged British state colluded in Murder
In case the link is removed, here are some excerpts. :
British being urged to investigate findings

The Irish government has been urged to step up diplomatic pressure on United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair to investigate evidence of alleged British state collusion in 74 sectarian murders

Pressure was building on Taoiseach (Prime Minister - Eddie)Bertie Ahern to take action after an international panel of human rights experts published a report into killings on both sides of the Irish border in the 1970s.

The 115-page document, which took two and a half years to complete, uncovered considerable evidence of British army and police involvement in 25 loyalist atrocities, its authors claimed. The probe included the May 1974 Dublin Monaghan bombings which claimed 33 lives, and the Miami Showband massacre in July 1975 in which three musicians and two members of the Ulster Volunteer Force gang died.
....
Head of the investigation team, University of Notre Dame human rights law Professor Douglass Cassell, said he would urge the Irish government to act on its recommendations during a meeting with officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Independent TD for Dublin North Central Finian McGrath called on the Taoiseach to establish a special summit with the British government to deal with the evidence.

The report found that senior Royal Ulster Constabulary officers were aware and approved of collusion while London officials had enough information to intervene.

The human rights experts - including Piers Pigou, an investigator with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Susie Kemp, an international lawyer based in The Hague - gathered and scrutinised documentary, testimonial and ballistics evidence....

Professor Cassell said the British government was duty-bound under international law to investigate the alleged state involvement in the terrorist killings.

It was in Britain`s interests to fully investigate how "a democracy that purports to respect the rule of law could go so far off the rails as to have its police and army officers involved in, according to our findings, 74 murders," he said.

After meeting Irish government officials, Professor Cassell is to hold talks with US government representatives, the Committee of Ministers in the Council of Europe and the Joint Committee of Human Rights at Westminster about his findings....

"If the British government is going to make sure that this kind of thing doesn`t happen again, it needs to understand how it happened this time and make sure the changes are made to try to prevent it in the future....