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http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/conservatives-warned-over-abandoning-ni-inquiries-1924239.html
Sunday October 25 2009
A future British Conservative government should not duck its responsibilities to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles, nationalists said today.
British Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday told the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) conference that the Conservatives would not fund costly inquiries into the decades of violence.
But today the nationalist SDLP, which sits on the Northern Ireland power-sharing government, said the comments showed that a future Conservative government was set to ignore advice on the need to resolve the ancient hatreds at the heart of the conflict.
``William Hague has only confirmed what the Tory people have been saying privately for months; the Tories will not support or pay for a rigorous process around the truth of the past. There are problems much bigger than the costs and no one should pretend otherwise,'' said SDLP equality spokesman Alex Attwood.
``There are elements in Labour and the Tories who wish to suppress the past. They don't want the truth of what people in the British Army or M15 did during the Troubles to be disclosed.''
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland/Security-lapse-risked-Queens-life.5764179.jp
Published Date: 25 October 2009
By Stephen McGinty
IT WOULD have been the IRA's most spectacular coup, the assassination of the Queen and the total destruction of Shetland's Sullum Voe oil terminal with the loss of countless lives.
The release of MI5 files have now shed new light on the failed bombing in 1981, which was the only IRA attack on Scottish soil.
British Petroleum "balked" at the cost of securing the site to the satisfaction of the Secret Service, despite a reconnaissance visit by an MI5 officer which highlighted the necessity of securing the power station 500 yards from where the Queen would perform the opening ceremony of Europe's largest oil terminal on 9 May, 1981.
An IRA agent who had spent the past two years on the construction team was able to hide a bomb inside the power station, which went off just as the Queen appeared in the open.
Remarkably the bomb's detonation was at first mistaken for an electrical fault and was not even noticed until after the event. But a subsequent investigation revealed the IRA had planned to detonate a larger six-pound device but were foiled, not by the security services, but by their own loss of nerve.
The inside story of the only IRA attack on Scottish soil is revealed in The Defence of the Realm, the authorised biography of MI5, by Christopher Andrew, a leading historian on intelligence.
"Due to a lapse in protective security by British Petroleum, PIRA (the provisional IRA) came close to achieving one of its most spectacular coups," said Andrew. "BP, however, balked at the cost of implementing all the recommendations, which ran into seven figures, and detailed discussions were still continuing at the time of the attack."
The attack was launched at a time of intense Republican feelings, just four days after the death of Bobby Sands, the first of ten hunger strikers to die in the Maze prison near Belfast.
It was later discovered that the large construction team at Sullum Voe, many of them Irish, had included a number of known or suspected Republicans. After forensic examination of more than 60 dustbin-loads of debris, the bomb detonator was identified as coming from the Irish Republic.
Later, police inquiries found that the two parcels, each containing a bomb, had been posted to a Republican militant working on the construction of the terminal.
When the second parcel was delayed in the post, he appears to have panicked, believing that it had been intercepted en route by the security services, and fled without collecting either his cards or his bonus pay for two years' service at the site.
The Republican militant stayed only long enough to plant the first bomb, or perhaps pass it on to an accomplice. The second parcel, containing a 6lb bomb and a 12-day timing device, arrived after his departure and remained uncollected in the construction village post office until, absurdly, it was forwarded to (but failed to reach) his address in Northern Ireland.
On the day of the inauguration, the Queen, on the royal yacht Britannia, and the King of Norway on board the Norge arrived at Sullom Voe. Dense fog meant the large police contingent from the Scottish mainland arrived too late to complete more than brief physical security checks before the opening.
As the Queen appeared, the bomb in the power station 500 yards away went off, unnoticed. There was little structural damage and no casualties. When it was later discovered it was not made public.
The PIRA Overseas Department was deeply disappointed not to hear news of a disruption and several news agencies received phone calls from people speaking with an Irish accent, asking whether there had any reports of an incident at Sullum Voe. PIRA claimed afterwards to have "breached the English Queen's security".
Professor Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, said: "The IRA always liked to present itself as friendly to other nations which they thought were under the heel of English imperialism. They wanted to try to encourage a feeling of affinity with Republicans in Scotland.
"They sustained that policy and that made Sullum Voe seem rather odd, because, after all, Shetland is normally regarded as part of Scotland, even if sometimes they grumble about Edinburgh's control.
"It might have seemed important to strike at the critical infrastructure because oil was clearly going to be so important to the future of the UK as a whole. But it has always remained a bit of a mystery."
A spokesman for BP said: "I don't think it was ever established that it was a bomb."
http://www.irishnews.com/articles/540/5860/2009/10/23/630739_397831685122Wronglyco.html
By Barry McCaffrey
23/10/09
A Belfast man wrongly jailed for an IRA gun attack after police rewrote interview notes will go back to court this morning to challenge the secretary of state’s refusal to compensate him for the nine years he spent in prison.
In 1977 John Boyle was jailed for 12 years after allegedly admitting during police questioning that he had taken part in an IRA gun attack on police.
At his trial Mr Boyle denied making the admissions and claimed his alleged confession had been fabricated after detectives rewrote interview notes.
He was eventually released from jail in 1986.
However in 1999 the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice, found that at least one set of police interview notes had been rewritten by detectives.
In April 2003 the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction after Crown lawyers offered no evidence against the father-of-five.
However, despite having his conviction overturned the 51-year-old was refused compensation by the secretary of state.
In 2008 Northern Ireland’s three most senior judges ruled that the secretary of state had been in correct in his refusal to compensate Mr Boyle for being wrongly convicted on “tainted evidence”, which had led to him suffering “serious prejudice, namely many years in prison”.
However, Mr Boyle will return to court again this morning to challenge the fact that secretary of state Shaun Woodward has still not made any decision to compensate him 14 months after the Court of Appeal ruling.
Questioning the secretary of state’s continued delay in compensating him for the nine years he spent in prison, Mr Boyle said: “I have contested my innocence for more than 30 years and 2003 it was proved in the highest court in the land that those notes were rewritten and that I spent nine years in jail for something I had nothing to do with.
“Even now six years after my name was supposed to have been cleared I still have this cloud of guilt hanging over my head because the secretary of state will not accept that I was wrongly convicted.’’
http://www.recordernewspapers.com/articles/2009/10/23/madison_eagle/latest_news/doc4adf788492298611679430.txt
Drew University will host head of Ireland's largest nationalist party
Published: Oct 23rd, 7:14 AM
MADISON - Gerry Adams, president of Ireland’s largest nationalist political party, will appear at Drew University Adams will appear at Drew University at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in the Dorothy Young Center for the Arts Concert Hall on the 36 Madison Ave. campus, as part of the university’s 2009/10 Forum speaker series.
Having served as a key player in brokering peace between long-feuding religious groups in Northern Ireland, Adams will talk about his personal experiences with religious discrimination, his unjust imprisonment and his rise to national prominence as a civil rights and nationalist leader.
“Gerry Adams has helped to bring about what many people thought was impossible - peace in Ireland,” said Christine Kinealy, professor of Irish studies at Drew.
“His approach to conflict resolution should serve as a model for other communities engaged in internecine war,” Kinealy said. “My students are very much looking forward to meeting a man who has risked his life for his political beliefs.”
Imprisoned Twice
Adams was born in West Belfast in Northern Ireland in 1948. He first became involved in Ireland’s civil rights movement in the 1960s after years of discrimination because of his Catholic religious background.
For his acts of civil disobedience and all involvement with republicanism, he was imprisoned twice without a fair trial, in 1972 and again in 1977.
In 1983, after participating in sporadic peace talks with the British government, Adams was elected to represent West Belfast as its Member of Parliament. He was also elected president of Sinn Fein in the same year after strongly advocating the use of electoral politics as a peace tactic.
The controversy surrounding Adams has made him a hero to some, and a villain to others.
In 1984, several men made an attempt on his life as they sprayed more than 20 bullets into his car.
The paramilitary group responsible for the attack called him a “legitimate target of war.”
Adams is the author of several books, including “A Pathway to Peace: The Politics of Irish Freedom” and “Selected Writings,” which both detail the reasoning behind his political views.
He also wrote “Falls Memories,” an autobiographical memoir; “Cage Eleven,” stories relating to his prison experiences, and “Before the Dawn,” an autobiography. Admission to the Nov. 5 program is $32.
To purchase tickets, call the Drew Box Office at (973) 408-3917.
Updated: 11/5/2009
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