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Date: June 24, 1996
REPUBLICAN PRISONERS ALLOWED OUTDOOR RECREATION IN LIMERICK JAIL
MINISTER FOR JUSTICE PICKETED OVER LIMERICK PRISON CONDITIONS
US AMBASSADOR PETITIONED ON LEITRIM VISIT
1,500 RUC FORCE THROUGH ORANGE MARCH
BRITISH CROWN FORCES CHECKPOINTS BACK IN SIX COUNTIES
RUC ACCUSED OF GOING BERSERK IN EAST BELFAST
EVIDENCE OF RUC/DEATH SQUAD COLLUSION BANNED FROM INQUEST
UNRELIABLE DNA TESTS CAN SEND INNOCENTS TO JAIL
BRITISH POLICE IN SIX COUNTIES EXONERATE THEMSELVES
ANNESLEY THREATENS LOYALIST DEATH SQUAD ATTACKS
FOUR CHARGED OVER EXPLOSIVES FIND IN LAOIS
AFTER more than four months eight male Republican prisoners on A2 landing in Limerick prison have been out in the fresh air for outdoor recreation. Following a meeting between the OC of the prisoners and the jail governor on Thursday, June 20, the Republicans have now been given three two-hour periods of yard recreation every day -- 10.30am-12.30pm, 2.30pm-4.30pm and 5.30pm-7.30pm.
The outdoor recreation periods have been secured following months of protests both inside and outside the jail by the prisoners and their supporters. The Republican Prisoners Relatives Action Committee has raised the campaign for political status for the eight men and one woman in Limerick jail with the media, the local authorities and Leinster House politicians at every opportunity.
The Dublin department of justice has responded as slowly and grudgingly as possible to the prisoners' demands for the same treatment in Limerick as political prisoners receive in Portlaoise jail.
Despite the latest success, the position of the Republican prisoners has not yet been fully secured. The eight men on A2 landing are still locked up in their cells outside of the yard recreation times. In Portlaoise, political prisoners have their doors unlocked from morning until 'lock-up' at night. Republican prisoners in Limerick will continue to demand the same conditions as other political prisoners. The reason they are having to fight for every element of those conditions is that they, unlike the political prisoners in Portlaoise, refuse to "conform to the peace process" and remain implacably opposed to British rule in Ireland. Messages of support can be sent to the prisoners, John Carmody, Billy Hennessy, Josephine Hayden, Sean Moore, Martin McGrath, Richard Wallace, Michael Hegarty, Joe Mounsey, George Buckley, at this address: Political Prisoner, Limerick Prison, Mulgrave Street, Limerick.
DUBLIN justice minister Nora Owen was met by a dozen picketers carrying a large banner and waving placards when she arrived at her Saturday morning political clinic in the north Dublin town of Swords at noon on June 22. Members of the Republican Prisoners Relatives Action Committee, who organised the picket along with Republican Sinn Fein, were calling for political status for nine Republican prisoners in Limerick jail, who had been denied access to the fresh air by the Dublin adminstration for more than four months, from February 12 until June 20.
The relatives’ committee believe that the prisoners were being denied outdoor recreation by the authorities because they do not accept the current process which they maintain is aimed at strengthening British rule in Ireland.
As part of the relatives’ campaign to highlight the unhealthy conditions for the nine prisoners in Limerick jail pickets were also held on June 22 on other Leinster House ministers’ clinics in the 26 Counties, including health minister Brendan Howlin in Wexford.
The Republican Prisoners Relatives Action Committee have pledged to continue their campaign until the same conditions obtain in Limerick jail as those afforded to political prisoners in Portlaoise jail. The campaign has already won the support of Shannon Town Commissioners, Bundoran Urban Council and Ballyshannon Town Commissioners. Shannon Town Commissioners are trying to send a deputation to Limerick jail to investigate the poor conditions of the Republican prisoners, comprising eight men and one woman.
A DELEGATION from Republican Sinn Fein handed a letter to the United States Ambassador, Jean Kennedy Smith, on the occasion of her visit to Kiltyclogher, Co Leitrim on Friday, June 21. The Republican Sinn Fein delegation was led by North Leitrim Ard Chomhairle (National Executive) member Declan Curneen.
The letter extended a warm welcome to the US Ambassador to Kiltyclogher, a historic and sacred place in the annals of Irish Republicanism. The 1916 leader and signatory of the Proclamation of the Republic, Sean Mac Diarmada, was born nearby.
Her attention was drawn to the ongoing persecution and imprisoning by the Dublin administration of Republicans who bear allegiance to the All-Ireland Republic proclaimed by Sean Mac Diarmada and his comrades on Easter Monday 1916. They continue to advocate a British withdrawal from the Six Counties as the only means by which to secure a just and lasting peace in Ireland.
The ongoing plight of political prisoners in Limerick prison was brought to the Ambassador's attention on humanitarian grounds. These political prisoners are being denied the political status given to prisoners in Portlaoise prison. For four months they had been denied access to fresh air and an exercise yard. The health of these eight prisoners is now giving cause for concern.
The Ambassador's assistance was requested in obtaining a visa for Ruairi O Bradaigh, President of Republican Sinn Fein, to visit the United States. He had been denied a US visa for more than 20 years now. The Republican Sinn Fein President is the only political leader in all of Ireland who continues to be denied the opportunity of bringing his vision of a New Ireland, EIRE NUA, to the American people.
SCORES of people were dragged off the Cliftonville Road in the nationalist area of north Belfast by the RUC on June 21 when more than 300 nationalists staged a sit-down protest against an Orange march through the nationalist area on June 21. Attempts by the Cliftonville/Antrim Road Concerned Residents Association to have the march re-routed away from the five nationalist areas it passed through were ignored by the Orange Order and the RUC.
The huge Crown Forces operation involving more than 1,500 RUC paramiliatry police, was aimed at forcing the Orange march through cordoned-off nationalist districts, trapping residents in their homes for several hours. Crowds gathered at several points and shouted abuse at the marchers across the screens erected at the police cordon.
Disturbances broke out at several points and 10 Ruc members and three civilians were reported injured. Riots continued in the New Lodge Road area later that night.
COMBINED RUC and British army checkpoints were re-instated in many parts of the Six Counties on June 18. Security gates were closed again in many towns including Armagh, Banbridge, Lurgan and Portadown. This re-militarisation is another sign of the failing health of the current process.
RESIDENTS of a nationalist area in east Belfast have accused the British RUC police of storm-trooping through the area "looking for a fight". Families in the Short Strand district were returning from a charity function at St Matthew's parochial hall in the early hours of Saturday morning, June 22, when RUC Land-Rovers blocked off the Mountpottinger Road without warning.
"I heard the noise and went up to check on my daughter-in-law and grandchildren. They weren't going to let me by but I managed and then all I heard was 'go and charge' and they came rushing forwards. The next thing a fella was trailed out of his house and hit with a baton. The blood was spattered everywhere and the next thing the dog-handler let the dog loose," an eye-witness said. "People were being beaten as they went to the defence of others. The police just went berserk," she added.
One man told how he had just arrived at his home after the charity function when he heard the commotion outside. "There was a fair crowd gathered at that time because most people were on their way home," he said. "I went out into the street and when I saw this fella getting hit, I shouted over to the police to leave him alone. Before I knew it they were straight into my house and started hitting me in front of my children."
Another man said: "These police weren't from this area and they were just spoiling for action because they were hammered in north Belfast" (referring to the riot at an Orange march earlier that night).
"It was just a free-for-all. They were hurling all sorts of abuse at us, calling us Fenian bastards and all that stuff. It was wild."
Fourteen residents required hospital treatment for dog bites and baton injuries following the incidents.
THE inquest into the killing of Patrick Shanaghan by the UDA British-backed death squad in 1991 resumed and concluded on June 20. The inquest was delayed when the chief constable of the RUC, Hugh Annesley, appealed two decisions made by the coroner to admit two pieces of evidence (see IRIS 152). Annesley won his appeal in the High Court in Belfast on June 18.
Judge Kerr ruled that the coroner must stick to investigating the cause of death. On June 20 the inquest jury ruled that Shanaghan was murdered by a gunman firing an automatic weapon near Castlederg, Co Tyrone on the morning of August 12, 1991.
On June 22 the Irish News (Belfast) published one of the pieces of evidence that the RUC succeeded in barring from the inquest. The statement by David Cameron, a close friend of Shanaghan, read:
"In January 1991, Patrick Shanaghan informed me that while he was being held in Castlereagh Interrogation centre, he was informed by one of his interrogators that this was going to be the year of Shanaghan and Cameron.
"Then on 14 May, 1991, I was arrested at my home and taken to Castlereagh Interrogation Centre and was told during one of the interviews that Paddy Shanaghan and I was responsible for all the terrorist activities in the Castlederg area and we was going to be taken out.
"I was told our names were to be leaked to a (name withheld by Irish News) who has connections with the UDA."
In its annual report launched on June 19 Amnesty International highlighted the inadequacy of the inquest procedure in the Six Counties and called for killings by British Crown Forces to be investigated fully. The report also welcomed the finding of the European Court of Human Rights that the British government had violated the right to life of the three unarmed Provisional members shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988.
A SPEAKER at the International Perspectives on Crime, Justice and Public Order Conference in Dublin Castle told delegates on June 17 that some types of DNA testing being presented in courtrooms were unreliable and could make innocent defendants appear guilty.
Professor Lawrence Kobilinsky of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York said that some PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) testing methods could give juries the impression that a defendant was guilty when a more thorough test would show that they could not have committed the offence.
Professor Kobilinsky said the basic PCR method was able to identify six genes in a DNA sample. However the World Health Organisation had now stated that there were 16 indentifiable genes, divided into sub-groups of those six original genes. Kobilinsky said he was very concerned that in some cases juries were being told of a DNA "match" when, if a more sensitive DNA testing method was used, it could show that no match actually existed.
Results obtained by testing methods which could not make the distinction between the sub-groups of genes were being used "in courtrooms all over the world" as evidence of guilt, whereas more thorough testing would show the distinction and prove that the defendant was innocent.
Tom McEwan of the Institute for Law and Justice in the US told delegates that 28 prisoners had been freed from US jails after DNA evidence showed that they didn't commit the crimes of which they were convicted. McEwan was one of the authors of a report, "Convicted by Juries -- Exonerated by Science" for the US Department of Justice, which examined how those innocent people had come to be imprisoned.
The report reinforced the view that eyewitness evidence was often unreliable. Many of the cases also showed malpractice by the police or withholding of evidence from the defence, a common practice in the British police force which resulted in the frame-ups of the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four and Judith Ward among others.
SPEAKING at the international conference on crime in Dublin on June 17 Professor Dermot Walsh of the University of Limerick told delegates that out of 1,235 complaints against the RUC from people arrested under emergency legislation between 1990 and 1992 NONE were upheld. In a joint paper with Professor Bruce Dickinson, Walsh said "the practice of having one member of the RUC investigate a complaint against another member of the RUC is a contributing factor" to the failure of the police complaints system in the Six Occupied Counties.
THE Chief Constable of the RUC paramilitary police, Hugh Annesley, used his annual report on June 20 to threaten nationalists with a loyalist backlash if there were to be any military attacks against the British in the Six Counties. "If there were to be IRA attacks in Northern Ireland there is no doubt there would be an immediate and without warning retaliatory attack by loyalist terrorists in Northern Ireland and within the Republic of Ireland," he said.
On the same day as he made his comments the inquest into the killing of Patrick Shanaghan by loyalists on information received from the RUC returned a harmless conclusion after Annesley ham-strung the coroner. Three days later the RUC attacked a nationalist area in east Belfast (see full stories in this IRIS).
Commenting on punishment beatings carried out during 1995, Annesley described them as "naked intimidation designed to bolster the influence of yesterday's men -- terrorists who have no place in society"; words that could be used more accurately to describe the activities of the RUC.
FOUR men were charged with possession of explosives at the Special Non-Jury Court in Dublin following a 26-County police raid on a farmhouse at the foot of Slieve Bloom in Clonaslee, County Laois on the evening of June 20. Three are from Dublin: John Conaty (35), Gabriel Cleary (52) and Bryan McNally (54) and the fourth, Michael Cully (46), is from Clonaslee, County Laois. Four other men, two from Dublin and two from the Midlands, arrested on June 20 have all been released without charge.
Dublin political police members involved in the raid claimed to have discovered a Provisional bomb-making factory and to have seized up to 60 kilograms of Semtex plastic explosive, 16 mortar bombs and other bomb-making materials in a bunker beneath the farmhouse and in a shed beside the house. Newspaper reports suggested that a bag of electrical components found several days earlier in County Tipperary during continuing raids in the Munster area following the shooting dead on June 7 of a Special Branch detective in Adare, County Limerick was "associated" with the mortar-bomb manufacturing components found at Clonaslee.
ENDS
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