Martin McGuinness to challenge Theresa May directly on her immunity for British armed forces

BRITISH Prime Minister Theresa May’s declaration at the Conservative Party conference that her armed forces will be exempt from prosecution under the European Convention of Human Right for murder and torture has caused shock and distress in the North of Ireland.

The announcement has brought back memories of statements by Tory ministers that preceded the murder of lawyers such as Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson by British Army, MI5 and RUC Special Branch agents operating with unionist death squads.

“The Tory Party conference erupted in applause,” the Independent newspaper reported when Theresa May jeered at “activist left-wing human rights lawyers” who “harangue and harass” Britain’s armed forces – in other words, investigate them for war crimes or human rights abuses.

Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane was handling the case of the unlawful killing of by the SAS of three unarmed IRA Volunteers with their hands up in surrender in Gibraltar in March 1988.

Douglas Hogg, a Home Office minister, told MPs in the Commons in 1989, after being briefed by senior RUC officers, that some solicitors were “unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA”.

Three weeks later, Pat Finucane was shot dead in his home by a UDA unionist death squad made up of RUC Special Branch agents directed by Brian Nelson, a top British Army agent who as the UDA’s head of intelligence targeted people for murder.

Rosemary Nelson was a prominent Lurgan defence lawyer who had addressed a hearing of the US Congress on collusion between British state forces and unionist death squads. She was killed in a booby-trap car bombing in March 1999.

The Pat Finucane Centre said on Twitter after the statements this week by the British Prime Minister:

“So will another ‘left-wing human rights lawyer’ be shot dead within 3 weeks of this speech? #PatFinucane #RosemaryNelson #DouglasHogg.”

John Finucane, a son of Pat Finucane and now a partner at a Belfast law firm, tweeted:

“The PM gets applause for deliberate isolation/vilification of lawyers? Very dangerous. #PatFinucane #RosemaryNelson.”

The KRW Law human rights legal firm tweeted:

“PM May attacks ‘activist left-wing human rights lawyers’ day after Army exemption from ECHR plan #Kafkaesque.”

The British Government is effectively giving its military, security agencies and agents a ‘licence to kill’. They won’t even need a ‘get out of jail free card’ because the British Government is promising they will no longer be pursued, never mind prosecuted or imprisoned.

Sinn Féin deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness expressed his deep concern about the Westminster Government’s move to give its armed forces immunity:

“This move signals yet another attempt by the British Government to effectively make its military immune from prosecution.

“[Defence Secretary] Michael Fallon talks about the derogation applying to future conflicts but the question has to be asked whether he actually means future investigations?

“It’s a question I will be putting directly to Theresa May because, if that is the case, it will have profound implications for the prospects of a legacy agreement in the North as it would completely undermine the proposed bodies to deal with our past such as the Historical Investigations Unit.”