THE MURDER OF ROSEMARY NELSON CASE | THE ASSASSINATION OF A CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYER

BY PEADAR WHELAN

I WAS STANDING on the Garvaghy Road with Rosemary Nelson in July 1997 as the RUC and the British Army invaded the area, beat residents off the road and forced a triumphalist Orange parade through the area.
As a reporter working with An Phoblacht I saw at first-hand the hostility that the crown forces displayed toward Rosemary Nelson.
I knew of the numerous complaints she lodged citing harassment at the hands of the RUC, British Army and Royal Irish Regiment.
I was aware of the threats that were directed against her and I was aware that the RUC had leaked intelligence about her to loyalists.
So when a bomb exploded under Rosemary’s car in Lurgan, County Armagh, on 15th March 1999, a bomb that would kill her, I was shocked but not surprised.
Rosemary Nelson saw herself as an officer of the law and sought to uphold it by championing the rights of Robert Hamill’s family, the Garvaghy Road residents and the many people who came to her door seeking redress from state persecution.
The RUC in particular had a deep-seated hatred for Rosemary Nelson. To them she was a thorn in their side due to the diligence with which she defended her clients and sought justice for them.
In 1993, she defended Lurgan man Colin Duffy who was wrongly convicted of killing former RIR soldier John Lyness. (Duffy’s conviction was quashed in September 1996.)
Within a month Rosemary Nelson reported to Jane Winter of British Irish Rights Watch (BIRW) that she was being subjected to abuse and threats from the RUC.
As the threats and harassment continued, the Lawyers’ Alliance for Justice in Ireland (LAJI), US Senator Torricelli and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy, took up her case and confronted the authorities in the Six Counties, including the Northern Ireland Office and RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan.
In his draft report, the UN Rapporteur stated:
“Rosemary Nelson had been the victim of numerous death threats while an LAJI delegation met NIO officials and recorded their, deep concerns over the safety of Rosemary Nelson.”
Paul Mageean of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) wrote to Adam Ingram, the then Minister for Justice at the NIO, telling him:
“For at least a year, Ms Nelson has been alleging that she has been subject to harassment and abuse at the hands of the police. She also claims she has been subject to a number of death threats.”
That the NIO, and in particular the RUC, were not treating the complaints about the abuse of Rosemary Nelson seriously was underscored when, in June 1998, the Independent Commission for Police Complaints chastised RUC boss Ronnie Flanagan saying:
“For the first time in the history of the Commission, we are unable to confirm that the police investigation has been conducted to our satisfaction.”
And so the pattern of harassment and threats continued until February 27th 1999 when the Lawyers’ Alliance for Justice in Ireland met Flanagan and raised the ongoing harassment of Rosemary Nelson.
On March 15th 1999, some two weeks later, Rosemary Nelson was blown up and killed as she drove to work.
The loyalist Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility for the attack but questions as to the role and involvement of the crown forces, particularly the RUC, in the killing dominated nationalist thinking and that of the many human rights groups who supported Rosemary over the years.
On Monday 23rd May this year, the British state attempted to lay to rest those questions of collusion between British crown forces and loyalists in the killing of Rosemary Nelson.
The report of the Rosemary Nelson Inquiry – chaired by Sir Michael Morland accompanied by Dame Valerie Strachan and Sir Anthony Burden – concluded that there was:
“No evidence of any act by or within any of the state agencies we have examined, the RUC, the NIO, the [British] Army or the Security Service, which directly facilitated Rosemary Nelson’s murder. But we cannot exclude the possibility of a rogue member or members of the RUC or the [British] Army in some way assisting the murderers to target Rosemary Nelson.”
The report adds that the assault on Rosemary on Garvaghy Road in July 1997 had the effect of legitimising her as a target, that there was (my italics) some passing on of intelligence from the RUC that increased the danger to Rosemary Nelson’s life.
Also the report agreed that “some” members of the RUC abused and/or threatened Rosemary to her clients while in custody and that this also had the effect of legitimising her as a target.
Coupled to the fact that both the RUC and the NIO failed to take the real threat to Rosemary Nelson seriously it is clear that, from a loyalist point of view, the path to her door was open and in their eyes she was a ‘legitimate target’.
Morland cites RUC management which,”negligently failed to intervene to prevent their officers from uttering abuse and threats to defence lawyers, including Rosemary Nelson”.
Damningly, he says “there was a corporate failure by the RUC to warn Rosemary Nelson of her vulnerability and offer her security advice”.
As for the NIO, Morland criticises its unwillingness to press the RUC for full replies to their questions concerning the lawyer’s personal security.
The NIO was aware of the extent of the threat to this officer of law in the public eye, given the fact this was raised by the likes of UN Rapporteur Cumaraswamy and others yet it failed to press the RUC “as to what factors were considered in producing their threat assessment”.
Indeed, the NIO only dealt in “a mechanistic way” with the concerns of non-governmental organisations about Rosemary’s safety.
There was no policy discussion about the treatment of defence lawyers in general or Rosemary Nelson in particular, the report maintains:
“The combined effect of these omissions by the RUC and the NIO was that the state failed to take reasonable and proportionate steps to safeguard the life of Rosemary Nelson.”
Clearly the report, while not saying so explicitly, is highlighting the differing views as to the actual nature of collusion.
In saying that there is no direct evidence to link anyone from state agencies – RUC, British Army or MI5 – to the killing of Rosemary Nelson, Morland’s report, to a large extent, officially exonerates the state of direct culpability.
And it was on this point that the British Secretary of State Owen Paterson homed in on in his statement to the British House of Commons about the report.
While apologising for “the omissions” that made her “more at risk and more vulnerable”, Paterson emphasised the conclusions that there was “no evidence of any act by or within the state agencies which directly facilitated the killing”.
But would seasoned veterans of the RUC/British Intelligence ‘dirty war’ be likely to leave a trail of evidence linking them to Rosemary’s murder?
Sinn Féin MLA for Upper Bann John O’Dowd said:
“Nationalists in Lurgan, Portadown or Craigavon do not buy the ‘bad apple’ argument. The findings of this report point clearly at collusion. No amount of disgraceful spinning by Owen Paterson will alter that reality.”
Rosemary’s brother, Eunan Magee, said the Secretary of State had “seen fit to gloss over” some of the findings.
Those findings include the top-level RUC Special Branch view that Rosemary Nelson had “crossed the line” and abused her role as a solicitor “to gather information for PIRA in Lurgan”?
These are not the views of some isolated local RUC member– these are the views of senior Special Branch officers based in RUC Headquarters.
Indeed, the head of the Intelligence Management Group in oral evidence to the inquiry maintained:
“I certainly think the position we held was that she had a very close association with terrorists and that she helped them to achieve their objectives. And if one can sort of make the conclusion that by those actions she then makes herself a terrorist, then, perhaps, yes, that’s the conclusion one would come to.”
To the practised eye, RUC Special Branch viewed Rosemary Nelson as the enemy and they were not shy about letting people – including active loyalists – know about it.
How far did the RUC, British military or intelligence agencies go in facilitating the assassination of Rosemary Nelson?
Reacting to the release of the Morland Report, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD was emphatic in describing Rosemary Nelson’s killing as an act of collusion:
“The reality is that Rosemary Nelson, like so many hundreds of others, was a victim of collusion. The RUC not only failed to act to prevent threats to her life but contributed to these and created a context in which she became a target for loyalists.
“The actions of the RUC, its Special Branch and the NIO directly contributed to the murder of Rosemary Nelson. That is collusion.
“The inquiry reveals a pattern of behaviour that all of these agencies connived in her death. That is collusion. Moreover, knowing that she was at serious risk, the state and its security agencies did nothing to prevent attack or help Mrs Nelson protect herself. That is collusion.”

Operation Fagotto: RUC still have questions to answer

ON THE NIGHT of March 14th and the early hours of March 15th, the day Rosemary was killed, RUC Special Branch was involved in a surveillance operation in the Lurgan area.
Operation Fagotto began in January 1999 to gather information about “a leading PIRA suspect” and was reactivated on the night before Rosemary Nelson was killed on the basis of “some intelligence” uncovered by the RUC.
It wasn’t until March 19th, four days after the killing, that the regional head of Special Branch disclosed this information to Sam Kincaid, who was the Senior Investigating Officer.
He also revealed that surveillance teams had, according to the report, “been working close to Rosemary Nelson’s home”.
There was a further delay of 10 days before those involved in the operation were interviewed.
If this operation was mounted “to monitor the movements of a Provisional Irish Republican Army suspect” why on two occasions did members of the RUC undercover units “note” Rosemary Nelson’s car parked in the driveway of her home?
Why was it that members of a Quick Reaction Force deployed in Lurgan as back-up to Operation Fagotto were not questioned at the time nor were their notebooks submitted to the inquiry until six months after it had concluded its public hearings in January 2010?
Also, during the course of a covert operation, it was practice for the RUC to place an area “Out of Bounds” for routine RUC/British Army patrols.
An ‘Out of Bounds’ book recorded the date, time, name of the operation and grid references for the ‘Out of Bounds’ area. Interestingly, the ‘Out of Bounds’ area extended beyond the area in which the operation was taking place and longer than its designated time.
This records book relating to Operation Fagotto has ‘disappeared’.
The Inquiry itself states:
“Whether or not there was an ‘Out of Bounds’ area on this occasion is significant because the area would remain sterile for a period after the conclusion of Operation Fagotto when no police or army would be expected to be present. This, in theory, would have provided the opportunity to place the bomb.”