8 November 2007 Edition
SAS murders - demand for fresh inquests
North Antrim Sinn Féin MLA, Daithí McKay has said that he is fully supportive of relatives in their efforts to get the PSNI Chief Constable to release documents relating to the deaths of their loved ones to the Coroner.
McKay was speaking on Tuesday after it was revealed that the Attorney General in the North has been asked to order fresh inquests into killings by the British Army’s undercover SAS in the 1980s.
Danny Doherty (23) was shot in the grounds of Gransha Hospital in 1984. Francis Bradley (20) was shot by the SAS near Toomebridge in 1986 and Gerard Casey (29) was murdered in his Rasharkin home in 1989.
“This announcement comes on the day when Sinn Féin have co-hosted an event in Stormont where Relatives for Justice held a photographic exhibition on the killings of 11 people in Ballymurphy by the Parachute Regiment in 1971. This event not only highlighted the Ballymurphy killings but it highlighted all victims and their attempts to get answers and explanations for the deaths of their loved ones.
“It has always been known to republicans that collusion and state violence is a fact and we welcome the fact that other political parties are now also recognising this”, McKay said.
“The parachute regiment carried out the killings in 1971 of 11 people in Ballymurphy over a three-day period. This same regiment went on to carry out the killing of 14 innocent victims in Derry in what became know as Bloody Sunday. It is as a direct result of the impunity the British Army received in Ireland that allows them to carry out their atrocities today in Iraq and Afghanistan”, he said.
“North Antrim in common with many other areas did not escape British State killings. All victims have the right to have answers and I believe that now is the time for the British State to acknowledge that the hurt and pain caused to those many victims and their families was wrong, no buts, their actions were wrong. The British Government needs to come clean and give full details of their involvement in the killings of victims in North Antrim”, McKay said.
McKay was speaking on Tuesday after it was revealed that the Attorney General in the North has been asked to order fresh inquests into killings by the British Army’s undercover SAS in the 1980s.
Danny Doherty (23) was shot in the grounds of Gransha Hospital in 1984. Francis Bradley (20) was shot by the SAS near Toomebridge in 1986 and Gerard Casey (29) was murdered in his Rasharkin home in 1989.
“This announcement comes on the day when Sinn Féin have co-hosted an event in Stormont where Relatives for Justice held a photographic exhibition on the killings of 11 people in Ballymurphy by the Parachute Regiment in 1971. This event not only highlighted the Ballymurphy killings but it highlighted all victims and their attempts to get answers and explanations for the deaths of their loved ones.
“It has always been known to republicans that collusion and state violence is a fact and we welcome the fact that other political parties are now also recognising this”, McKay said.
“The parachute regiment carried out the killings in 1971 of 11 people in Ballymurphy over a three-day period. This same regiment went on to carry out the killing of 14 innocent victims in Derry in what became know as Bloody Sunday. It is as a direct result of the impunity the British Army received in Ireland that allows them to carry out their atrocities today in Iraq and Afghanistan”, he said.
“North Antrim in common with many other areas did not escape British State killings. All victims have the right to have answers and I believe that now is the time for the British State to acknowledge that the hurt and pain caused to those many victims and their families was wrong, no buts, their actions were wrong. The British Government needs to come clean and give full details of their involvement in the killings of victims in North Antrim”, McKay said.