Attorney General calls for RUC killing to be reassessed by Public Prosecution Service

THE North’s Attorney General, John Larkin, has called on the Public Prosecution Service to review the 1993 decision not to prosecute the RUC killers of IRA Volunteer Colum Marks.

Marks was shot dead in an RUC shoot-to-kill operation in April 1991 in Downpatrick, County Down, and his family have been campaigning to have a second inquest into his death after disputing the findings of the original hearing.

Gavin Booth of KRW Law, who is representing the family of the 29-year-old republican, challenged the RUC version of events on the night of the shooting, saying they “claimed they saw him walking up the street with a mortar yet the mortar was never produced, by a photograph or in any way to the [original] inquest”.

The solicitor also disputed RUC claims that warnings were given. He was “unarmed” and “running away” when he was shot, he said.

Booth also responded to the comments of senior unionist politicians Tom Elliott and Nigel Dodds, who reacted to the AG’s decision by giving unequivocal support to the RUC regardless of the actual circumstances.

The DUP’s Dodds (yet again) said unionists would “resist any attempt to rewrite the past” whereas Ulster Unionist former leader and Ulster Defence Regiment veteran Elliot essentially justified the RUC’s apparent summary execution, saying:

“Clearly this is an IRA member; it appears he was involved in some IRA actions throughout his life It just baffles me the Attorney General’s taken that route.”

But, the family lawyer said, Colum Marks had the same entitlement to human rights as everybody else.

● Colum Marks’s mother, Roisín, stands at the memorial to Volunteers from South Down, including her son

Other disturbing accusations which the family put to the North’s Human Rights Commission in 2001, on the tenth anniversary of his killing.

They say the RUC had staked the area out, creating a “killing zone” and interrogated him as he lay wounded in the field where he was shot and delayed medical intervention – they took 30 minutes to bring him to hospital which was less than two minutes from the scene of their ambush.

The death of Colum Marks

BY LAURA FRIEL

From An Phoblacht, 12 April 2001

NO MEDICAL ASSISTANCE was given. No ambulance was called. No one alerted the hospital that a seriously injured man was on his way. The hospital was just a minute’s drive away but it was at least 30 minutes before the injured man arrived.

These are a few of the facts which have prompted the family of Colum Marks, an IRA Volunteer fatally wounded in an RUC shoot-to-kill operation in April 1991, to raise their concerns with the recently-established Human Rights Commission.

“We believe that anyone who examines Colum’s case will see that he was denied basic human rights,” said a spokesperson for the Marks family. “They will conclude that there was never any justification for the shooting dead of Colum Marks.”

●  A protest at St Patrick’s Avenue, Downpatrick, to mark the tenth anniversary of the killing of IRA Volunteer Colum Marks

To mark the tenth anniversary of Colum Marks’s death in Downpatrick, relatives and friends organised a vigil this week close to the scene where the 29-year-old IRA Volunteer was shot. Here are a few more facts.

Colum Marks was alone and unarmed at the time of the shooting. Armed RUC personnel had sealed all escape routes. No attempt was made to arrest him. Witnesses dispute the RUC claim that any warning was issued prior to the shooting.

Local residents saw flares prior to hearing the shooting. Evidence suggests that the RUC used the first flare to flush out their quarry and the second to illuminate their unarmed prey. The RUC, with the exception of one officer, claim flares were only used after the shooting.

The seriously wounded man, lying stricken on the ground, was told to roll over and was handcuffed and his hands placed in forensic bags by the RUC but he was not searched. The RUC disinterest in looking for a weapon suggests that they already knew Colum was unarmed.

The RUC have admitted that immediately after the shooting Colum Marks was conscious and able to speak. A witness saw two RUC men drag the wounded Volunteer through a gateway, out of the field and down the side of an empty house. Abrasions on the body appear to confirm this.

Voices heard at the side of the house suggest that the seriously-wounded man was interrogated before being thrown into the back of an RUC vehicle and driven to hospital. The RUC claim Colum Marks was taken to hospital within five minutes of the shooting – but it was at least 30 minutes before he arrived.

The RUC have also admitted they had detailed prior knowledge of the IRA operation and knew the identities of the IRA unit planning to carry it out.

The RUC had ample information and time to secure arrests but instead allowed the operation to proceed. The only rationale for this was to establish a killing zone in which they intended to ambush the IRA unit in situ. The killing bears all the hallmarks of a classic shoot-to-kill operation.

“His family need to establish the truth behind Colum’s death,” says a family spokesperson. “We hope to highlight questions which need to be answered. We are asking for recognition of Colum Marks’s human rights.”