1 February 2001 Edition

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O'Neill Campaign launches booklet

The Justice for Diarmuid O'Neill Campaign, which is campaigning for an independent public inquiry into the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Irishman Diarmuid O'Neill on 23 September 1996, has published a booklet setting out in detail the case for an inquiry. The booklet will be launched at a public meeting in the House on Commons, London, at 7.30pm on Thursday 8 February. Speakers include Gerry Kelly of Sinn Féin and Diarmuid O'Neill's brother Shane.

O'Neill was shot six times by the Metropolitan Police during a raid on the hotel in which he was staying. He was unarmed and in the process of surrendering at the time. He was denied medical treatment at the scene, having been dragged, mortally wounded but still alive, down a flight of stone steps to the front of the building. Police had covertly searched the hotel room in which he was staying on a number of occasions and were aware that no arms or ammunition were being held in the hotel room. A tape recording of the raid obtained from a surveillance device planted in the room, clearly demonstrates that an order to shoot O'Neill was issued after he had made his intention to surrender clear several times.

The booklet contains a full transcript of the surveillance tape as well as details of the Metropolitan Police briefings to the press, during which they falsely claimed that a `shoot-out' with the IRA had taken place. It also covers the conduct Police Complaints Authority and of the Hammersmith Coroner, Dr John Burton, who presided over the inquest and told the jury that to return a verdict of unlawful killing would be ``to give comfort to our enemies''.

All of this, as well as the treatment of Shane O'Neill, is explored in detail and forms the basis of the campaign's demand for an inquiry.

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