BBC
2 July 2008

A man arrested in England for questioning about the murder of six people in a County Down bar 14 years ago has been released without charge.

Officers from the PSNI arrested the 45-year-old in Maidstone on Monday with the assistance of Kent police.

The killings in Loughinisland took place as the men, aged 34 to 87, watched television.

The victims were watching a World Cup match when a UVF gang burst in and opened fire.

They were Adrian Rogan, 34, 39-year-old Eamon Byrne, Patsy O'Hare, 35, Dan McCreanor, 59, Barney Green, 87, and Malcolm Jenkinson, 54.

BBC
2 July 2008

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled Britain breached international conventions by monitoring emails and phone calls between Ireland and the UK.

The data was intercepted over a seven year period from 1990 to 1997.

The court found the surveillance was in breach of a convention guaranteeing respect for private correspondence.

The case was taken by three organisations, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty and British-Irish Rights Watch.

For security reasons, the UK neither confirmed nor denied the statements made about its surveillance activities, but it agreed that the court could presume some of the civil liberties' groups communications were intercepted.

"The court recalled that it had previously found that the mere existence of legislation which allowed communications to be monitored secretly had entailed a surveillance threat for all those to whom the legislation might be applied," the court said in a statement.

"In the applicants' case, the court therefore found that there had been an interference with their rights as guaranteed by Article 8," the court said referring to the article in the European Charter of Human Rights on the right to privacy.

The 1985 Interception of Communications Act gave British authorities "extremely broad discretion" to intercept communications between Britain and another country, it added.

"The court considered that the domestic law at the relevant time had not indicated with sufficient clarity, so as to provide adequate protection against abuse of power," it added.

Belfast Telegraph
2 July 2008

Over 400,000 people in Northern Ireland have claimed Irish passports in the 10 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

Nationalist politicians said the figure showed large numbers of people were benefiting from the recognition of the Irish identify enshrined in the Agreement.

The new data from the Irish government showed 402,658 people from Northern Ireland have taken Irish passports or renewed their existing ones since April 1998.

The Good Friday Agreement recognises the right of those born in Northern Ireland to hold British and Irish citizenship.

SDLP Assembly member for Mid Ulster Patsy McGlone who obtained the figures from the Dail said: "There are clearly a large and growing number of people in the North who want to take advantage of their right to an Irish passport.

"It does seem that people believe the Irish passport is popular and safe to travel on.

"Pensioners are also taking advantage of the free Irish passports available to them.

"But people are obviously increasingly comfortable with and confident in taking advantage of this."

Mr McGlone also claimed he was aware of instances where people from a unionist background had claimed Irish passports, because Ireland's traditional neutrality made it a safer passport to travel on.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin said: "Some 400,000 passports have been issued, since the signing of the Good Friday agreement on 10 April, 1998, to applicants born in Northern Ireland.

"Such applications have been increasing year on year, with some 60,000 passports issuing to persons born in Northern Ireland in 2007 compared to some 30,000 in 2002.

"The majority of Northern Ireland applications are made using the Northern Ireland Express Post Service (NIPX) which is available in some 70 Post Offices throughout the area."

SDLP South Down Assembly Member PJ Bradley described the figures as staggering and called for a permanent Irish passport office to be opened in Northern Ireland.

"Those of us that campaigned in the past for Irish passports to be equally available across the island and to the diaspora overseas did envisage a steady uptake, but the figures released in a reply to a question put in Dail Eireann are well beyond our greatest expectations," he said.

"The figures are bound to add weight to the SDLP's request to have an Irish Passport Office located in a convenient location north of the border.

"I am quite certain that the trend will continue as future generations will emulate the example which is being shown by today's generation."

An Phoblacht
26 June 2008

Historical Enquiries Team doubts British Army claim

THE family of GAA fan Aidan McAnespie, shot dead by a British soldier after he passed through a checkpoint on the Monaghan/Tyrone border 20 years ago on his way to a match, say a new report into his death published this week heralds another phase in their campaign for the truth, not the end.

The investigation, by the PSNI’s Historical Enquires Team challenges the British Army’s version of events, which maintains the killing was caused by an accidental discharge from a General Purpose Machine Gun.
After the report was released on Tuesday, Aidan’s sister, Eilish, said:
“We welcome the fact that the HET has highlighted the glaring inconsistencies in the official version of events.
“Reluctantly we have come to terms with the reality that the full truth may never be established. Only the soldier and others on duty that terrible Sunday know what really happened but at least we have an official report which rejects the accepted version of the incident.”

THE PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team has challenged the British Army’s claim that GAA fan Aidan McAnespie was fatally shot by a soldier by accident after he crossed through a military checkpoint on the Monaghan/Tyrone border in 1988.
Aidan McAnespie’s family has now called for Justice Minister Dermot Ahern to release the report of the separate Garda investigation into the killing carried out by Deputy Commissioner Eugene Crowley.
On Sunday, 21 February 1988, Aidan McAnespie was shot and fatally wounded by a soldier firing a General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) from the permanent British Army checkpoint at Aughnacloy. Grenadier Guardsman David Holden was charged with manslaughter but the Director of Public Prosecutions later withdrew this charge.
Holden claimed that he was moving the GPMG when his wet fingers (allegedly wet from cleaning the sangar), slipped on to the trigger, which resulted in the discharge of three shots. One of the shots struck Aidan in the back, fatally wounding him.
This week, the Historical Enquiries Team’s report said that the version of events suggested by the soldier who shot Aidan and reiterated by the British Army “could be considered to be the least likely”.

Aidan McAnespie was routinely stopped and harassed by the British Army as he passed through the Aughnacloy checkpoint on his way to work or going to the GAA club located past the checkpoint.
He had made numerous complaints to the RUC about harassment and had raised this in the media. In the minutes before the shooting, there is incontrovertible evidence that he was being tracked as he walked through the checkpoint.
Commenting after the release of the PSNI HET report this week, Aidan’s sister, Eilish McAnespie, said:
“This report vindicates our family and our long campaign for justice.
“This report should be read by the British and Irish governments, the Chief Constable, the Prosecution Service, the Ministry of Defence and the relevant authorities in the Forensic Service. And those in authority should at least have the decency to feel a sense of shame.”
Eilish also expressed the family’s “disappointment and frustration” at the refusal of the Department of Justice in Dublin to allow them access to the Garda report into Aidan’s shooting.
“Many people in Monagahan and Tyrone co-operated with the gardaí at our behest but now we are not permitted to see the report even where we requested that a redacted version be made available with all witnesses remaining anonymous.”
Backing the family’s call for the Garda Commissioner to release the findings of the Garda investigation into the killing, Sinn Féin Cavan/Monaghan TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said:
“During the course of that inquiry I met with Deputy Commissioner Eugene Crowley and outlined the litany of harassment Aidan had endured. Like many others who participated in that inquiry I find it totally unacceptable that the report is still being kept secret after over 20 years.”

The HET report

GUARDSMAN Holden claimed that he moved the weapon by holding the pistol grip with a “loose grip”. As he did so, his finger slipped and he inadvertently pulled the trigger. The HET test fired a GPMG and found that:
“Activating the trigger required having a firm grip on the pistol grip and squeezing the trigger until it activated. It was found to be difficult and required considerable force to activate the trigger without having the hand firmly gripped around the pistol grip.” Holden’s loose grip explanation therefore contradicted the results of the practical test on the weapon.
Furthermore, the HET discovered that the gun was mounted on a pivot that allowed the weapon to be swivelled. Consequently, there was no need for Holden to have his hand on the pistol grip and finger on the trigger-guard since he only had to swivel the butt of the weapon on the pivot in order to reposition the weapon. In addition, another soldier confirmed that he had already repositioned the weapon.
Holden claimed that his hands were still wet from cleaning the sangar 10 minutes earlier. HET investigators have analysed the activities in the sangar that day which showed that the cleaning was conducted by a cleaning party and that Holden had resumed look-out duty half an hour before the shooting. The ‘wet hands’ scenario is difficult to reconcile with the timing of the cleaning duties.
Lance Sergeant Peters gave evidence that, on entering the sangar after the shooting and asking Holden what had happened, the reply was that he had squeezed the trigger.
Holden was not interviewed until more than 24 hours after the incident. In the intervening period he remained in military custody. There was a further 24-hour delay before the second interview took place.
The crime scene was not examined by the Forensic Service until the next day and there is no record of any crime scene protection in the interim. This would result in “crime scene evidence recovered being questionable”, according to the HET report.

FORENSICS & BALLISTICS

The gun had been dismantled and cleaned earlier that day. It has not been established why or by whom the gun was left cocked and with the safety catch off. This was totally in contravention of standing orders.
The forensic evidence concluded that a ricochet bullet which struck the ground just directly behind Aidan before it entered his body inflicted the fatal injury.
The weapon discharged three rounds and the fatal bullet was a tracer round. There is now no way of knowing whether the fatal bullet was the first or the last of three shots fired. Swab tests taken from the roadway no longer exist.
IF the first shot fired resulted in the ricochet from the fatal strike mark, then this could support the assertion that the gun was aimed at the victim or in his vicinity. The HET has since discovered that the forensic report gave no consideration to the possibility that the fatal ricochet was a result of the FIRST shot discharged from the weapon.
It should be noted that there is clear evidence that the guardsman had Aidan (whom he considered to be a suspect) under close observation as he passed through the checkpoint. However, at the moment of discharge, Holden claimed to have been physically repositioning the weapon. In other words, he claims not to have been aiming at or tracking Aidan when the shots were fired.
The HET questions “the likelihood of an accidental random discharge striking the roadway only a few feet behind what would be from the vantage point of the machine gun post a minuscule figure at a distance of 283.4 metres”.
Having weighed up all the propositions and taken all the circumstances and available evidence into account, the Historical Enquiries Team decided that Guardsman Holden’s version of events “could be considered to be the least likely”.