Tainted & Toxic: Supergrass Evidence

A piece by Kevin Braney, a republican prisoner in Portlaoise, being held on evidence of the most toxic type.

My name is Kevin Braney. I am an Irish Republican activist, and I was up until my recent arrest chairperson of Saoradh Dublin. I have been involved in Saoradh since its foundation, in September 2016. I was previously in the IRPWA. I am on remand in Portlaoise Gaol since August 3rd 2017, on my 3rd “Irish Republican Army” charge, having spent two years on remand (July 2013-July 2015) on the two previous charges. I fought and beat those politically motivated charges and ...so that time in Portlaoise Gaol, amounts to nothing more than “Internment By Remand”.


Since my release in July 2015, my family and I have been subjected to daily harassment, abuse and threats, from the “Special Detective Unit” of the Gardai. My mere attendance at Saoradh and IRPWA meetings would result in serious attempts to intimidate me, by the “Special Detective Unit”, including personal abuse of my family and friends. Some of these threats/abuse, I suffered, involved attempts of “felon setting”, of me by the “Special Detective Unit” in public in my own area.

I was arrested in my own home at 6am, on the 3rd of August 2017, and charged again with membership of the Irish Republican Army. I have been refused bail and currently being held in Portlaoise Gaol. After almost six weeks in custody, I was informed by my solicitor that I would be brought to court on the 14th of September, to face more charges. However this time it is prompted by the word of the “Supergrass” Dave Cullen, who had a murder charge against him dropped by the state after he agreed to give evidence against Republicans. He has since entered the witness protection programme, in doing so abandoning his children and family, and is in receipt of monthly payments.

Throughout the 1980’s, the British government used “Supergrass" evidence extensively against Republicans, but all of those cases ultimately failed when scrutinised by international observers and human right activists. Difficult and all as it is for me or any Republican to prove innocence in the non-jury “Special Criminal Court”, it becomes nigh on impossible when you add a paid perjurer/supergrass to the mix. I call upon all Republicans and anybody interested in human rights and natural justice to publically oppose this sinister development.


“End Political Policing”,
“End Political Trials”,
“End Interment By Remand”,
“Abolish The Special Criminal Courts”,
“End Super Grass Trials Now”.
"End The Extradition Of Republicans"




4 comments:

  1. The Rule of Law in England and Ireland is akin to seat belts that work except in the event of a crash. It is a source of shame that a citizens liberty can be evaluated in such a setting. It is to our shame that we allow this to still be done. Even the so called 'super grasses' have a haunted look decades after the fact.

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  2. It's hard to believe this type of evidence is accepted
    in any court.The special criminal court has gotten
    worse in recent years, particularly with the word of
    a garda now more than enough to convict.This despite
    the fact of wide spread lies an corruption at all levels
    of the gardai, yet judges take their word as gospel.The
    silence of the main stream media in regards to the
    credibility of this paid perjure is breathtaking. This
    is not justice it's injustice.when those who make
    laws break laws their is no laws.

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  3. Are the Guards really that harsh on Republicans in the South?

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  4. andrew boyd, the late belfast economist and political commentator, wrote a book called "The Informers, a chilling account of the supergrasses in northern ireland", mercier press.1984.

    The first paragraph classifies informers: some are professional state agents, some are disillusioned revolutionaries, many were blackmailed, others liked the money

    Wal Hannington, who led the jarrow hunger marchers in England in 1936, wrote"all militant movements in in conflict with the powers are subject to the trachery of the unprincipled wretch who worms his way into the movement and secures its confidence only to betray those who trusted him"

    Seems little has changed in the interim!

    ReplyDelete