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| FREEDOM for ALL IRELAND |
Bipartisan Leadership
Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick together with Congressman Bill Keating, recently sent a strongly worded letter, to British Secretary Chris Heaton Harris, expressing disapproval of the amnesty bill which they said would ”deny justice and conceal the truth from victims.” Both Congressman Fitzpatrick on the House bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, and Congressman Keating on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have been leading voices on the legacy justice issue in Congress and are in leadership positions in the House.
The British amnesty bill, discards Britain’s Stormont House Agreement on legacy mechanisms with the Irish government, and would end criminal cases, Historical Investigations, Inquests, civil suits or Ombudsman investigations which could give the truth in hundreds cases including British crown force or collusion killings. The British want to set-up an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) which victims’ relatives fear will bury the truth along with the victims.
Congressman Fitzpatrick said:
we intend speaking from these leadership positions to make clear to the British government that this bill would undercut the Good Friday Agreement, be a major impediment to justice and we are not going to sit back and let it happen.
The Congressman also noted that he has been a long time member of the AOH and like a number of other Congressmen grew up feeling very personally about the Irish issues. He said that he and other members who take Irish issues very personally are “not going to allow an amnesty designed to protect British military to be swept under the rug despite the opposition of nationalist and unionist victims”.
Victims
Patsy Kelly Jr, is one of hundreds of victims’ relatives. His father Patsy Kelly was a veteran of the civil rights movement, elected as an Independent Councillor. Recently for the first time, the number of nationalist councilors elected surpassed the number of unionist councilors. However fifty years ago there were only a few nationalist councilors, and those who stood faced death threats and intimidation.
In July of 1974, Councillor Patsy Kelly disappeared while returning home from work in Trillick County Tyrone. There had been a checkpoint on the road manned by the British Army’s Ulster Defense Regiment. Friends and family immediately suspected he had been abducted by the UDR patrol, working with loyalist paramilitaries.
His body was found three weeks later, when it was discovered by fishermen in a lake in County Fermanagh. Patsy Kelly had been shot 6 times, his body had cuts and bore signs of strangulation. There were many evidentiary leads and an anonymous letter sent with information about the murder. However no one was ever charged.
The family has been fighting for justice for more than 50 years, believing the truth is that members of the UDR planned and carried out the murder, but that it was covered up by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
A recent Ombudsman report upheld many of the Kelly family’s claims. The Ombudsman found there had the RUC had failed to check the alibis of UDR members or record detailed witness statements; a failed to investigate links with other murders; and forensic failings including failure to make inquiries about footwear marks.
The RUC also failed to recover a boat at Lough Eyes, had no record of fingerprint inquiries, and also failed to make inquiries about an anonymous letter, said the Ombudsman.
The family has now applied for an Inquest which would investigate and make findings about the circumstances of the murder.
Patsy Kelly said “we believe my father was murdered by servants of the British state and his murder was covered-up by other servants of the British state”. A recent Ombudsman Investigation upheld charges that there had been collusive behavior by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Now the Kelly family’s 50 year fight for justice is threatened by the proposed British amnesty bill. Patsy Kelly said the mere:
threat of the bill passing is traumatic but if it passes it will be the British government saying that the lives of victims killed during the troubles were meaningless and that the rights of victims’ relatives to justice are meaningless.
Closing The Courts For Victims
Civil rights lawyer, Niall Murphy outlined the legal implications of the amnesty law saying the bill had been bad but that the new amendments proposed by British Lord Caine “had done the near impossible in making the law worse.” It had been thought that Inquests which had been awarded or at least opened would be allowed to continue to verdict. However the new amendment would cut off any inquest that was not ready for verdict by May 2024.
The solicitor gave the example of the inquest into the murder of prominent Gaelic Athletic Association official Sean Browne, whose 83 year old wife had testified. The British Ministry of Defense and crown agencies had been ordered to submit discovery and identify witnesses by June 12th. They simply ignored the deadline. “The British can simply delay and run out the clock on inquests for the Browne family and others”.
He termed the bill “terrifying a death sentence for rights to access to the Courts” and would force families who have waited decades for truth to begin a long legal battle to get to the European Court of Human Rights. This would mean exhausting domestic remedies going through the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court before going to Europe.
Mr. Murphy predicted that it would take at least 5 years for families to go through the Courts in the north before starting a European Court action. He urged the Irish government to initiate a case directly.
We Don’t Have The Time
Andree Murphy the Deputy Director of Relatives for Justice, said “the law had been weaponized against victims’ relatives to make the lives of their loved ones meaningless". She said:
the new amendments were traumatic for victims’ relatives who had been granted court ordered inquests, but now find British authorities, who already delayed them for decades could deprive them of inquests simply by delaying and refusing to cooperate.
Ms. Murphy said there are more than 500 murders scheduled for investigation by the Ombudsman, 1100 hundred civil cases and a large number of Inquests which will now be shut down.
Ms. Murphy gave examples of the Springhill Road Massacre or killings of t5he New Lodge 6 which could be closed without a verdict.
She made a heartfelt appeal to the Irish government to take a case directly to the European Court saying when the Good Friday Agreement was signed the wives of many of the victims:
We do not have any more time for failed mechanisms for victims. Relatives who were 40-50- or 60 at the time of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement are now in their 70s or 80s fighting for justice. We do not have time for them to be dragged through the Courts before they can even get to Europe. The Irish government should stand up for these Irish citizens and take Britain to Court!
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