revolutionary spirit
22nd May 2002, 19:36
MI5 request for secrecy sparks anger
Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent
Wednesday May 22, 2002
The Guardian
Families of those killed on Bloody Sunday were outraged yesterday when M15 demanded that they be excluded and that special secrecy restrictions be imposed when David Shayler, the former agent turned whistleblower, and two other intelligence operatives testify to the Saville inquiry.
Mr Shayler, 34, who was arrested on his return from France last year and is due to stand trial at the Old Bailey this year accused of disclosing state secrets to a newspaper, will give evidence regarding another former agent, known as Infliction, who claims Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein told him he fired the first shot that day.
Security service documents claim Infliction was a leading member of the Provisional IRA on January 30 1972, when British paratroopers shot dead 13 unarmed men during a civil rights march in Derry's Bogside. A 14th died later in hospital.
Infliction told his handlers in 1984 that Mr McGuinness, who has admitted he was the Provisionals' second-in-command in the city on Bloody Sunday, told him he had triggered the whole chain of events by opening firing on soldiers with a Thompson submachine gun.
Mr McGuinness, the Mid Ulster MP and Northern Ireland education minister, has denied this, and insisted that IRA members were ordered not to carry weapons that day. He will take the witness stand in the Guildhall in Derry later this year.
Mr Shayler submitted a statement to the Saville inquiry, saying that in August 1992 when assigned to a unit dealing with IRA threats to the north of Great Britain he was told by another agent that "this guy [Infliction] is a bullshitter".
M15 has already questioned whether Infliction, who has long since severed his ties with the IRA and is now living abroad, could ever give evidence in safety. But it wants Mr Shayler, and Infliction's two handlers, known as Officers A and B, to testify under special restrictions to minimise any risk of exposing him.
The Home Office has signed a public interest immunity certificate, and maintained that the integrity of the proceedings would not be compromised.
It is asking that everyone, except the three judges, some of the inquiry staff and M15 lawyers and personnel, be barred from the chamber while the three men take the witness stand, and for their lawyers to be allowed to censor the transcripts before they are put into the public domain. Interested parties would submit prepared questions through Christopher Clarke, the inquiry's counsel.
Lord Saville will consider the requests next Monday, but the Bloody Sunday families have vowed to fight "tooth and nail" against what they see as a grave attack on an open and transparent examination of the day's events".
John Kelly, whose 17-year-old brother, Michael, was among those killed, said: "This inquiry was set up to restore public confidence and now they are trying to erode it once more."
The bereaved and injured have already lost a long legal battle to stop police officers being screened from public view, while the soldiers are being allowed to retain their anony-mity and testify in London because of fears their lives are at risk from dissident republican terrorists.
Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent
Wednesday May 22, 2002
The Guardian
Families of those killed on Bloody Sunday were outraged yesterday when M15 demanded that they be excluded and that special secrecy restrictions be imposed when David Shayler, the former agent turned whistleblower, and two other intelligence operatives testify to the Saville inquiry.
Mr Shayler, 34, who was arrested on his return from France last year and is due to stand trial at the Old Bailey this year accused of disclosing state secrets to a newspaper, will give evidence regarding another former agent, known as Infliction, who claims Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein told him he fired the first shot that day.
Security service documents claim Infliction was a leading member of the Provisional IRA on January 30 1972, when British paratroopers shot dead 13 unarmed men during a civil rights march in Derry's Bogside. A 14th died later in hospital.
Infliction told his handlers in 1984 that Mr McGuinness, who has admitted he was the Provisionals' second-in-command in the city on Bloody Sunday, told him he had triggered the whole chain of events by opening firing on soldiers with a Thompson submachine gun.
Mr McGuinness, the Mid Ulster MP and Northern Ireland education minister, has denied this, and insisted that IRA members were ordered not to carry weapons that day. He will take the witness stand in the Guildhall in Derry later this year.
Mr Shayler submitted a statement to the Saville inquiry, saying that in August 1992 when assigned to a unit dealing with IRA threats to the north of Great Britain he was told by another agent that "this guy [Infliction] is a bullshitter".
M15 has already questioned whether Infliction, who has long since severed his ties with the IRA and is now living abroad, could ever give evidence in safety. But it wants Mr Shayler, and Infliction's two handlers, known as Officers A and B, to testify under special restrictions to minimise any risk of exposing him.
The Home Office has signed a public interest immunity certificate, and maintained that the integrity of the proceedings would not be compromised.
It is asking that everyone, except the three judges, some of the inquiry staff and M15 lawyers and personnel, be barred from the chamber while the three men take the witness stand, and for their lawyers to be allowed to censor the transcripts before they are put into the public domain. Interested parties would submit prepared questions through Christopher Clarke, the inquiry's counsel.
Lord Saville will consider the requests next Monday, but the Bloody Sunday families have vowed to fight "tooth and nail" against what they see as a grave attack on an open and transparent examination of the day's events".
John Kelly, whose 17-year-old brother, Michael, was among those killed, said: "This inquiry was set up to restore public confidence and now they are trying to erode it once more."
The bereaved and injured have already lost a long legal battle to stop police officers being screened from public view, while the soldiers are being allowed to retain their anony-mity and testify in London because of fears their lives are at risk from dissident republican terrorists.