IFC NewsList - October 2003

IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE® NEWSLIST
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Subject: Republican Prisoners and their families put at risk due to prison strike
Date: October 31, 2003

Prison guards at Maghaberry are threatening to strike, purportedly due to loyalist attacks on their homes. However the 20+ Republican prisoners at Maghaberry and their families are bearing the brunt of the backlash; with republican prisoners are now under virtual lockdown 23 hours a day, and their families at visits left unprotected from loyalists in the same visiting quarters.

A larger agenda is clearly at work with the suggestion that British security forces now be brought in to manage the jails.

The Irish Freedom Committee®
www.irishfreedomcommittee.net

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In a statement released to the media today from Belfast, prisoners' rights advocates Marian Price and Martin Mulholland said;

"The practice of ‘work to rule’ adopted by prison officers could potentially result in a serious incident if not addressed immediately.

"Republican prisoners are currently enduring almost total lock up due to the practice adopted by the Prison Officers Association. The action taken by the POA will undoubtedly leave republican prisoners and their families vulnerable to attack in visiting areas due to a lack of adequate staffing cover.

"Republican prisoners believe that they and their families are being used as pawns in a larger game between the POA and the British government.

"It is no secret that the POA felt that they had had been sold down the river by the British governments decision to implement a policy of segregation. POA representative Finlay Spratt did however state that although unhappy at the decision their job was to implement any policy that the British government deemed necessary. The POA must accept that they are government employees and that their political opinions should not influence their work.

"There is a feeling amongst republican prisoners that the actions of the POA are intended to provoke a reaction similar to that of the loyalist inmates and their supporters on the outside.

"Republican prisoners have stated that they will not be provoked by the actions of the POA into making a potentially serious situation any worse.
The republican prisoners have already endured weeks on protest at the denial of their basic human rights and any attempt to further erode these rights is
intolerable.

"(We) call on all agencies involved in the forming of the Steele report to assist in bringing this situation to a speedy conclusion. It is (our understanding) that if the POA go ahead with their proposed strike on the 5th of November, the prison will be jointly run by the RUC/PSNI and the management of the Northern Ireland Prison Service. Again this is an intolerable situation with the antipathy between republicans and the RUC/PSNI a matter of record.

"(We) believe that the British government cannot let the political agenda of the POA dictate the pace of the reforms called for in the Steele report and we will resist the attempts of the POA to use republican prisoners and their families as political footballs.

"In any dispute between the POA and the British government the basic human rights of all prisoners and their families must be protected."

IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE® NEWSLIST
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Subject: Omagh transcript proves 'police ignored warning'
Date: October 20, 2003

Articles/Sources below:

Omagh relatives call for inquiry as transcript 'proves police ignored warning' The Guardian Oct. 20, 2003
Gardai accused over Omagh bomb UTV News Oct. 19, 2003
OMAGH COVER-UP! Link to Lawrence Rushe statement to RUC

The Irish Freedom Committee®
www.irishfreedomcommittee.net

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Omagh relatives call for inquiry as transcript 'proves police ignored warning'

Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent
Monday October 20, 2003
The Guardian

Relatives of those killed by the Omagh bomb yesterday called on the European parliament to launch a full inquiry into yet more allegations that Irish police ignored vital intelligence before the blast.

The Guardian revealed last October that the Dublin government had set up a tribunal to investigate claims by a detective from the Republic of Ireland. Garda detective sergeant John White said he had told a senior officer that a car was to be stolen and used in a big atrocity in Northern Ireland, but it was allowed to go ahead to protect an informant.

The dissident republican terror group the Real IRA carried out the attack in the Co Tyrone town on August 15 1998, killing 29 people and injuring hundreds.

The Northern Irish police ombudsman's team was so convinced by Sgt White's story that they immediately brought it to the attention of the Dublin government, which set up the tribunal. But the panel heard all testimony in secret and has not published any of its findings, even though it concluded last Christmas.

Now, the transcript of a taped conversation between Sgt White and his informant, Paddy Dixon, appears to back Mr White's claims.

Dixon, in hiding on the Continent in a witness protection scheme, was a master car thief whom the Real IRA asked to steal the vehicle they intended to use for Omagh.

Although they ended up getting the car from another source and he did not know where the bomb was to be taken, his information might still have prevented the attack.

Gardaí could have put Real IRA suspects under extra surveillance, adopted special measures to intercept stolen cars crossing the Irish border and told the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Dixon was a reliable informant for years; in the months before Omagh, his information stopped five Real IRA bombs. But others were allowed to proceed to maintain his credibility with the terrorist group.

In a conversation, taped by Sgt White on January 10 2002, three days before Dixon entered the witness protection programme, Dixon, who has never been interviewed by Northern Irish police, agreed that the gardaí were told the day before Omagh that the terrorists had obtained a car.

"They [Real IRA] had got a car and they [gardaí] knew it was moving," he says in the transcript. "They knew it was moving within 24 hours at that stage. The Omagh investigation is going to blow up in their [gardaí] faces."

A report by the Northern Irish ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, in December 2001, found that RUC special branch failed to act on other intelligence and warnings and that the subsequent police investigation was riddled with errors.

Michael Gallagher, whose 21-year-old son, Aidan, was killed in the bombing, said: "How much more will it take before we get a public inquiry? There is no doubt in my mind that John White is telling the truth." Mr Gallagher intends to contact the Spanish authorities, as two Spaniards were among the Omagh victims, and to ask Northern Ireland's three MEPs to lobby the European parliament.

"I have no faith in the Dublin tribunal," he said. "If Germany discovered France was in possession of information which could have stopped terrorist attacks how would they feel? Wars have started for less."

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SUNDAY 19/10/2003 08:21:11
Gardai accused over Omagh bomb

Relatives of the Omagh bombing victims have demanded a Europe-wide probe into new claims that senior Irish police officers allowed the device to go through.
By:Press Association

A secret transcript allegedly exposes how high-ranking Garda detectives were alerted to a bomb attack in Northern Ireland just 24 hours before the atrocity but decided to let the bombers across the border.

A master car thief who infiltrated the Real IRA, the dissident republican terrorist outfit behind the attack which killed 29 people, said the force wanted to protect him as an agent.

The man, who has since fled Ireland, is said to have warned the Irish state: ``Omagh is going to blow up in their faces.``

It is believed he has now entered into a witness protection scheme abroad, even though Police Service of Northern Ireland officers investigating the Omagh massacre have never questioned him.

But Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among those murdered in the August 1998 outrage, said demands for a major examination of the Irish Republic`s role in hunting down the bombers could no longer be resisted.

He told PA News: ``It looks like the Irish Government is being obstructive, to say the least.

``They appear to have done nothing to notify their colleagues north of the border.``

The agent`s claims were made in a 54-page transcript of a covertly taped conversation with his Garda handler, obtained by the Observer newspaper.

He said he gave the Gardai intelligence about a stolen car to be used in a bomb in Northern Ireland a day before Omagh, it is alleged.

``They (the Real IRA) had got a car and they (the Garda) knew it was moving, they knew it was moving within 24 hours at that stage,`` the informer claims on the tape.

The Real IRA mole is believed to have provided intelligence on nine different Real IRA bomb plots between February and August 1998.

He had organised the theft of cars for the dissident republican organisation which were then used to transport bombs and rockets into Northern Ireland.

Five attacks were foiled due to his information but four went ahead to maintain his credibility, it is alleged.

Mr Gallagher claimed the allegations were as serious as anything to emerge from the Canadian Judge Peter Cory`s probe into six murders across the Irish border shrouded in suspicion of security force collusion.

``How can they resist not giving us a public inquiry ?`` he said. ``We have seen revelation after revelation.

``We are also asking our three local MEPs to raise in the European Parliament that a member state appears to have not fully co-operated in the fight against terrorism.``

With some of the Omagh dead and injured coming from Spain, he added that the Spanish embassy should be contacted.

``Information has been withheld that could be important in the investigation into the death of two of their nationals.``
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OMAGH COVER-UP!! Go here to see and hear the testament of Lawrence Rushe, whose wife was murdered in the Omagh atrocity, confronting Britain’s RUC colonial police for its complicity and foreknowledge of the bombing.

“This is a conspiracy by the British Government and by everyone involved in its administration. This is an example of administrative terrorism; that's what it is. Why did Sinn Fein close their office the day before the bomb? Why was the Army confined to barracks? Why sir, the RUC, why did they in active fact have only three men on the streets of Omagh, and twenty-four men out in surrounding areas?” (Lawrence Rushe at RUC press conference, 08/15/01).

OMAGH COVER-UP
http://members.freespeech.org/irishpows/bb3/omagh_cover-up.htm

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