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A call for justice

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

O’Loan reviewed the investigation into the murder of GAA man Sean Brown in May 1997 at the hands of loyalists. What she found was that there was no investigation to speak of. She called the RUC’s handling of the case “appalling.”
Brown was kidnapped as he closed up the GAA club in Bellaghy, south County Derry, driven 10 miles, murdered and dumped. Brown’s family submitted the case to her for her attention and, having reviewed it, this is what she found:
? The police failed to do DNA tests on cigarette butts found next to the body.
? The police did not interview a witness who came forward.
? The police made no attempt to trace the history of the murder weapon.
? The police failed to review the all tapes from security cameras in the car park of the club.
? The police Special Branch did not pass on bits of information they had about the suspects to the detectives investigating the crime.
? The police “lost” most of the file on the case, apart from one page, a fact that O’Loan called “sinister.”
The 61-year-old sportsman and community activist was the victim of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, and at least one of his murderers was a well-known killer for that organization, which split away from the UVF in 1996. Brown was a childhood friend of Seamus Heaney, who grew up in a townland not far from Bellaghy. In January 1996, Brown organized a party at the GAA hall for Heaney to celebrate his winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature the previous fall.
The chief constable of the new Police Service of Northern Ireland Hugh Orde has undertaken a new investigation. Let it be worthy of the name. At Brown’s funeral the police sent a tribute to his memory. The only meaningful tribute would be to uncover the truth behind his murder.

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