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Analysis: Cory’s move puts pressure on Blair

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Cory, who had spent the last two years investigating the killings of Catholic lawyers Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson, Portadown Catholic Robert Hamill, and LVF leader Billy Wright, has recommended that all the cases be subject to a full public inquiry. He informed the families of those killed about his recommendations on Monday afternoon.
Cory is believed to have been outraged at the British government’s failure to release his recommendations to the public. He submitted the reports last October and had expected speedy implementation of his findings.
The Irish government published two reports Cory had carried out regarding allegations of collusion between garda officers and the IRA. He recommended that a public inquiry be carried out in the case of the killings of RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan.
Both governments had agreed to publish the reports simultaneously in early December. The Irish government, frustrated by the British government’s seeming hesitancy to publish its report, decided to go ahead with publication of that part of the report that deals directly with the Republic.
Cory, it seems, simply had enough of the stalling. His recommendation that all four cases in the North be subject to a public inquiry is deeply embarrassing to Blair’s government. It is thought that the British prime minister has encountered fierce resistance to publication from his security and intelligence agencies and that the findings will expose a policy of widespread collusion between British security forces and loyalist death squads.
At a time when Blair faces allegations of “outing” top government scientist David Kelly, Cory’s decision to go public adds to the significant problems facing the British establishment.
Kelly, who was the anonymous source that alleged Blair’s government had doctored intelligence reports to justify war on Iraq, committed suicide after his identity was revealed to the public. Lord Brian Hutton is due to report on Kelly’s death in the coming weeks.
The British claim that publication of Cory’s reports has been delayed for legal reasons. Observers have roundly dismissed this. Cory, an experienced and widely respected judge, was asked to compile his reports without prejudicing any possible legal actions. He will have been very careful not to give either government an excuse to delay or postpone publication or moves toward public inquiries.
The British government’s slowness to publish had been expected. Many regarded the decision by Blair to agree to Cory’s appointment at the Weston Park negotiations in 2001 as a stalling device. The role played by the British army’s Force Research Unit in the killings of scores of Northern Catholics, including Finucane, had already been well documented, nationalists asked: “Why the need for Cory to examine the case further?”
By instructing Cory to examine Finucane’s case, in conjunction with that of LVF leader Billy Wright, Blair’s government hoped to put the issue of public inquiries on the long finger. While examination of Wright’s murder in prison in 1997 may show that the authorities facilitated INLA gunmen in the attack, Finucane’s case will most likely blow the lid on a systematic and institutionalized policy of collaboration between the British army, the RUC and loyalist killers.
The FRU ran notorious UDA man Brian Nelson in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Nelson, the UDA’s chief intelligence officer was directed by his army handlers to have the UDA kill Catholic targets. From the files the FRU provided Nelson with, at least 80 people were targeted by loyalist paramilitaries. Twenty-nine died as a result of the attacks.
The work of Britain’s highest ranking police officer, John Stevens, has thus far uncovered extensive cooperation among the RUC, British Army and loyalists. His interim report last year revealed that not only had collusion occurred but also that the RUC failed to carry out proper investigations into a number of murders. He concluded that the policy of running high-ranking agents in the loyalist paramilitaries was not, as the British claimed, to protect lives but to take lives. He could only find two instances were Nelson may have actually prevented a murder attempt.
Cory had warned the British government about a delaying strategy and had said he would “kick and scream and turn blue” if such a device was put in play. He has now caused acute embarrassment to Blair.

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