February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Police have said the car in which the decomposed body was found was O’Connor’s and that there was no immediate or obvious evidence he had been shot or stabbed.
O’Connor, 24, was last seen after leaving his home in Armagh City in May 2003. He was traveling to Dundalk Garda station to answer bail conditions after being charged with membership of the Real IRA.
He and four others had been arrested in County Monaghan during November 2002. They allegedly had containers of petrol, black plastic bin liners, mobile phones, gloves and balaclavas in their possession, although the trial collapsed after Gardai mislaid legal documents.
The O’Connor family has always insisted the mainstream IRA were responsible for his murder. The chief constable, Hugh Orde, has also said he believes the Provisional IRA was involved.
A Catholic priest, Msgr. Denis Faul, said O’Connor was threatened by the IRA just before his disappearance.
In a trial last year it emerged that O’Connor had been a police agent and had been in frequent contact with the PSNI.
There were claims in the court case that he was responsible for setting up members of the Real IRA for arrest. Four County Tyrone men were cleared in the case of a dissident republican plot to murder police and soldiers.
The four were acquitted of conspiracy to murder and having a rocket launcher in Coalisland, Co. Tyrone, in February 2002. The judge said O’Connor’s role remained “enigmatic as an informer playing an active role in liaison with the police.”
He added that there were “unanswered questions” on O’Connor’s involvement and the pressures and inducement that may have been exerted on him to bring about the capturing of the four defendants.
The prosecution in the case accepted that O’Connor had been in regular contact with the police on one of two mobile phones and that two landline numbers he had contacted belonged to Armagh police station.
Meanwhile, it’s been revealed that no charges are to be brought against two senior employees of a fund set up to assist injured police officers. A British minister told the House of Commons the police inquiry into alleged malpractice has now ended without charges.
In December 2003, two employees of the Northern Ireland Police Fund were arrested amidst high profile media claims that the IRA had penetrated security – claims that now appear to have been without any foundation.
A number of British and Irish newspapers carried headline reports that the police had smashed an “IRA spy-ring” with allegations that republicans had obtained the personal details of both serving and former police officers. Unionist politicians said this vindicated their refusal to share power with Sinn Fein.
The Northern security minister, Shaun Woodward, however, now says the police investigation has concluded and that no officers’ security had been compromised or paramilitary offences uncovered.
A spokesperson for the Police Ombudsman has confirmed an investigation into how the police dealt with the case is nearing completion. In stark contrast to the original claims, no newspaper other than Daily Ireland in Belfast reported the latest development.
Meanwhile, there was more evidence this week of continuing tensions within loyalism. In one case, a loyalist was jailed for life for the murder of millionaire Red Hand Commando drugs baron Jim Johnston.
Robert Young was found guilty of shooting Johnston, 45, outside his luxury home in Co. Down in May 2003. The Assets Recovery Agency has since frozen Johnston’s property and other belongings as the proceeds of crime.
The judgment was abandoned last week when fighting broke out between LVF and UVF rival loyalist factions. Detective Supt. Roy McComb said the case should send out a strong message.
“Regardless of what people thought of Jim Johnston, or what crimes he is perceived to have done, nobody had the right to take his life. To people who commit murder, to people who give false alibis and to people who possess weapons let this be a salutary lesson.”
In another example of growing loyalist tensions, a fundamentalist Protestant preacher, recently released after serving a sentence for bomb offences, has been forced from the Shankill Road in Belfast.
Clifford Peeples was confronted by a UVF gang some time after he staged a coup at a West Belfast church, taking over from the preacher who had replaced him when he went to jail.
The confrontation came after the BBC broadcast a program showing how Peeples’ return had sparked a bitter row over control of the tiny Bethel Pentecostal Church.
In the program, Pastor John Hull told how Peeples had seized control of the church on his release from jail. This angered the local UVF who decided to force him out.
Peeples first fell foul of the UVF in the 1990s, in a row over protection money. He went on to be a leading figure in the ultra-sectarian Orange Volunteers before being caught with a stash of grenades and a pipe-bomb.
Sentenced to 10 years, on his release he went back to his old congregation and, in association with a convicted loyalist murderer, banished Pastor John Hull and his followers.
The row is now likely to end up in the courts, with the remaining trustees of the church seeking an order for the keys to the premises to be handed back to them by Peeples and his associates.