February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Anne Cadwallader and
Susan Falvella-Garraty
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As lawyer Rosemary Nelson’s friends and family mark the first anniversary of her murder in a loyalist car bomb explosion, they are waiting to hear if a man being questioned by the RUC will be charged with her death.
In Washington D.C. on Tuesday, relatives of Nelson and slain Belfast attorney Pat Finucane testified at a hearing held jointly by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe — the Helsinki Commission — and Congressman Chris Smith, chairman on the House human rights subcommittee.
In a stunning development during the hearing, Finucane’s widow, Geraldine, pointed an accusing finger at RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan.
In her written testimony, Finucane said that Flanagan’s "involvement" at the time her husband was shot dead by loyalist gunmen in his home in February 1989 was "central."
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Flanagan, Finucane said, "has continued to be involved for the last 11 years and, furthermore, he has connived in deliberately hiding [loyalist] William Stobie’s confession to my husband’s murder for all these years.
"What is worse is that the DPP and the British government are now allowing Flanagan to essentially investigate himself. This cannot be allowed to continue, because not only is the RUC as a whole culpable in Pat’s murder, but Flanagan himself is a prime suspect. He and his officers merit serious independent investigation, not another cozy cover up."
Back in Belfast, the man arrested in the Nelson case — he can’t be named for legal reasons — was a member of the British Army’s Royal Irish Regiment at the time of the attack. He lives in Portadown and is believed to have contacts with the far-right Nazi-style "Combat 18" group.
In Belfast, a vigil is being held on Wednesday outside City Hall, with a memorial Mass in her hometown of Lurgan and a commemoration at a church hall on the Garvaghy Road, where she was legal counsel for the local nationalist residents’ group.
Anger is brewing in the area over the local Orange Order’s plan to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, two days after her anniversary, with a social evening at an Orange Hall close to the Garvaghy Road.
A year ago, the order held a drumming contest at the same hall, shouting abuse and sectarian slogans about Nelson’s murder to local Catholics, sparking two nights of rioting and at least one family’s decision to move out of the area.
The sophisticated booby-trap car-bomb that killed Nelson on March 15, 1999 was claimed by the loyalist Red Hand Defenders, but few republicans believe they were behind the murder. Many republicans believe some form of collusion between the RUC and loyalists was involved.
Calls for an independent inquiry into the killing have been repeatedly rejected by the British government. This latest development will renew demands for an international investigation untainted by the involvement of the RUC.
The arrested man resigned from the RIR a few weeks after the Nelson murder. He was arrested last Thursday morning at a house in Breezemount Manor in the mainly Protestant village of Hamiltonsbawn, five miles from Armagh city.
A woman who was living with the man was also arrested but she was released at the weekend. The couple were first questioned about an arms find but members of the Nelson murder inquiry team, headed by the deputy chief constable of Norfolk, Colin Port, were called in to question them.