February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Anne Cadwallader
BELFAST — Friends, former colleagues and members of the Rosemary Nelson campaign say they are angered but not surprised that the Northern Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions office has decided not to press charges against any of the RUC officers who allegedly threatened her life.
The Rosemary Nelson Campaign believes the ruling strengthens its case for a full independent inquiry into her murder, which occurred last March 15 in Lurgan. They have not ruled out bring suit against the RUC officers who allegedly threatened the lawyer over a period of months.
A close friend of the murdered woman, Sinn Féin assembly member for Upper Bann Dr. Dara O’Hagan, said the threats against Nelson were well-documented.
"She was subjected to abuse and death threats from the RUC which were the subject of a UN report which specifically expressed its fears for her safety," O’Hagan said. "We now have the ridiculous charade whereby the RUC inquire death threats they made themselves."
The Independent Commission for Police Complaints is still overseeing an inquiry into the same allegations and has yet to decide if disciplinary action will be taken against any officers.
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Nelson had lodged a formal complaint against named RUC officers after she received sectarian and sexist threats, through her clients, at RUC interrogation sessions in Lurgan police station, Gough Barracks in Armagh and elsewhere.
By the time she was murdered, the ICPC had already voiced its "serious concern" about the quality of the RUC inquiry into her claims and had replaced the RUC officer in charge of her complaint with a commander in the Metropolitan Police, Niall Mulvihill.
Nelson’s fears were also highlighted, before her death, in a United Nations report on intimidation of solicitors, written by the Malaysian jurist Dr. Param Cumaraswamy.
At the time of Mulvihill’s appointment, Nelson said she was "reassured" that a non-RUC officer had been appointed to head the inquiry into her complaint. "I hope this means the case is now being taken seriously," she had said. "The RUC must be made to see that we are a legitimate part of the legal system, and not their enemies. It’s serious enough that lawyers such as myself are harassed, but it could also affect a defendant’s right to a fair trial."
The ICPC also has a four-page list of dates, letters and meetings when concerns about Nelson’s safety were passed to the RUC. The list reveals how many times senior British ministers and the RUC were warned about the threats to her life beginning in March 1993. Edmund Lynch, national coordinator in the U.S. of the Lawyers Alliance for Justice in Ireland, which compiled the list, was concerned as far back as March 1997 about threats against Nelson.
Meanwhile, Richard Harvey, U.S. spokesperson for the Rosemary Nelson Campaign for Truth and Justice, called on the British government to fire the Northern Ireland Director of Public Prosecutions and institute an independent and international public inquiry into the assassination of Nelson.
Harvey pointed to what he said was the long history of the DPP’s refusals to prosecute members of the security forces.
"The DPP’s conduct in relation to Pat Finucane’s assassination shows he colluded with the RUC to cover up their long history of human-rights violations," Harvey said.
Meanwhile, the RUC is investigating the shooting dead murder of a leading loyalist in Portadown on Monday.
Richard Jameson, 46, was shot five times as he sat in his car outside his home. Jameson was the reputed commander of the Ulster Volunteer Force in Mid-Ulster. Family members denied loyalist connections but loyalist and police sources confirmed Jameson’s high-ranking status.
The shooting is believed to be connected to a feud involving the UVF and the and Loyalist Volunteer Force over drugs and the incident has raised fears that the feud will now escalate. Politicians, including First Minister David Trimble, have appealed for calm.