Lawyer threatened again
By Peadar Whelan
With a UN report into RUC threats against defence
lawyers in the Six Counties to be published soon, one
of those at the centre of the UN investigation has told
An Phoblacht that she has again been threatened.
Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson said that one of her
clients reported that the RUC made the threats against
her when he was held for seven days in Castlereagh
interrogation centre .
The man told An Phoblacht that the RUC said to him,
``new legislation was brought in in 1989 to do away with
solicitors who concoct stories''. It was not until he
told Ms Nelson about this that the full import of the
threat became clear.
It was in 1989 that a UDA gun gang - operating with
information supplied by British Military intelligence
agent Brian Nelson - shot dead Belfast human rights
solicitor Pat Finucane. Mr Finucane was killed three
weeks after British Home Office minister Douglas Hogg
told the House of Commons some solicitors in the North
were, ``unduly sympathetic'' to paramilitary
organisations.
The Lurgan man had been held in Castlereagh and
questioned by the RUC about the killing of local man
Kevin Conway last month.
While being questioned the RUC told the man, who wishes
to remain anonymous, ``you will go down in history as
the man who got Sinn Féin thrown out of the talks''.
The man is convinced the RUC were going to try and
charge him despite the fact that he has ``no interest in
politics'' and is ``certainly no activist''.
``On two or three occasions the RUC told me they would
make sure I was charged and that it would be used as an
excuse to have Sinn Féin thrown out''.
Ms Nelson now intends to lodge a complaint with Mr
Cumaraswamy, the UN special rapporteur who conducted
the UN's investigation into the threats against
solicitors last year as well as the Law Society, which
represents members of the legal profession and the CAJ.
Mr Cumaraswamy's report is due out this month but in a
preliminary briefing in October last year he said the
UN had over the years received reports of harassment
against defence lawyers.
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