Flanagan remembers he hasn't forgotten
by Laura Friel
Controversy about that telephone call to Geneva continued to stalk RUC
Chief Ronnie Flanagan this week. Recently interviewed by BBC Panorama
journalist John Ware, Ronnie Flanagan couldn't recollect telephoning UN
special rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy to request comments attributed to the
RUC Chief in the UN draft report were deleted from the final document.
According to the UN official, the RUC Chief accused some lawyers of working
for paramilitaries, working to a paramilitary agenda, during an interview
at RUC Headquarters in Belfast in 1998. Flanagan's words were noted down at
the time by Param Cumaraswamy's assistant.
On camera Flanagan, striken with apparent sudden amnesia, having denied the
comments felt compelled to deny the subsequent telephone call about the
comments. However the RUC Chief couldn't deny two letters posted to Geneva
a short time later. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice
to deceive. It was, in short, all a bit of a mess.
In a valiant attempt to redress his dismal TV performance, RUC Chief Ronnie
Flanagan remembered this week that he had not forgotten that he had made a
telephone call to UN special rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy because he had
never made that call.
``I have now had all billing records checked. I made no such phone call,''
Flanagan informed the press. Now a telephone call was received by the UN's
Geneva office and the person who took the call understood he was speaking
to Ronnie Flanagan at the time but maybe he was mistaken. Perhaps someone
else made the call on behalf of the RUC Chief whose comments were still in
the draft report. ``There may have been a phone call made by a
representative of the UK government, ``speculated Flanagan.
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