Republican News · Thursday 14 November 2002

Six are remembered

Sinn Féin Assembly member for Upper Bann, Dara O'Hagan, was the main speaker at a wreathlaying ceremony organised to mark the 20th anniversary of the state killing of six unarmed North Armagh men by the RUC.

Up to 60 people attended the ceremony, on Monday 11 Novemebr, at Tullygally East Road outside Lurgan when family members of the men killed laid wreaths in their memory.

The six who died were shot dead by the RUC in three consecutive incidents between November and December 1982. Their deaths were planned. This was the intended outcome. Amnesty International referred to their deaths as extra-judicial execution. In Ireland, the policy was more commonly known as 'shoot to kill' - the summary execution by the British governemnt of political opponents.

Addressing the crowd, O'Hagan stated: "The killing machine that planned and carried out these killings involved the RUC Special Branch, RUC Headquarters Mobile Support Units (HMSUs), the British Army's 14th Intelligence Company and Military Intelligence, the SAS and MI5.

"Unarmed men were shot dead. Stories were fabricated. Murder and conspiracy to murder were compounded by a further conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The legacy of all this remains with us. The justice denied the families of those killed continues. There is no mechanism in place to address it; no commitment to resolve it.

"The human rights abusers, the assassins and conspirators, transferred from the RUC into the PSNI unvetted. This is one of the critical failures in achieving the new beginning to policing promised in the Good Friday Agreement which as yet has not been delivered."