Republican News · Thursday 24 October 2002

Kelly decision important first step

West Tyrone Sinn Féin MP Pat Doherty says that Friday's decision by a Belfast Court granting leave to the widow of nationalist councillor Patsy Kelly to seek a judicial review on the refusal of the PSNI to hand over the reinvestigation of his murder to an independent police force is an important first step in the family's struggle to get at the truth.

Patsy Kelly was killed in 1974 but no one was ever arrested.

"As successors to the RUC, the Kelly family and indeed the wider nationalist community have absolutely no faith in the PSNI's ability to reinvestigate Patsy's murder," said Doherty. "They could not and would not be capable of carrying out an impartial investigation into their colleagues, who not only failed to carry out anything even resembling an investigation into Patsy's murder, but who were complicit in the covering up his murder.

"At the time of his murder, the RUC told Patsy's wife Teresa that they had enough evidence at the scene to convict those involved in the murder and all they needed was a body. Hundreds of local people embarked on a massive search up until the time his body was discovered by accident by a fisherman in Loch Eyes in Co Fermanagh.

"We now know that Patsy was abducted, shot and his body weighted down in the lake - an attempt to make sure that it would never again be discovered.

"Despite the fact that the body was found, after three weeks the RUC dropped the murder investigation, if there ever was one, like a hot potato. Perhaps the RUC also believed that the body would never be found?

"Late last year, a documentary on the case reconfirmed to local people what they have always known - namely that the UDR carried out Patsy's murder and disposed of his body.

"We are told that besides the initial so-called 'investigation' into Patsy's murder, that it was subject to a reinvestigation in the early 1990s.

"However, attempts by Patsy's family and legal representatives to get at the truth of what happened have been frustrated at every turn.

"The legal representative of the Kelly family was told that files and documents pertaining to the murder inquiry had gone missing from filing cabinet at Omagh RUC station, only to be told by the RUC that some documentation had miraculously reappeared 12 hours before the broadcasting of the documentary.

"Almost one year on from that documentary, the Kelly family has still not been furnished with this documentation.

"The circumstance surrounding Patsy's murder and the subsequent cover up is still an open sore within this community. Nothing less than a fully independent inquiry will suffice in this instance."

In April, a motion proposed by Sinn Féin Councillor Pat Watters calling for the establishment of a public judicial inquiry into the assassination received the unanimous backing of nationalist councillors on Omagh District Council and was carried. The council also backed a further motion that a plaque in memory of Councillor Kelly should be erected within the council building. Unionist members of the council voted against the motions.