Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

Remembering Rosemary Nelson

BY LAURA FRIEL

As in the Finucane case, identifying suspects becomes an empty exercise without the political will to bring them to justice

This month marks the fourth anniversary of Rosemary Nelson, the Lurgan defence lawyer who died in a booby trap car bombing in March 1999. Like the earlier killing of Belfast defence lawyer Pat Finucane, shot dead a decade before in February 1989, the circumstances surrounding the killing of Rosemary Nelson bear all the same hallmarks of state collusion.

• As a defence lawyer, Rosemary Nelson, like Finucane, was involved in a number of high profile cases regarded as particularly irksome to the British state.
• Rosemary, like Finucane, became the focus of RUC intimidation and harassment including repeated death threats.
• Despite prior knowledge within state agencies and amongst government officials of threats against the lawyers' lives both Rosemary and Finucane were denied protection.
• Despite the fact that many of the names of those involved in both killings are known, only one person has been charged and no one has been convicted in connection with either killing.
• Members of the British Army and agents working for Special Branch were involved and are known to have taken an active part in commissioning and carrying out both killings.
• No charges or disciplinary action has been taken against members of the RUC involved in prior intimidation and threats against either lawyer.
• Despite repeated calls from international human rights bodies, including the United Nations, the British government has systematically avoided the call for independent public inquiries into the killings.

Around 12.30pm on 15 March 1999, Rosemary Nelson began the short journey from her home to the office where she ran a solicitor's firm in the small town of Lurgan. Moments later, a massive booby trap car bomb ripped through the vehicle, fatally injuring the 40-year-old mother of three. Rosemary died two hours later on the operation table of a nearby hospital.

Just a few weeks earlier, Rosemary Nelson had travelled to America to address a hearing of the US Congress. In Washington, Rosemary had detailed her experience of RUC intimidation and harassment and compared that experience to that of defence lawyer Pat Finucane. Rosemary left US Congressmen in no doubt that she had good reason to fear for her life.

Human rights groups, including a United Nations Special investigator, Param Cumaraswamy, had also raised concern for her safety. Cumaraswamy had called for urgent action by the British government but as he later admitted, at the time he had not fully appreciated the real danger posed to Rosemary.

Like many of us, after ten years of political controversy following the murder of one defence lawyer, it was almost unthinkable that the same fate awaited another. The fact that the killing would be carried out under circumstances so remarkably similar immediately suggested that the same forces had a hand in the killing.

Last week, it emerged that a serving British soldier at the time of the killing and a Special Branch agent were amongst ten suspects who have been identified by the team of detectives investigating the murder.

But as in the Finucane case, identifying suspects becomes an empty exercise without the political will to bring them to justice. And it's the lack of political will that continues to deny justice to the families and communities of those who died.

Tony Blair has been one of the most successful British Labour Party leaders in the history of the state, commanding a powerful majority within the House of Commons and securing a second office as Prime Minister. At the time of his first election as the leader of his country he enjoyed unprecedented popular support.

The British state stands accused of one of the most serious crimes of any body politic, of commissioning the deaths of citizens within its own jurisdiction. Tony Blair had the power to expose state collusion with loyalist death squads as a folly of another administration. He did not. Instead, the investigations into the deaths of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson have been characterised by delay, denial and subterfuge.

After her death, the British government claimed it was unable to afford Rosemary Nelson protection because she had not officially applied to be part of a scheme, known as Key Persons Protection Programme.

During the immediate aftermath of Rosemary's murder, family members and members of the local community reported harassment, including taunts about the killing, from members of the British Army, RUC and local loyalists and later Orange band members.

At the time of the killing, Rosemary Nelson's family, friends, colleagues and wider community had called for the investigation to be carried out independently of the RUC, the hostility of which to Rosemary Nelson was already a matter of public record.

The British government responded to media pressure and announced the murder was to be investigated by the American FBI. But this proved to be little more than a stalling tactic. The FBI was allotted the specific task of examining the bomb used in the attack and departed within two weeks.

The British government refused to take the investigation out of the hands of the RUC but announced that a Deputy Chief Constable Colin Port from England, assisted by English clerical back up staff, would head the team.

Four years and £7 million later, not a single suspected has been charged, let alone convicted, in relation to Rosemary's killing. Late last year, Colin Port announced he was stepping down as head of the investigation. Three months later, a successor has yet to be appointed, further fuelling the belief of the Nelson family that the investigation is effectively over.

Amongst those suspected of the killing, according to the media, not Colin Port, whose findings have never been made public, are three high profile unionist paramilitaries, described as 'highly active' and 'known to the police' in the Lurgan/Portadown area at the time of the killing.

Former leader of the LVF, Mark 'Swinger' Fulton is believed to have coordinated the attack on Rosemary Nelson. He was in prison on the day of the killing but he had been granted parole in the days leading up to the bombing and is also believed to have been in contact with other members of the gang while in jail. Fulton was found dead in his cell in June last year. The death was recorded as suicide.

The Port team is also believed to have identified a loyalist in his mid-40s who has been convicted in connection with both UDA and UVF activities. This man, they believe, was the bomb maker. Another member of the gang was a British soldier in his early 30s serving with the RIR at the time. He left the regiment two months later.

other gang member has been identified as a County Armagh based unionist paramilitary, who was subsequently identified during a court case unrelated to the Nelson killing as an agent working for Special Branch.

Last week, the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, published a report revealing that over 50 lawyers and barristers had complained they had been targets of intimidation and harassment by the PSNI.

According to the lawyers, the nature of the harassment took a variety of forms. These included PSNI officers making direct physical threats, defamatory comments, threatening the lawyer with arrest, accusations of membership of a paramilitary organisation and threatening to pass the solicitor's personal details to loyalist killers. Other complained of unprofessional conduct and racist and sectarian abuse.

Of several thousand lawyers working in the north of Ireland, only a small percentage deal with high profile cases similar to those undertaken by Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson. It is from this particular group within the legal profession that the vast majority of complaints about PSNI harassment and threats emerged.

Rosemary Nelson died four years ago this month, Pat Finucane died a decade earlier. The failure of the British government to expose the mechanisms that led to these killings continues to distort the operation of justice today.