Family demand answers on PSNI inaction in murder case

The fmily of murdered Catholic man Patsy Kelly have called on the PSNI to explain in public why it has not interviewed any of the people named by a former British soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment as being directly involved in the killing.

Mr Kelly, a 33-year-old nationalist councillor, was murdered after he went missing from the County Tyrone village of Trillick in July 1974.

On Tuesday police arrested four men about Mr Kelly’s murder but they have since been released without charge. The four men are thought to have all been former members of the UDR and included convicted loyalist killer, Robert Bridges. None were among those publicly alleged to have been involved.

The release of the four men came as no surprise to Patsy Kelly’s family who say they have no faith in any police investigation and are demanding an independent inquiry into the murder.

The family, through their solicitor Pat Fahy, yesterday demanded that the police publicly explains why it has not arrested any of the men implicated in Mr Kelly’s murder by the late David Jordan in 1999.

Mr Jordan, a former UDR soldier, broke down in a bar and confessed to having been present when Mr Kelly was murdered. He named two of his former UDR colleagues as being the killers.

“The Kelly family have been making this point to police in private for the past five years,” said Pat Fahy.

“They are now asking publicly why the PSNI has not interviewed the people named by the late David Jordan as being directly involved in the shooting of Patsy Kelly.

“The family do not object to police following lines of inquiry, but they do object to police not following specific lines of inquiry. The men arrested and subsequently released this week were not the men the family have been directing the police to,” added Mr Fahy.

There have since been calls for Mr Jordan’s body to be exhumed for post-mortem because of the suspicious circumstances in which he died.

Urgent Appeal