Abduction among sinister incidents in South Armagh

A number of alarming incidents involving joint PSNI and British Army operations in South Armagh have been reported in the past few weeks, including an abduction carried out by a Crown Force gang believed to include members of the “elite” British Army Special Reconnaissance Regiment.

The first incident occurred several weeks ago when a young man left a friend’s house just outside Newry. His car was forced off the road by a number of blacked out SUV’s and he was dragged from his vehicle by “aggressive, masked and heavily armed members” of the British forces.

His car was driven away, but events turned more sinister, according to Saoradh: “Despite not being under arrest the young man was then grabbed and bundled into one of the Crown Force vehicles against his will.”

He was driven for some time before being brought to a secluded area where he was removed from the vehicle and quizzed about whose house he was visiting earlier that daym and why he was at that house.

When he refused to answer their questions, he was “bundled back” into the vehicle which then dropped him off outside a PSNI barracks in Newry.

The second incident occurred a fortnight ago and involved the previous victim’s friend.

He left his home at around 9am on the Sunday morning and after travelling a short distance he found himself forced off the road and boxed in by two blacked out SUV vehicles.

One of the armed men walked from the SUV to the window of the Republican and told him “your days are numbered, your days are numbered”.

The Republican challenged the British forces to state who they were and to show identification. The response was “it doesn’t matter who we are and you’ll be getting no ID from us”.

As the undercover vehicles drove away one of the masked rear passengers put their window down and pointed an automatic weapon at the activist as they drove past in an obvious act of intimidation.

Saoradh expressed anger at the actions and called for a political response.

“The great and the good regularly harp on about current revolutionaries ‘living in the past’ and call for people to ‘move on’,” they said.

“Yet here we are faced with elite undercover British units once again terrorising people in South Armagh, issuing sinister threats, pointing rifles at them and in the first incident even kidnapped a young man at gunpoint.

“The reappearance of these sinister units across the six-counties is a worrying development. It is a growing trend for them to target Republicans in this fashion in Tyrone and Derry, now they are active in South Armagh. The silence is deafening.”

>>>>>> Dedicated police office for spying on “troublemakers”

A Stasi-like unit within the PSNI monitored journalists’ and lawyers’ communications on a dedicated computer system to prevent details of the spying operation becoming public, a former top PSNI boss has admitted.
Details of the scandal came to light earlier this year through the London-based Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which is examining allegations that two investigative journalists, Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney, were subjected to unlawful surveillance.

The IPT looks at complaints from people who believe they have been the victim of unlawful covert interference.

It has emerged that the PSNI has made more than 800 searches for details of the communications data of journalists and lawyers.

Alan McQuillan, who left the PSNI in 2003, said there should be a public inquiry. He described the PSNI behaviour as “completely wrong and completely unethical”.

Mr McQuillan told the BBC that he had been informed the practice of operating a separate snooping office carried on for several years from about 2011.

“This is so bad, so awful, there needs to be a public inquiry,” he said. Hundreds of phones were being monitored by the unit, which “operated from a separate office with its own laptop, completely outside other force computer systems”.

“In theory this should have been focusing on misconduct by police officers and allegations some officers were leaking information to journalists,” Mr McQuillan said.

“But it then began to spread out into monitoring the phones of journalists and lawyers,” he said.

Sinn Féin Assembly member Gerry Kelly, who sits on the Policing Board, said Mr McQuillan’s comments were “deeply concerning.”

“Additional revelations about unlawful surveillance will cause more damage to the PSNI’s reputation if true. There is a growing view that a public inquiry is the only way to establish full truth.”

A leading human rights lawyer has also raised concerns over the scale of the PSNI surveillance operation.

Kevin Winters believes his firm may be on a list of “troublemaker” firms – the term has been used by the PSNI to describe journalists who have sought information about the force’s illegality and collusion.

It is believed that informers have also been used to target journalists, law firms and non-governmental organisations.

Mr Winters said he has filed a complaint with the IPT in London, contacted the Policing Board and asked the PSNI if his legal practice has been the subject of any requests for covert surveillance and information gathering,

“I have always operated on the basis that a lot of our professional work has been listened to and observed,” he said.

“It’s been a way of life for years here. The latest revelations serve to confirm that heightened if unnatural state of awareness.”

Mr Winters said the surveillance could be viewed as part of a wider agenda.

“I see this unnerving evidence of systemic intrusion challenging lawyers and others as the latest outworkings of a campaign of state vilification of the integrity of work undertaken to protect human rights,” he said.

“It’s a depressing reminder that a lot of our work collectively has always been viewed with suspicion and scepticism.”

The senior lawyer said the “easiest way to dispel much of the suspicion around these issues is to have a process of accountability”.

“Anything less than a public inquiry will only fall way short of expectations,” he added.

Urgent Appeal