Details emerge of Colum Marks shoot-to-kill

The British Army’s SAS and MI5 and at least two RUC Special Branch units were involved in an operation in which an unarmed IRA Volunteer was killed, a Police Ombudsman report has revealed.

Colum Marks was shot dead during what was described as an “intelligence led” ambush against the Provisional IRA near Downpatrick RUC station on April 10, 1991.

Details of the previously unknown involvement of British military units are contained in a report published last Thursday.

From Newry, Mr Marks was targeted and shot several times in the Crown Force execution.

It was admitted that the RUC also had detailed prior knowledge of the planned movements of Mr Marks and his comrades for days before the ambush was launched.

The Ombudsman has now confirmed the area was declared ‘out of bounds’ to other forces - a killing zone.

At the time, local residents said they saw flares prior to the shooting, and that no attempt was made to arrest Mr Marks, who was seriously wounded. He was told to roll over and handcuffed and his hands placed in forensic bags by the RUC, but he was not searched, suggesting that they already knew he was unarmed.

A witness said he saw two RUC men drag the wounded Volunteer through a gateway, out of the field and down the side of an empty house. It is believed that he was interrogated and possibly tortured before being thrown into the back of an RUC vehicle and driven to hospital. It was at least 30 minutes before he arrived in the hospital, where he died from his injuries.

The Ombudsman’s office has now provided members of his family with reports containing fresh information about the role played by the SAS and MI5.

They reveal that a specialist military unit carried out an undercover surveillance operation for three days before the killings, and that MI5 deployed a ‘device’ as a part of the operation.

One document said that ‘Officer B’, a now retired RUC man, “knew of SAS involvement in the operation, the origin of the intelligence, the address of the MI5 device and the name of the [MI5] officer who removed it.”

The report also sets out that ‘Officer B’ revealed he was himself nearly shot twice as two different RUC Special Branch units opened fire.

In 2023 the Crown Prosecution Service said it would not prosecute ‘Officer B’, despite evidence that it was in fact he who fired the fatal shots.

Ombudsman Marie Anderson claimed “all records relating to the planning, direction and control of the operation appear to have been destroyed many years ago”.

Nevertheless, she confirmed the perfunctory 1991 RUC investigation into the killing of Mr Marks “lacked independence and rigour” and was “wholly inadequate in a number of important respects”.

Gavin Booth, of Phoenix Law, who represents the Marks family said the Ombudsman findings “supports the view that the family always held that the RUC did not properly investigate the fatal shooting of Colum Marks”.

“It’s clear from the findings that there was time to arrest Colum prior to the shooting and this was not acted upon by the RUC at the time,” he said.

“We now know that for three days the RUC knew about this, and opportunities clearly existed to arrest.”

Mr Booth said Mr Marks “was unarmed, unmasked and not posing a threat when he was shot several times”.

South Down Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard said: “Colum Marks’ family have courageously fought for decades to reveal the truth into his execution by the RUC, and today is testament to their strength, resilience and determination.

“These findings support what Colum’s family and the entire community knew all along; that he was unarmed, unmasked and not posing a threat when he was executed.

“Unsurprisingly, much of the evidence was destroyed by the RUC, and former officers also did not cooperate with the investigation, and that unfortunately means many questions remain unanswered.”

Urgent Appeal