Claims Nairac took part in Kingsmill a fantasy, covert Army witness tells inquest
CLAIMS that a British Army Captain was involved in the 1976 Kingsmill massacre have been dismissed as “sensationalist fantasy” by a senior intelligence officer.
Ten of 11 Protestant workmen were slaughtered in Co Armagh on January 5, 1976, when a minibus taking them home was stopped by gunmen. A Catholic workmate was ordered to flee before the shooting started.
It’s widely believed the IRA was responsible.
Sole survivor Alan Black said at the time the vehicle had been stopped by a man with an English accent.
This fuelled rumours it was Captain Nairac, who had been stationed in Northern Ireland the previous year as a military intelligence liaison officer.
Yesterday an inquest into the deaths heard from Army witnesses who said Captain Nairac could not have been involved.
Official Army records presented in court yesterday showed Captain Nairac left Northern Ireland in May 1975 after serving for a year.
Stationed in London and responsible for a platoon of 30 men, he was tasked with overseeing their transfer to a new barracks in Surrey between December 1975 and January 1976.
In addition, he was responsible for preparing his men for a seven-week training expedition to Kenya, which left on January 13, 1976.
No official Army record indicates he travelled to Northern Ireland in time for Kingsmill.
After returning from Kenya, Captain Nairac came back to the province in May 1976.
One year later he was abducted from a pub in Dromintee, Co Armagh, and murdered by the IRA. His body has never been found.
One witness in court yesterday appeared behind a screen and was identified only as MOD 3.
The aftermath of the Kingsmill atrocity in 1976, and (right) Captain Robert Nairac
He described himself as the most senior and longest-serving Army intelligence officer in south Armagh in 1976, as well as a close friend of Nairac’s.
On the night of the massacre, MOD 3 travelled to the scene and said what he saw still haunted him to this day.
He said he did not believe his
friend was morally capable of carrying out a terrorist attack and called the rumours “sensationalist fantasy”.
He added that as Captain Nairac had been in England for months before Kingsmill, it would not have been possible for him to infiltrate the extremely close-knit Provisional IRA in
south Armagh, and as an English officer he would have “stuck out like a sore thumb”.
With his senior intelligence role, MOD 3 said he would have definitely have known if Captain Nairac had returned to Northern Ireland, officially or otherwise.
“It simply was not credible he could ever have been in a position to have ‘gone over’ to the PIRA,” he said.
Before finishing, MOD 3 said he had the “absolute sympathy” for the victims’ families.
“Looking back, I just wish we could have done something to prevent this happening,” he said.
“We did our best.” THE son of a DUP councillor who was found with cannabis and used foul language towards police officers has been handed a suspended prison sentence.
Aaron James Samuel Fielding, of Cromlech Park, Portstewart, pleaded guilty to disorderly behaviour and possessing cannabis at the annual Apprentice Boys parade in Londonderry on August 12.
Fielding (22), son of Mark Fielding, a councillor for the Causeway Coast and Glens District Council, appeared before Derry Magistrates Court yesterday.
Defence solicitor Derwin Harvey told the court his client has a record connected to offences committed when he was supporting Coleraine United. He revealed the defendant has been banned from going to any of their matches for a period of four years. The solicitor said his client now works six days a week and avoids consuming alcohol.
Suspending a four month sentence for two years, District Judge Barney McElholm also fined Fielding £700, and warned the 22-year-old he will go to prison if he appears in court again.