Family’s justice bid for forester slain in ’76 fails
THE family of a forester murdered 44 years ago have been dealt a setback in their fight for justice.
The Court of Appeal has refused to order the State to establish a commission of investigation into the murder of Seamus Ludlow.
Forestry worker Mr Ludlow, 47, was shot dead by loyalists on his way home from a pub in Dundalk, Co. Louth, in 1976.
His family has long maintained that Mr Ludlow was a victim of mistaken identity, killed by a loyalist death squad comprising Red Hand Commando operatives and two members of the Ulster Defence Regiment who travelled from the North to commit the murder.
The RUC told gardaí in 1979 the names of four loyalists it suspected of being involved in Mr Ludlow’s killing, but the information was not pursued.
The Court of Appeal said it was being asked to exercise a political judgment, which it could not do. The court’s president, Judge George Birmingham, noted yesterday that nobody had ever been charged in relation to the killing. He said the applicant in the case, Thomas Fox, a nephew of the victim, together with other members of Mr Ludlow’s family, had campaigned for many years, seeking an inquiry arising out of concerns that the initial Garda inquiry was flawed.
He said that in the immediate aftermath of the murder, an investigation team was established, but it was stood down after just three weeks.
‘It is the family’s case that an important line of enquiry was not pursued, but rather ignored, this being the possibility that Mr Ludlow was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries or individuals linked to British state security services in a case of mistaken identity,’ the judge said, adding it is claimed Mr Ludlow was mistaken for a senior Provisional IRA figure.
The judge said suspects had been identified, but given the decisions taken by the Directors of Public Prosecutions on either side of the border, a prosecution at this stage was unlikely. Judge Birmingham said Mr Fox was also aware of the fact that the Garda investigation remained open and could be advanced if further information came to light.
He added: ‘It is hard to see what more could be hoped to be achieved by a further inquiry. Realistically, the very most that could be hoped for would be some further information as to why the initial inquiry was so inadequate and so curtailed.’
But he said decisions relating to establishing commissions of investigation were, by statute, entrusted to members of the Government and the Oireachtas. Dismissing the appeal, he said the courts couldn’t interfere with that process.