Blair amnesty for Army captain’s IRA ‘killers’
TWO IRA fugitives suspected of torturing and killing an undercover British Army officer – before putting his body in a meat grinder – were granted an amnesty by Tony Blair.
The Mail can reveal that Terry McCormick and Pat Maguire were among 187 on-the-run paramilitary suspects who received ‘comfort letters’ – dubbed ‘get- out- of-jail-free cards’ – which told them they were not being sought by police.
The pair were wanted for questioning about the murder of Captain Robert Nairac 40 years ago today in one of the most brutal incidents in the Troubles.
The revelation of the amnesty offered to the men comes after it emerged 18 British soldiers could be charged over their involvement in Bloody Sunday.
A letter from the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland, obtained by the BBC, said the veterans could face charges including murder and attempted murder, wounding and perjury. Thirteen people were shot dead when members of the Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry in 1972. Another died later.
Using the name Danny McAlevey, Capt Nairac, 28, of the Grenadier Guards, was undercover and singing Republican songs in the Three Steps pub near the border with the Irish Republic, when he was seized.
He was taken across the border, tortured and then shot dead in a field. His body has never been found and it was suspected that it was put through a meat processing machine so it could never be found.
Capt Nairac’s body is the only one of the 722 British servicemen and women murdered in Northern Ireland never to have been found and returned for burial in the UK.
McCormick and Maguire are believed to have played prominent roles in the cold-blooded killing. But under a secret deal between members of Mr Blair’s Labour government and IRA leaders as part of the 1999 Good Friday Agreement, the pair were among the Republican terrorists given immunity. Both men have lived in the US since the 1977 murder.
Maguire has become a US resi- dent and eight years ago was tracked down to the New Jersey suburb of Dumont. He said: ‘There’s nothing I can say about that night... Of course I have regrets about it... but I’m not going to say any more.’
McCormick also went into hiding in New Jersey. In 2007, he told an Irish reporter that he pretended to be a priest while interrogating Capt Nairac. He said: ‘I told Nairac that he had better make a confession, because unless he told the truth he was going to be shot. He proceeded... basically saying “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned”.’ The officer was shot dead minutes later, without revealing who he was.
A former Police Service of Northern Ireland officer told The Mail: ‘For whatever reason, the American authorities have not decided to kick them out, back to Northern Ireland. It would be nice to get them back to see what they know. For Capt Nairac’s sisters, who are his only living relatives, it would at least provide some solace to be able to give his remains a proper Christian burial.
‘The letters saying they would be excused for their deed that night effectively means we would never be able to prosecute them but we would still like to interview them both, if only to try and locate Capt Nairac’s body.’ The existence of the comfort letters emerged in 2014 when the Old Bailey murder trial of John Downey, chief suspect for the 1982 Hyde Park bombing which killed four soldiers, collapsed.
Lady Justice Hallett, who carried out an inquiry into the letters, described them as a ‘catastrophic error’. The names of the 187 IRA terrorists have never been released, but the Mail can reveal that McCormick is No 72 on the list and Maguire is No 73.
Capt Nairac was posthumously awarded the George Cross. The citation praised the resistance of the Oxford-educated officer and his bravery under ‘a succession of exceptionally savage assaults’, which failed to break him. Three men were convicted of his murder and received hefty jail sentences.
Ten days ago, the body of a teacher who was murdered by Republican paramilitaries more than 30 years ago was found in woodland in northern France.
Seamus Ruddy, from Co Down, was abducted from Paris in 1985. He was one of the Disappeared – 16 people who were murdered and secretly buried by Republicans during the Troubles. Capt Nairac is the only soldier in the group.
Former Army captain Doug Beattie, now an Ulster Unionist Party politician in the Northern Ireland Assembly, urged Sinn Fein leader Michelle O’Neill to use her influence to find Capt Nairac’s body. He said: ‘She should use her position to appeal to former IRA members to demonstrate respect for the remains of Capt Nairac.
‘Someone in the Republican movement knows. The IRA continue to hide his body in some sort of macabre revenge just because he was a British soldier.
‘He was a son and brother. It’s time to bring this to an end.’
‘Some sort of macabre revenge’ Pair accused of torturing Robert Nairac to death live free in US