IRA murder trial in chaos over ‘no evidence’ claim
THE trial of two ex-paratroopers accused of killing an IRA man was in turmoil yesterday after a key investigator said he had found no ‘compelling evidence’.
The bombshell testimony revealed that officers probing unsolved deaths in the Troubles did not know that their interviews would be used to prosecute Soldiers A and C.
Now in their 70s, the pair were first interviewed voluntarily by the Historical Enquiries Team in 2010 over the death of Official IRA commander Joe McCann in Belfast in 1972.
David Hart, a retired police officer, yesterday told Belfast’s Laganside Courts that he ‘couldn’t find any new or compelling evidence’ when interviewing the veterans 11 years ago and concluded the case should go no further. The trial was told the exservicemen had been urged to cooperate with the inquiry by the family of McCann, who said they were ‘seeking truth, not retribution’.
A letter from the family that was sent to the soldiers via the HET inquiry added: ‘Obtaining truth is another part of the grieving process while retribution harbours only anger and bitterness.’
However in 2014, four years after the veterans submitted to an interview under caution, prosecutors reviewed the case and murder charges followed.
Questioned directly by Mr Justice John O’Hara about whether he envisaged the HET report being used in a prosecution, Mr Hart said via videolink: ‘No I didn’t.
‘When the Police Service of Northern Ireland came to see me regarding prosecution I asked if they would interview the soldiers again because that’s what I fully expected, but that wasn’t the case.’
Watched intently by McCann’s widow Anne and daughter Nuala from the public gallery, Mr Hart agreed with defence counsel for Soldier C that during the pair’s interview ‘it was never suggested’ they were suspected of involvement in a criminal offence.
His testimony prompted an adjournment for prosecutors to consider their position.
The murder trial, the first prosecution of Army veterans over the Troubles since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, is being heard without a jury.
It has been told that much of the evidence in the case centres on statements the veterans made in the immediate aftermath of McCann’s death in 1972 and to the HET in 2010. Soldier A had been unable to provide any information further to his 1972 statement because he had suffered a stroke in 2005 and had memory loss.
The trial has already heard that McCann, 24, was at the top of the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s mostwanted list and suspected of murdering a number of soldiers when he was spotted by a plain-clothes Special Branch officer in the markets area of Belfast.
The policeman attempted to arrest McCann, who was in disguise, but was pushed away and called for the assistance of paratroopers manning a nearby checkpoint.
The two defendants and a third soldier, who is now dead, are said to have joined the officer in calling for McCann to ‘halt’ before opening fire as he ran away.
He suffered three fatal gunshot wounds, with the prosecution arguing that the killing amounted to murder because ‘it was not justified to affect an arrest’ and ‘the level of force used was unreasonable’.
The Official IRA claimed McCann was behind the deaths of 15 British soldiers. Two plaques remain in Belfast in his memory.
Critics have derided the case as a politically-motivated ‘show trial’ designed to appease Sinn Fein, which was formerly the political wing of the IRA.
As many as 200 Northern Ireland veterans face investigation and prosecution for incidents during the Troubles, despite Government pledges to protect soldiers from ‘vexatious’ prosecutions.
The trial continues.
‘Suffered three gunshot wounds’