40 years on, the Met reopens probe into Airey Neave murder
SCOTLAND Yard has reopened its investigation into the 1979 murder of Tory MP Airey Neave by Irish terrorists.
The 63-year- old politician was shadow Northern Ireland secretary and one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest confidants when he was assassinated by a car bomb, in the courtyard of the Commons.
The Metropolitan Police have begun ‘new work’ on the case after Home Secretary Sajid Javid ordered a review in response to calls from Neave’s family for his killers to face justice.
It comes after the murder of journalist Lyra McKee, 29, who was shot dead by the New IRA while covering a riot in Londonderry on April 18. Her killing has prompted new talks – due to begin next month – aimed at restoring power sharing in Northern Ireland between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party.
Last month DUP politicians said the failure to find Neave’s murderer would show an ‘unbalanced’ approach to solving killings during the Troubles.
Up to 200 former soldiers and police officers have been investigated for alleged crimes, including a veteran known as Soldier F, who is due to face murder charges over his role in Bloody Sunday in 1972. In a letter to Greg Hands, Tory MP for Chelsea and Fulham, Mr Javid wrote that ‘new work’ has been carried out by Met officers, including ‘extensive searches’.
Mr Javid said the ‘investigation is open’ and that the Irish National Liberation Army, a splinter group of the IRA which claimed responsibility at the time, ‘is likely to have been the perpetrator’. Mr Hands told The Sunday Telegraph he was ‘delighted’ Neave’s younger by the son, development. William, is one of his constituents. The ex-Army officer was killed a few weeks before the 1979 general election, which swept Mrs Thatcher to power. Hours after Neave’s murder, she said: ‘Some devils got him. They must never, never, never be allowed to triumph. They must never prevail.’ Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP’s chief whip, has previously questioned why Harry Flynn, 65, a former key member of the INLA, was ‘living openly in Spain’ without having been pursued by authorities.
The reopening of Neave’s case has led to questions about whether Flynn, a convicted drug runner who now runs a pub in Majorca, could be extradited to face questioning over the death of the politician, who was the first British officer to escape from Colditz Castle during the Second World War.