FBI reveals threat to Queen over Troubles

A MAN affected by the Troubles in Northern Ireland claimed to be plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980s, an FBI document revealed.

Released on the FBI’S online vault, the document outlines what appears to be intelligence provided to federal agents about a threat to the Queen’s life in California 40 years ago.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh made an official visit to the west coast of America in February and March 1983. The file states that a phone call was made by “a man who claimed that his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet”. It adds: “This man additionally claimed that he was going to attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth and would do this either by dropping some object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the royal yacht Britannia when it sails underneath, or would attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth when she visited Yosemite National Park.”

The file refers to a club which “has a popular reputation as a republican bar that is frequented by sympathisers with the Provisional Irish Republican Army”.

Another document, among more than 100 pages published by the FBI online, this time relating to the Queen’s state visit to the US in 1991, reveals concerns that Irish groups were planning to protest at the monarch’s attendance at a baseball game and a White House event.

The information came from the Irish Edition, an Irish paper in Philadelphia.

The file said: “The article stated antibritish feelings are running high as a result of well-publicised injustices inflicted on the Birmingham Six by the corrupt English judicial system and the recent rash of brutal murders of unarmed Irish nationalists in the six counties by loyalist death squads.

“Though the article contained no threats against the president or the Queen, the statements could be viewed as being inflammatory.”