1) PHOTOGRAPHING OF IRA MEMBERS
2) WHY NO WEETON TRIAL FOR MAGEE, MURRAY (AND OTHERS?)
3) WHY NO EXTRADITION FOR PATRICK MURRAY (AND OTHERS?)
The Guardian, Tuesday
08.10.86 – “Maguire claims 'set-up' on bomb plot.... (Thomas Maguire)
understood that O'Connor, who presented himself as a Republican supporter,
merely wanted to reveal that the camp – erroneously – was being used by the RUC
and SAS for training.
"....Patrick Magee and a man called Patrick Murray were both named in the
indictment, but were not in the dock. The Attorney-General decided that Magee
would not be tried since he is already serving five life sentences for the bomb
attack on the Grand Hotel in
"
"The trial heard how Magee and Murray escaped from
"The men had come over to liaise with Mr. O'Connor for the pub attack on
"On April 16 pictures were sent to Scotland Yard for identification. Magee
had several times been arrested in
"On April 26 Magee and Murray, in a hired car, became suspicious and they
sped away to
"Chief Superintendent Norman Finnerty, the head of Lancashire CID, said
yesterday that Scotland Yard only informed him of Magee's identity 'minutes
after the escape'. Scotland Yard would not comment on why it had taken so
long."
The Daily Telegraph,
Tuesday 08.10,86 – “After the hearing, Detective Chief Superintendent
Norman Finnerty, head of Lancashire CID, denied claims that his force had
bungled the investigation, effectively allowing Patrick Magee the freedom to
plant the Brighton bomb over a year later. He said every step was taken to
alert other forces to fears that an IRA attack was planned in the North-West.
Magee and Murray were photographed and the pictures sent to Scotland Yard, but
identification was not received until 15
minutes after their escape."
1)
The taking of photographs for identification was superfluous. The identities of
Magee and Murray will have been known to Garda intelligence and MI5 before
departure from Ireland. Pre-departure IRA communications between the islands
will also have been known.
2) The British authorities did not wish a trial for Patrick Magee for the
Weeton conspiracy to bomb case because they feared the politically unpalatable
truths a trial would unfold. For operational
intelligence reasons Magee was
allowed his freedom in April 1983.
3) Likewise, for operational-intelligence
reasons, the British did not seek the extradition of Patrick Murray for the
Weeton conspiracy to bomb and other cases.
4) Magee and Murray did not escape from Blackpool: they were chased out because
it was not policy to capture them. The authorities being concerned with more
important matters, as they saw it, elsewhere; this apart from operational-intelligence reasons of
other dimensions.
5) The whereabouts of Magee and Murray from their departure from Ireland will
have been known. The Weeton sting was
a joint UK-Ireland operation. Their identities known, their telephone calls
intercepted, their flat (and garage) bugged, their car bugged and fitted with a
tracking device, their professional interests noted and movements monitored for
all of their two weeks plus sojourn in Britain.
6) Patrick Murray had lived in Lancashire. Family lived there. The family
members, James Murray and Joseph Calvey, and their houses, will have been put
under surveillance and their telephones monitored. A proof positive that Magee
and Murray were allowed their freedom is the fact of their being driven to
Wales by Joseph Calvey and James Murray on the night of Tuesday/Wednesday 26/27
April 1983, from where they would, at some juncture, return by ferry to
Ireland. You have no need for an each-way bet on that journey being subject to
unobtrusive tracking. The giving the game away earlier was for operational intelligence reasons.
It is proper to say that the Lancashire family connections of Patrick Murray
will not have known or been party to the operational intentions of Magee and
Murray. For them it was unfortunate who they were and where they were. The high
price paid consequent of their arrest and pre-trial incarceration, will have
been down to the silence of MI5-Special Branch. In that are shades of other miscarriage of justice cases.
7) "On Friday April 22nd, Magee and Murray said they were being watched,
and disappeared for a few days, said Mr. Amlot. On April 25th they reappeared,
when the plan to bomb the pub was almost complete, he added. O'Connor was told
to get an old van, where the bomb, assembled by Magee, would be placed."
Magee and Murray no more disappeared
than did their car with a tracking device. The likelihood is that they went to
get explosive and bomb making equipment from the Pangbourne cache. One suspects
they had no need for a navigator for the drive to the other side of the country
as both were likely familiar with the location of the hoard. That is another
embarrassing something the authorities have cause to withold on.
And
one could also query where and with whom Magee and Murray stayed during their
several days absence from Blackpool.
8) The Observer, Sunday
15.06.86 – “The bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton was not the first
time the IRA planned to assassinate Mrs. Thatcher, according to Dublin sources.
The act was originally planned for the previous year in Blackpool, and the
Imperial Hotel was looked at as a potential target."
When
it was looked at it does not say. Have a guess.
9) The Guardian, Wednesday
17.09.86 – “The jury were shown several packs of observation
photographs." So Magee and Murray were much photographed while on the
Weeton operation. Is it possible that prior taken photographs were witheld
because they would divulge prohibited detail? Which brings me to another point.
How can one be so extensively, if surreptitiously, photographed and not notice
some of it? Patrick Magee's eventual Ph.D. most certainly was not for
understanding surveillance.
10) The Guardian, Wednesday
17.09.86 – “....chief prosecution witness Raymond O'Connor, told the jury
that Murray had boasted to him: 'You have the best people over here at the
moment. Do you remember the bombing of Airey Neave? He (Magee) was responsible
for that. That's how good he is.'"
If understanding is witheld for tactical reasons, was other material
inadvertently disclosed (or inserted for tactical reasons)? Note also:
"You have the best people..." People?
11) Were the many telephone calls by O'Connor to Dublin or elsewhere, before
and after the Weeton fiasco, recorded or otherwise subject to interception?
Were transcripts made available to the court? And too details of O'Connor's
post Weeton trips to meet the IRA in Dublin.
12) Were transcripts of Magee and Murray's bugged flat and car talks made
available to the court?
13) Were transcripts of Magee and Murray's talks and activities in the O'Connor
rented garage made available to the court?
14) Was the logging of routes taken by the O'Connor hired and tracking device
fitted Cortina car made available to the court?
15) Was the logging of Magee and Murray's shanks pony sojourns in and around
Blackpool made available to the court?
16) Were Magee and Murray's journies to other Lancashire locations made
available to the court?
17) Were transcripts of Magee and Murray's telephone calls, from their first
footfall on British soil in April 1983 to their exit more than two weeks later,
made available to the court?
18)
Were details of the explosive and bomb making equipment, and from where
obtained, made available to the court?
19) Finally, what happened to the explosive and bomb making equipment?
The point is: what you do not know
about something is usually worth a lot more than that which you do know. And what you do know is what
you have been given. In short, you are as wise as Big Brother wants you to be. His undeclared preference is that you
be kept in ignorance of many nasty truths. With help from an accomodating legal
and justice system and a pliant media, he succeeds admirably in that goal.
