PAID FOR SILENCE - Finucane killer serves three years of 22-year term
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Thursday May 25, 2006 10:44
by Mick Hall Daily - Daily Ireland May 24 2006
Barrett’s generous relocation package for silence on state collusion
The killer of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane has been given a generous relocation package by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) in return for his silence on the extent of state collusion, one of his would-be victims claimed last night.
UDA gunman and British agent Ken Barrett was freed by the Sentence Review Commission yesterday after applying for early release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
It is understood he has been relocated to begin a new life in Britain.
Barrett had served nearly three years in Maghaberry prison after pleading guilty to murdering Mr Finucane, who was shot 14 times in his family home in north Belfast by a gang of UDA gunmen.
An investigation by metropolitan police commissioner, John Stevens, confirmed that several gang members were paid agents of British intelligence agencies, including the notorious Force Research Unit.
Barrett dramatically changed his plea to guilty during the last week of his trial at Belfast Crown Court in September 2004. He was jailed for a minimum of 22 years for a series of offences, including murder and attempted murder.
Belfast Sinn Féin councillor Alex Maskey was targeted by the UDA triggerman in June 1988 while he was having a meal at an Antrim Road hotel – one year before Mr Finucane’s murder.
Another British agent – Shankill Road intelligence officer Brian Nelson – contacted Barrett and told him of the Sinn Féin man’s location. By the time Barrett arrived at the hotel, Mr Maskey had already left.
In 1992 Nelson pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to ten years, after being exposed as a British agent by the Steven’s inquiry team in 1990.
Mr Maskey said Nelson – who was also involved in Mr Finucane’s murder – had been released under similar circumstances to Barrett. He told Daily Ireland that Barrett’s release had been a “further act of collusion” and that the British agent had been given a generous relocation package in exchange for his silence on the extent of the state’s nefarious activities.
Mr Maskey said: “Nelson had also changed his plea to guilty in the last stages of his trial and was released during the late 1990s. He was relocated and was given a substantial financial package.
“There is no reason to believe that Barrett hasn’t been given the same treatment.”
Daily Ireland May 24 2006
Comments (12 of 12)
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Continual demands for an equiry into the deaths of Finucane and Nelson by groupings associated with the Provisionals, have created a hierarchy of grief, where those from middle class professional backgrounds can demand and get an inquiry into their deaths, while those from working class backgrounds are ignored.
If there are to be enquiries lets have one into the 3,500 deaths, whilst their is no doubt that there was British / lLoyalist collusion in many deaths there was also British / Provisional collusion in as many more.
The British State has been running the war since the creation of the Provisionals and have controlled all the military groupings particularly the Provisionals.
Many young volunteers and residents of republican areas have been left with a bag over their head on a border road by the Provisionals internal security unit and their families have been ostracised because of an informer label, lets have a public inquiry into those deaths.
Too true, we need to now more about Scap's rule in the death of informers. Just how many might have been innocent we might never know, but we need to end the Provo's silence on this.
You would be hard put to find a contribution equal in gibberish content to Malachy Steenson’s above (and that of his aptly named sidekick, Mr Willy Nilly, with his ‘innocent’ and ‘important’ question).
Only a complete and utter crackpot could have the nerve to write with (presumably) a straight face:
“The British State has been running the war since the creation of the Provisionals and have controlled all the military groupings particularly the Provisionals.”
What is more galling is that Mr Steenson thinks that his is some kind of right-on PC ‘left’ comment. Anyone who thinks that the focus on the killing of Pat Finnucane is due to his ‘middle class’ status is brain dead from the point of view of democratic, never mind republican, politics. The focus on Finucane comes mainly from his family and they have had to fight all the way to get it on the media and public agenda. It is a perfect expression of the relationship between unionist killers, British Military Intelligence and the RUC Special Branch. Ken Barret was a protected and promoted agent of British forces, so valued that an RUC detractive was set up for assassination for refusing to back off investigating his and his associate’s activities. The British have resisted the truth by every ordinary and extraordinary means possible.
“Lets have a public inquiry into those deaths”, says Malachy, referring to deaths he ascribes to ”the Provisionals”. I’m sure Michael McDowell and the British would be more than happy to oblige Malachy on that. It would really take attention away from state assassinations and the agents employed to carry them out. What a god-send that would be. The outcome would be: ‘Ah sure, everyone was at it and the Brits were best at it of all, and sure wasn't it terrible what the provos did, somebody had to stop them and HMG was brave enough to stand in their way'.
Steenson’s contribution is a perfect expression of what happens to conspiracy wonks who have their heads turned by convoluted disinformation theories happily spread by all the usual media and unusual internet outlets.
Luckily, in the real world, no one (apart perhaps from Willie Frazer’s crowd) campaigning on these issues will pay the slightest attention to such diversionary nonsense.
I have no difficulty in writing and maintaining a straight face, I don't feel the need to parrot the party line, the facts speak for themselves
Dick Stensland states that
"It is a perfect expression of the relationship between unionist killers, British Military Intelligence and the RUC Special Branch. Ken Barret was a protected and promoted agent of British forces"
What was Freddie Scapattici, Denis Donaldson and others if the were not protected and promoted agents of British Forces,
Dick would want to come into the real world
The British originated, directed and ran the unionist paramilitaries.
British imperialism has infiltrated and run agents and informers in the republican tradition since 1798.
Anyone who puts an equal sign between those two things is a crackpot.
-When a State moves to murder its own citizens- .
Having in my online Diary raised the issue of the brutal murder of children including that of Brian Stewart by the state - http://davycarlin.allotherplaces.org/?m=200602
Then that brutal murder of Big Andy Kearny by the Provos – {West Belfast series} –
http://www.phoblacht.net/partfivedc.html
and other murders, I have raised such simply because they should be raised.
This, not in the process of a ‘balancing act, or to get at ‘one side or other, but simply in the call for, and the cause of, truth and justice.
Yet in doing so, I believe, the ‘primacy of focus’, wherein when a state has moved to murder its own citizens as also in the case of Pat Finucane - then that is where the ‘primacy of focus should be.
This, not because of any ‘hierarchy, but simply as the collusion was so ‘absolute - and the cover up so ‘violently intense, - that the state, right to the top still wishes to prevent the truth coming out, from such obvious Collusion.
Why, because the Collusion was indeed ‘complete and absolute - and went both within all fabric of the ‘controlled state, and to its very top.
Yet this is the very state that we are told 'upholds the law within a 'democratic society and has rules that 'ALL must obey within such -
-Indeed -
As I stated before, the lack of uproar as when evidence comes out step by step, at the depth of such collusion not only speaks volumes about many aspects of the media and Irish Governance, but it gives succour to those very people who wish to dig in deeper to attempt to bury the truth of the murder of its own citizens and its role within such – there is no ifs or buts about that.
Men, women and children were murdered, indeed those who I had known, and collusion in such murder and indeed in such cover up went deep.
Therefore as in the case of Pat Finucane - when the issue of Collusion and the evidence of such are so ‘clear cut and absolute – and we see, still, the state digging in to prevent the truth. Then it simply re- enforces the ‘reality of the Collusion and how far it went, and goes – as even now with the ‘War over, the cover up to prevent such truth still goes to the very top.
Pat Finucane was murdered by a British agent, the weapon to kill him was provided by another British agent, the intelligence for the murder carried out by another British agent, and the leader of the ‘Group was yet another British agent.
Authorised – Planned – Targeted – weaponry provided and murdered by those working for the British state = DIRECTED
Indeed, as like many others it was a case of a State having moved to murder its own Citizen with now seeing that same state moving again to prevent the truth emerge of its murder of a citizen.
Indeed as one fights for the truth and for justice of those ‘closet to one self, I Understand how important it is to support the family of Pat Finucane in their journey and seeking of the acknowledgement of truth.
Therefore I also believe that all who stand for democracy and justice {whatever differences they may have with others} should do no different.
Davy
There is clearly a hierachy of grief on all sides.
As a Republican opposed to British involvement in Ireland I do not find it strange or unusual
that the Brits would kill those opposed to them, and use their agents in all groupings to carry out
their will. Since the inception of this state both governments have conspired to and condoned the
murder of many citizens.
Where is the difference between Barrett and Scapattici
Malachy
See Bonkers (2)
-As I stated 'primacy of focus' due to the 'absolute 'public evidence in the Murder of another – with no less than four state agents involved in the murder, some admitting to their role in the murder – while employed by the British Government.
I have no doubt others did similar but the visible evidence to attempt to hold the state to account is there for all to see in this case – indeed, as stated, i believe that it is absolute – no ifs, no buts, no guess work.
In addition -
and
- in relation to the also brutal murder of an innocent, relative, I leave you with my mum- in- laws words, who speaks on the murder of her young brother who was but a child at the time –
Indeed a thought that many hold -
‘I believe that all life is sacred. If however, you choose to be a combatant you do so understanding the consequences may incur you being responsible for taking someone’s life or indeed losing your own. In the hierarchy of victims I believe the innocent murdered civilians must be taken into consideration first'.
-Indeed, maybe you do not support that statement, as is your right - but nevertheless many do - including many 'who have lost loved ones during the conflict. D
Collusion went to the very heart of the state, indeed as I stated it went into every fabric of it.
Yet as I start to read back at ‘Southern based daily editorials, columnists, commentators etc, over that period, I see in many quarters a complete mis - representation of the ‘conflict.
Indeed as my understanding firms up on many issues and I am able to better articulate such in writing and word, I believe it important to raise such points.
As a child I know, through living it, of the sheer brutality being dished out to innocents and bystanders alike.
This from - the ’Minor’- which, for example, had seen a relative coming home from work and set upon by paratroopers who left him for dead, for no other reason other than he was in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time {and that beating affected him his entire life}.Through to myself who had raised two fingers at cops who had called out to me that I was a ‘Nigger Mongrel’ and who then beat me so bad – around the head - as a pre - teen child – that I was hospitalised for several days {I did not tell my parents at the time, as to what happened to me, in fear of them saying something and thus them being attacked, again, for speaking up for me - although they eventually came to realise though, as first came the nightmares -and then the fits and convulsions.}
Then for fun the ‘odd Brit would attempt to get me to Lick his Boots, as was the situation in the then show Roots, -‘Hey, boy. Boy, lick my boots’.
That was funny for some – ‘law enforcers and ‘up holders – indeed
Then for other fun – for some – it was to go into and wreck your home and then when patched up with what very little one had, to come back and wreck it again – and laugh while doing it, - simply because your relatives had tried to stop the attacks on oneself.
Then there was the smashed faces of innocent men, women and at times children with riffle butts as the Brits went into a frenzy - or the shooting dead of pet dogs, simply for barking when they ‘smelt them around
Then of course we moved to seeing the murder of innocent women, children, friends, and now relatives alike, and then to the courts, and so the cover ups and collusion and no justice for the innocent.
And just for measure and for seeking justice for the murder of innocent children, to see then their grieving relatives harassed, beat, and taunted by such law enforcers over the death of a child - indeed.
Indeed the law enforcers and up holders dishing out hatred and brutality to the innocent, the law enforcers and up holders murdering their own citizens, their courts allowing no justice, and the follow up of the taunts and brutality dished out simply for seeking justice for innocent children etc.
And of course if one goes back to the burning of homes as the law enforcers and up holders stood back and on many an occasion joined in. Then of course there was the utter discrimination, gerrymandering and poverty towards such areas where we had to eek out an existence - because of the 'democratic will of the law makers - democracy - indeed.
Indeed every aspect of the law makers and law enforces society brutalising, murdering, discriminating against, and affording no justice to innocents.
Indeed many 'lawful citizens, had sought justice, even through the courts of such a state, but were rewarded with still more injustice and brutality.
Therefore what was to be done, – well those living in leafy suburbia or those penning from afar, or those with a set agenda, I am seeing had seen the situation, in many cases through the eyes of the state and their propaganda.
Indeed the state, those who uphold the law and all their associated - had allowed no justice, brutalised, traumatised, murdered, covered up – and much more to many many of ‘their innocent civilians living in the heart of such working class areas and outside them, in part.
This as we where 'All' tarred as ‘ evil Republicans, as 'hooligans and 'lawbreakers - something that could not be further from the truth, but was regurgitated as truth by many such who 'penned.
Yet even when I had joined the SWP, in the late 90’s and had lent support to lawful marches , I had seen myself walking along on my way home -with the back door of a police jeep being swung open and cops with machine guns on their laps saying hi ‘BOY {that boy word again} we are watching you’. Indeed more intimidation more threats, even then, even with the ‘peace process, in swing -simply for going on March.
As had happened on various occassions to my partner and I at the time
And such, in part continues -
The list goes on and on of the injustices dished out to the innocent by the very state who many had written about who were ‘up holding ‘justice.
Indeed it seems that their hatred for Republicans was so immense that their blinkers only allowed one track vision.
Indeed while they did so, the state continued with their brutality on the innocents in the full knowledge that little such would be covered, and if it did – well they could be tarred {again with the help of such columnists, editorials etc {as simply Republican sympathisers}.
And while, as I continue to read back, I have found that, while many swallowed the state lines on every occassion, there though where and still are some who stood firm, questioned, sought out the reality, and if found, then spoke out - against injustice ‘wherever it came from.
Indeed such persons sought out the reality and did not attempt to create a reality, either for self gain or for state friendship.
And it is to those – that I hold much respect for – as I continue to read back
This because - Injustice is Injustice is Injustice -
And some were prepared to stand firm and speak out in that regard - at the hardest times.
Respect -
- Signing off - D
Attached is a relevant link to read with the above
Article I had written is entitled 'the Balancing act.
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