Good Friday Agreement put on trial in a Diplock Court

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Wednesday October 06, 2010 16:37 by Free Gerry - Justice for Gerry McGeough brian.halpin at hotmail dot com

The case can only be described as an attempt by British securocrats to put the Good Friday Agreement on trial through the Diplock Courts. Former Loyalist combatants have given evidence to this effect exposing the case as anti-peace process. They stated that the British government through Mo Mowlam gave a verbal guarantee on a number of occasions that no republican or loyalist would face legal proceedings for offences pre 1998.

By Brian Halpin
Gerry McGeough from Tyrone is a former political prisoner. He served time in Germany and the US in the 1990’s. He is an ex Ard Comhairle member of Sinn Féin. In 2007 he stood as an independent republican candidate in the assembly elections and was dramatically arrested outside the count centre in Omagh in March of that year.

Vincent McAnespie is married to Brenda McAnespie, a Sinn Féin councillor for Monaghan. He was arrested a short time after Gerry McGeough at his family home in Aughnacloy, Co. Tyrone. Vincent’s brother Aiden was murdered by a British soldier in 1988 while he was on his way to a football game in Monaghan.

After a 3 ½ year delay the trial resumed on 13th September 2010. Gerry McGeough is charged with membership of the IRA in 1975 and the attempted murder of ex-UDR soldier and current DUP councillor Sammy Brush. Vincent McAnespie is facing charges relating to the possession of weapons for that shooting.

Bringing this case at all is against the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. In addition the British have used an application by Gerry McGeough to Sweden for political asylum as evidence against him – in violation of his right that such information be kept secret from third parties for 50 years

The case can only be described as an attempt by British securocrats to put the Good Friday Agreement on trial through the Diplock Courts. Former Loyalist combatants have given evidence to this effect exposing the case as anti-peace process. They stated that the British government through Mo Mowlam gave a verbal guarantee on a number of occasions that no republican or loyalist would face legal proceedings for offences pre 1998.

This type of political policing is totally unacceptable to republicans, who are determined to bring an end to British injustice in Ireland. Non political policing is an integral part of the peace process.