A Trilogy of Shame, Deception and Cover Up - TUV comments on Claudy Report
24 August 2010
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister QC:-
“Whereas the overriding event, in terms of its sheer vileness and butchery, was the IRA’s murderous bombing of Claudy, the Ombudsman’s Report reveals a staggering trilogy of shame, deception and cover up reaching to the heart of the Roman Catholic Church and government, both at Westminster and Stormont.
“For all its piety and protestations that ‘murder is murder’ it is now clear the Catholic Church, in order to protect an IRA priest, was complicit in covering up mass murder in Claudy. Whitelaw aided and abetted the whitewash, leaving a stain on HMG which still cries out for apology and contrition. Though the culpable Westminster politicians are gone, right at the heart of the DUP/Sinn Fein coalition in Stormont sits an IRA Commander who to this day protects the Claudy bombers and insults the intelligence of us all by denying knowledge which inevitably came with his high ranking terrorist command.
“Machine Gun McGuinness could bring justice to the victims of Claudy but as ever his so-called ‘republican code of honour’ is paramount. The fact that such a wicked man can sit in the highest office in our land is an indictment of the Belfast Agreement system which guarantees his place and the DUP who put and sustain him there.
“Gregory Campbell can rightly excoriate the IRA murderers of Claudy and all who covered up for them, but it all rings rather hollow when, daily, he sustains at the head of his government one of those he identifies as perverting the course of justice over these heinous crimes.
“Bringing the surviving Claudy bombers to justice is still a necessity, but in addition, despite the passage of time, the PSNI should now launch a no holes barred investigation into the perversion of the course of justice, targeting the Roman Catholic Church, Government and the Sinn Fein leadership. Instead, I fear, we will again see that justice for innocent victims is secondary to protecting the guilty, because their exposure would destabilise the process built and sustained on rewarding terrorism.”
