Allister lodges complaint against McGuinness
25 February 2008
Statement by Traditional Unionist MEP Jim Allister:
In light of the latest controversy surrounding Martin McGuinness, Traditional Unionist MEP has revealed that he has written to the Chief Constable in the following terms:-
Dear Chief Constable
Re: Martin McGuinness
I refer you to a statement by Peter Lilley MP in the House of Commons on 13 December 2001 when he alleged Martin McGuinness had admitted to him having had a dozen informers killed.
The Official record states as follows:-
Mr. Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden): To inform the debate on access to the House, will the Leader of the House make available the information about the terrorist activities of the Members concerned? At least one of them, Martin McGuinness, was to my personal knowledge the commandant of the IRA in Londonderry. I interviewed him when he was in that capacity and, during the interview, he told me that he had had a dozen Catholic informers killed. If he has, indeed, put that bloody past behind him and now believes that constitutional change should come about only by operating within the constitution, is not the appropriate test that he takes the Oath?
Did the police conduct any investigation into this apparent admission to serious criminal offences by McGuinness, particularly since the admissions were to a competent and compellable witness and admissible in evidence, as demonstrated by the case of and conviction in R-v-Clifford McKeown in Belfast Crown Court on foot of his admissions to a journalist?
If no such investigation was conducted I now formally request the same and invite you to consider this letter as a formal complaint against McGuinness.
Yours sincerely,
James H Allister QC MEP
Commenting on William McCrea seeking investigation from the Assembly, Mr Allister said, "William McCrea, if he's really concerned about these issues, should be asking his Party Leader why he voluntarily continues to be politically joined at the hip with such a person and he might ask himself why at both DUP Officer and Executive level he voted to go into government with McGuinness and his IRA/Sinn Fein. Protests for the optics are a very poor substitute for real action to remove McGuinness and his ilk from office. I encourage William to now publicly withdraw his support from the present regime."
