Interesting top story this morning on BBC Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster’s ‘Good Morning Ulster’ (no dodging that ‘Ulster’ in the BBC). It concerned Kieran Doherty, a Real IRA member who was shot dead and his body dumped by his own colleagues. The PSNI, using MI5 evidence, claimed that he was also involved in drug-peddling and that his family should not be entitled to compensation for his death. It now emerges that the PSNI/MI5 claims didn’t stand up and Doherty’s family has been awarded an undisclosed but substantial sum in compensation for his death. This, even though the original sum had been cut in half because he was a member of the Real IRA. This has vexed the UUP ex-leader Tom Elliott, who points to the much smaller sums paid to relatives of the security forces who lost their lives.
Mmm. Let’s consider that last bit. Would it not make more sense to make enlarged awards to the relatives of security force people, if Tom or others feel they have been inadequately compensated? No matter how much or how little Doherty’s family gets, the security forces relatives will still have what they were given. The compensation sum paid to Doherty’s family doesn’t add or subtract a penny from what security forces’ families were paid.
Then there’s that thing of cutting the compensation to Doherty’s family by fifty per cent. As Doherty’s uncle argued on the radio this morning, Doherty’s relatives are innocent victims – regardless of what Doherty did, their grief is just as real. So if it is, compensation seems reasonable. Is someone saying the Doherty family’s grief is just 50% of normal grief? What daft reasoning.
Finally and most important: I was under the impression that lying in relation to evidence in such a case was a very serious matter – the kind of thing you could go to prison for. It seems quite clear that the PSNI/MI5 cooked up some spurious story about drug-dealing that in reality was a pack of lies, in order to discredit Doherty. Yet Raido Uladh/Radio Ulster had no mention that this attempt to falsify the case might be punished. If you or I went into court and gave evidence that proved to be a pack of lies, we’d be done for perjury. It’d appear that the PSNI and MI5 can play fast and loose with truth and the notion of penalising them simply doesn’t arise.
Has somebody taken the blind-fold off Justice and forgot to tell the rest of us?
Alex Carlile investigated the case and did not find any evidence of wrong doing by MI5 or the police. Where is Jude Collins evidence?
Much more like it, Jude. Rile them up!!!
What is the calibre of politicians like Tom Elliot that when such derisory sums of compensation were paid to families of his fallen constituents and comrades he did nothing, said nothing and only brings it up in an attempt to minimise the compensation of another, and of course we’re moving into election mode aren’t we.
Madraj55….’no dodging that ‘Ulster’ at the BBC’ I’m not in the least surprised at the lying that PSNI/MI5 got away with throughout the last 45 years, and not surprised at either BBC or UTV letting them off. Wasn’t the BBC Radio four NI [Home Service]renamed RU following their UDA sponsored programmes during the UDA/UWC strike, the previous summer?
Kieran Doherty: is it OK for the PSNI/MI5 to lie about him? No it is not; it erodes confidence in law enforcement and proves the current system is broken beyond repair.
Paul Quinn: is it OK for Sinn Fein to blacken his name? No it is not; it erodes faith in the political system and suggests the political classes only care about preserving their own positions at the expense of people in their constituencies. Eventually it will lead to them being kicked out on their asses and not before time!
Who murdered Charles Bennett, Robert McCartney & Joe O Connor for that matter? Where is the justice in these cases? Well it looks like those who murdered them have ‘carte blanche’ to commit murder, a ‘licence to kill’, if you will.
So what is the net effect of this kakistocracy?
Certain people in Northern Ireland don’t have to obey the law and don’t go to jail for directing or cheerleading serial murder purely because they are in the Castle, Happy Valley or both pissing out!
Why should we worry about it? As things get tighter and the NI Assembly comes under increasing pressure, those directing these ‘wet work’ teams may target journalists, activists and even citizens groups as they have in the past. Who knows they may even target semi-celebrity status propagandists? Which would also be wrong, by the way!
Just because the state or any organization designated Kieran an enemy doesn’t make it true that is what due process is for. What we have at the moment is the equivalent of ‘blood libel’. People who spin for a living like spin doctors and intelligence agents slander a victim, the newspapers echo that ‘narrative’ or ‘line’ and we all carry on grazing until our turn comes, like the good little sheep we are.
If a process can be used against some individual or group today it can be used against anyone tomorrow. People can also be falsely identified with a group they don’t belong to in order to cover someone else, as in the case of Francisco Notarantonio.
So I guess if it is alright for Kieran today then we set a precedent where it’s alright for us tomorrow, don’t we?