NI: 14th Intelligence Company
01 July 2003
The role of one of the British Army's undercover unit in the killing of three men robbing a bookmakers' shop in Belfast's Falls Road on 13 January 1990, is described in detail in a new pamphlet. Published to coincide with the inquest into the three deaths, the pamphlet shows how 14th Intelligence Company, a surveillance unit, which usually leaves "executive action" to the SAS, misinformed the RUC and the government on at least eight points over the incident. The Secretary of State at the time, Sir Peter Brooke, stated in the Commons that members of the unit had stumbled across the robbery by chance. They had seen two armed and hooded men leave a car and enter a shop. Following the incident, he said, the soldiers had difficulty leaving the scene because a crowd and black taxis began to block the road - invoking images of the infamous two corporals killing. In fact four men were involved in the robbery, one of whom survived and whose statement, along with those of other eye-witnesses, contradicted the official military version of events on many points.
The pamphlet argues that the calculated ferocity of the killings suggests that the shootings did not arise by accident. One theory is that the robbers had been under surveillance for some time and that they were eliminated because they came to have possession of intelligence documents which included large-scale maps of West Belfast with particular houses marked with numerical codes. The documents plus two weapons had been stolen from a car belonging to 14th Intelligence Company by joyriders and then sold to the gang which eventually carried out the robbery. Military intelligence may have believed that the documentation was passed on the IRA or had been studied closely by the robbers. The surviving member of the gang, however, claims that the documents were destroyed because they could see no use for them.
The inquest into the killings began in April but was immediately stalled by legal argument over the Secretary of State's issuing of a public interest immunity (Pii) certificate (see Statewatch, vol 3 no 3). "National security" allows the issue of a Pii certificate which typically applies to the concealment of documentation or oral evidence relating to documentation. But on this occasion the Pii referred to no documents, effectively providing a blanket ban on oral evidence by soldiers. The Pii also invoked the screening of witnesses. The coroner, John Leckey, clearly disapproved of this attempt by the Ministry of Defence to widen the use of Pii's and ruled that the certificate was issued on invalid grounds - the undercover soldiers would have to appear and give evidence in open court. The Ministry of Defence took the case to the High Court which quashed the coroner's decision in early July. For further information about Pre-inquest statement on the killings at Sean Graham's Bookmakers on the Falls Road in January 1990 contact the Committee on the Administration of Justice on 0232-232394.