State Violence (8 page)
Authors: Raymond Murray
Tags: #Europe, #Ireland, #General, #History, #Political Science, #Human Rights, #Political Freedom & Security, #british intelligence, #Political prisoners, #Civil Rights, #Politics and government, #collusion, #IRA, #State Violence, #Great Britain, #paramilitaries, #Northern Ireland, #British Security forces, #loyalist, #Political persecution, #1969-1994
The game we are playing is a different one. We know â the aunt, the girlfriend, father, mate, priest and solicitor â that our accused is an innocent man and we think that it will be a great compliment to the court to bring ourselves to it as human furnishings, because all the emphasis is on furnishing. One lawyer grunts in the van, âThis court has all the incidentals down to the last detail. In fact half the courts in the country have not had the expense and detail of court trappings as this one has. It lacks only the essence of a court'. âBut', I remark, âhow can judges and lawyers go through with this? Have they no professional shame?' âMy dear boy,' he says, âthey are Englishmen and you are a Hottentot'.
And true enough, when we disembark and go in, one is amazed at the beauty of the Nissen hut interior, beautifully painted, carpeted, separate rooms for lawyers and witnesses.
It is 10.30am. But it is an hour and more before any of us are called as witnesses. There has been much reminiscing about the beloved internee. His mate and girlfriend devour cigarettes. His aunt is womanly silent. I keep on building up their hopes, but not overdoing it. One poor internee was turned down at the first sitting of the appeal court the day before (and those who know him know how innocent and unfortunate he is). So today our lad stands a chance. Yesterday it was shown that the appeal isn't just a formality by not releasing the internee. Today just might be the day it isn't a formality by granting a release. But if our lad is released, even in this buffoon court, none of us are going to argue, because he will be going to his home that was lonely without him and his girlfriend will now plan her marriage. His mate will no longer go around like a lost dog. His father and aunt have prayed for fifteen months and have suffered. The father keeps mumbling of his release, âI can't see it'. I try to reassure him.
Two policewomen and a policeman sit at the other end of the waiting-room. There is just that difference hanging in the air but it doesn't prevent an odd loud groan from the witnesses on the injustice of internment. There was a time in Northern Ireland when you wouldn't even have heard that groan. All are nervous about being called in. People have never been through this before. At last the bearded clerk comes in and takes out the first witness. And so the five of us are called in turn, his intimate friends, all rooting for him. As witnesses we go and come back as if we had been led to the slaughter.
My own turn comes. Into the corridor I go, at the top a small door marked âPrivate'. It reminds me somewhat of the atmosphere below deck in a submarine.
The clerk is mumbling something, whether I have any objection to the James Bible. Two things flash through my mind â how strange in these ecumenical days, and should I quip âJames the Second?' On the exterior I reassure him. I am going to be nice and grovel if that means the release of an innocent man.
The door opens. I enter the court-room. It seems very bright and is slashed with royal blue and scarlet curtains. I am instantly greeted by a dozen murmurs. The accused is seated. He reminds me of Christ, patient and forbearing. A look of suffering.
The swearing. I have already made a statement for the solicitor. He just runs me through it in question form. I answer the questions a little more elaborately. I know the shorthand is at work and the tape recorder. A testimony to the good character and good behaviour of a friend. The defence solicitor is at my right at a desk. The prosecutor is seated opposite. The prosecutor questions me â going back to the day of internment, was I surprised he was taken? would I accept his word? I would. Any more questions? I take my first good look at the tribunal. They are all smiling. All three grey grave men. The Irish traditional saying to beware of the smile of an Englishman tempts my good will. But they are still smiling. Is the adage true? I feel as if I would like to hear the rest of the proceedings but I have to leave.
It is one o'clock. We await the verdict in the waiting-room. The solicitor comes in. âCourt adjourned until two o'clock. We can go to a canteen'. Another long hour of waiting but, if the tribunal has a working lunch, we console ourselves that the adjournment is a good sign. It all fits into the serious trappings of the show.
The court has been an extraordinary affair. The prosecutor can not open up the prosecution case too much because then he would reveal the secrecy of some of the RUC Special Branch officers' testimony and this he cannot do. The defence lawyer is shadow-boxing too because he is not aware of all that he is supposed to defend, except that he knows his client is innocent and it is hard to prove that an innocent man is innocent. Our solicitor is very competent and so he shadow-boxes until the tribunal fixes on something that might at first seem a minor detail but it is something to go on and is soon torn asunder by legal ingenuity. All hypnotise themselves into a real court. There has been no precedent in this kind of court proceedings of appeal. The learned tribunal feels its way.
We are back at two o'clock. Twenty minutes later the respondent enters the waiting-room. âI am released'. Smiles and tears.
My appearance at the tribunal hearing of Brian Rafferty culminated in an attack on my character from the âprosecutor'. Reference was made to my campaign against the ill-treatment of detainees in RUC interrogation centres and RUC barracks. I then wrote to the Rt Hon. Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State, on 6 July 1974:
Dear Mr Rees,
On 13 June, 1974, I went to the Maze Prison, Long Kesh Camp, as a witness in the Tribunal Hearing of Mr B. J. Rafferty, Armagh. I have serious reservations regarding the morality and legality in international law of these tribunals. This you know from the pamphlet
Whitelaw's Tribunals
which was forwarded to you when you were an MP in opposition. Yet Armagh priests, Fr Malachy Coyle, Fr Peter Makem and myself, all of Armagh Parish, have participated to help wives and families.
The 13 June, 1974, was my third appearance as a witness in the Tribunal. I was put into an embarrassing position by the prosecutor and the commissioner. It is my opinion that the prosecutor set out to smear and discredit me with the allegation of association with the guilt of men taking part in illegal activities. He presumed such guilt on the part of all Catholics for whom I have made representations and who were arrested in Armagh City. It appears to me that he could only have attacked me on the calumniatory information supplied by the police in Armagh to discredit me as a character witness.
The commissioner astonished me by his lack of objectivity, presuming the accuracy of what might well be fictitious informers. It appears to me that he tried to get me to support the immorality of what he was doing. I was astounded at his lack of objectivity. I did not realise that the prisoner had such a poor chance. His remark that the prisoner had refused to come to the tribunal initially and therefore was an IRA man was ridiculous.
Mr Lennon, the solicitor, said he would not expose me again to such a tribunal. I wish your department to furnish me with a transcript of my interrogation, which I wish to forward to the Lord Chancellor. I am also making a report to the International Commission of Jurists.
The reply came on 24 July 1974 from Mr Rees' private secretary, A. Huckle, Northern Ireland Office, Stormont Castle, Belfast.
Dear Father Murray,
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your letter of 6th July in which you referred to the review by a Commissioner of the case of Mr B. J. Rafferty, who is a detainee in H. M. Prison, Maze.
Although Commissioners are appointed by the Secretary of State they act quite independently and regulate their own procedure in accordance with the provisions of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1973. You will appreciate, therefore, that the Secretary of State is unable to comment on your criticisms of the conduct of Mr Rafferty's review hearing in which you participated as a witness. Finally, you asked for a transcript of your cross-examination but I regret that it is not possible to provide this.
Little flies, quivering and shaking with the wind gusts,
I look at the biological detail
of your wings.
Lightsome bloodless corpses,
glittering,
fluttering,
slightly caught on the silent strings
of the iron web,
mesh of grey, distorted vision.
Invisible men â
your escape is wider
wider than another day.
Raymond Murray, 1974
In memory of those who died in Long Kesh â Patrick Crawford, Francis Dodds, Ãamonn Campbell, Patrick Teers, Hugh Gerard Coney.
Torture in Girdwood Park Barracks, 1971-72
Mgr Denis Faul and I recorded the torture of men in the RUC interrogation centres in the Palace Barracks, Holywood, and in Girdwood Park Barracks, 10 December 1971 â February 1972 in a pamphlet, published in 1972, entitled
British Army and Special Branch RUC Brutalities
. Among the torture methods used in Girdwood Barracks, Belfast, was the use of electric shocks. Patrick Fitzsimmons, John Moore and William Johnston of Belfast related their experience to me in Armagh Prison. Patrick Fitzsimmons had been a celebrated Irish amateur boxer.
I was arrested on Thursday morning at 4.20am, 13 January 1972, in a house in Duncairn Gardens, Belfast. The soldiers came and arrested me and another fella. We were up the stairs. I had no shoes on. They started beating us. I was kicked down the stairs, beaten with batons. I was thrown into the back of a saracen. I was told to stop shouting or else I would get more beatings. I was handcuffed to the other fella. We were beat in the saracen. I gave them my name there.
We went to Girdwood Barracks. We were kicked into the entrance of it. I had been hit in the groin with a rifle butt when arrested. We were still handcuffed. I was made sit in the room. An SLR was put to my head and I was told I was being taken out and shot. I was made to sit in this hall till an army sergeant came in. He asked which one was Fitzsimmons. I replied. He said, âYou are just the little twerp I have been looking for the past two months.' Another fella returned and I was taken away. I was taken down a corridor, three soldiers on each side. They had wooden batons. They beat me as I went down the corridor. We went to the commanding officer. He gave me twenty seconds to give names of my brother and other fellas and where they were staying. When I told them I didn't know they beat me. They took me back up the corridor again. I was beat on the way up. I was put in the toilet. I was beaten with batons and rifles on the back of the neck and the privates. I was brought back down the corridor again, still being beaten by the batons. I was brought before the commanding officer again. I was asked had I thought where they were. I said I didn't know. I was beaten again. I was taken out and made stand against the wall. The sergeant replied, âYou are being taken out to be shot.' Another officer came along. He showed me a photograph. When I said I recognised the photograph they said I was reprieved. I was then taken out to the back and handed over to the âduck squad', the fellas with black soot on their faces. I was beaten up outside and kicked. They put me in the saracen and kicked me in the saracen as it was taking off. There were four soldiers in the saracen with me. We made a lot of circles. I thought I was still in Girdwood.
I was brought round to the interrogation centre. Then stripped of all personal belongings. I was made sit in the cubicles. I was taken out and questioned by the Special Branch for periods, different lengths of time, sometimes half-an-hour, sometimes one and a half hours. The second last one I was brought into a room. The lights were off in the room. I was made sit in a chair. As I made to sit in the chair it was pulled below me. I fell to the floor and the lights went on again. There were three men there with stockings on their faces. The head man says, âif you want to have it easy tell us everything you have done'. When I said I had nothing to tell, I was made stand against the wall, fingers distributed and legs outstretched. I was beaten and kicked in the stomach and privates for about half-an-hour. I was made lie on the floor. My pants and underpants were removed. One put his foot on my throat and the other held my legs. The other one lit matches. He blew them out and then put them to my privates. Then they made a few rude remarks about my wife and made me get up again. They made me stand against the wall again. That was a rest for about fifteen minutes.
Then they took me into another room. They told me not to look around but I saw a man with a green apron and green overalls with a mask like a doctor. He was a big heavy-set man. They made me sit on a chair facing the wall. They blinded my eyes with a cloth. They rubbed my arm with some stuff and I felt a jab in my arm. I felt my head dizzy. Then I thought they were taking my blood pressure for a band was wrapped round my arm. Then I felt an electric shock going through my arm. It got higher and higher and I felt it going through my legs and the rest of my body. I was holding on to the arm of the chair. Another person lifted my arm off the chair. The person who lifted my arm off the chair told me to sit ordinary without holding anything. The shocks went all through my body, down through my feet and all. Then I heard a voice, âI think he has had enough'. The other replied, âElectrocute the bastard'. The things round my eyes and arm were taken off.
I was told not to look around. I was taken into the same room I got the beatings. Made stand against the wall. Punched in the stomach and then the one punching replied, âI have hurted my knuckles on the bastard'. Then they started to kick my stomach. They brought me over an electric fire as I was standing against the wall, fingers outstretched. One says, âAre you too warm?' I never replied. He put it up to the full height. The sweat was running out of me. I was soaking. I said, âThat's it. You can take me out and shoot me. I don't care'. One who said he hurt his knuckles kept on punching me. He was about fifty, a big man, well-made, grey hair. Before this, after he had beaten me and taken the mask off, he said, âYou know I did a bit of boxing myself'. He punched me four times in the face. I says, âI'm down but I would still do you if I was on my own'. I felt a punch on the back of my neck. They threw me out of the room.
A policeman outside linked me into a chair where you sit looking at the wee holes in the wall. When he saw the state I was in, he asked me to go to the toilet and get a drink of water. I came back and was set down on the chair for about two hours. Then a camp bed was brought in, must have been the early hours of Friday morning. I was told to make a camp bed and lie down on it. But a policeman stood over me all night whistling party tunes. He kicked me on the ribs and called me a bastard. I was awake all night. Didn't sleep, the lights were on, and he was standing over me.
Then I was made get up and sit on the chair and then brought out into another interrogation room. A man in his thirties with a beard was questioning me, more a talk. He said I was a Communist. He told me how many men he killed and he thought nothing of shooting me.
I made a statement after the electric shocks but can't remember whether I signed it, don't think I signed anything.
I was examined by five doctors altogether. I was examined by two doctors in Girdwood. One examined me and just went out. Another time after the beatings one examined me in Girdwood. He was worried about my kidney. He made me strip. I was examined by three doctors at Townhall (police station), by my own doctor, Dr Duffy, Duncairn Gardens, by a police doctor, and by the solicitor's doctor.
In the early hours of Friday morning, about 4am, 21 January 1972, I was arrested. The soldiers came into the house. They said they wanted to search the place. I told them to go ahead. They searched the house and brought down five jackets belonging to me and said they were taking them away with them. They told me to get dressed. As soon as I went on the landing, they read a paper saying they were arresting me under the Special Powers Act. They kicked me downstairs into the car park. They said, for my own protection and the protection of those in the âpig', they would have to blindfold me. They put a blindfold on and turned me round a few times. They brought me over and put me into the âpig'. They drove around for about twenty minutes. I thought I was at the
Maidstone
(prison ship in Belfast harbour for detainees). I thought I smelt sea water. The âpig' stopped and I was brought out and put up against the wall. They left me there for about ten or fifteen minutes. They came back about fifteen minutes later and brought me into a building. They set me down on a chair and took my shoes and socks off.
I was brought into a room, still blindfolded. I was facing a voice talking to me. He asked me what I did with the gun. I said I hadn't got the gun. I got kicked on the shin. He repeated it. Same answer. I was kicked on the other shin. Same question again. I was tapped on the head with a baton six or seven times, each time getting harder. I said I never used it. One of them said, âBring in the witness'. They took off the blindfold. They brought the witness in. He asked, âIs this the man you saw from the building site?' âHow many children have you?' I said, âFive'. He said, âDid they know that you are getting eight and ten years for burning a bus, and there will be a long time for shooting at my troops'. I said I didn't do it. He said, âTake him away; you know what to do with him'.
They brought me into another room. I was made sit down in the middle of the floor. They put on my shoes and socks. I was blindfolded again. I put them on. I was brought out again. Put into the âpig'. I was given a couple of digs in the ribs getting into the âpig'. They took me somewhere. I don't know where. Same thing, âWhat did you do with the gun?' and all. I said the same thing. Back into the âpig' again. A voice from the front of the saracen said, âTake the blindfold off him'.
I was brought to Girdwood. As soon as I was put into Girdwood, I was brought into the back into a small hut, different cubicles, small, chairs. I was made sit there. I didn't know what time this was at. I sat in the chair, just looking at wall with holes in it. It was near breakfast time; they were coming in with breakfast for other men lying there. I sat there all day.
Just after supper time, a uniformed person comes in and took me to another chalet. I was interrogated there by âplain clothes'. I took him to be a detective. He said he knew I fired a rifle that day and said I would have to tell him what I did with the rifle. I said I couldn't tell him anything, that I was in the house all day, the child was sick and the doctor was coming. Two more came in and asked questions. Then another two or three. There were six altogether, I think. They told me to stand up against the wall, fingertips, feet well back. After five minutes my fingers were getting numb, tired. Again, âWhat did you do with the gun?' I said I didn't have it. Same again. The tallest stood directly behind me, tall, black blazer, football badge or something on it, wore glasses, greyish sort of hair. He was standing directly behind me chopping my sides with his two hands. There was a young one with a Scotch accent, a beard, gingerish hair, at my left side, one hitting me and then the other. Another one with two hands on my spine was pushing me towards the floor. One detective, about thirty, was sitting on a chair. He was asking where was the gun. I didn't have to go through all this here. I just gave the same answer, I didn't have it. He said, âGive him a rest for a while'. About five minutes. Standing against the wall.
They all came round me again and told me to take off my pants. I had a blue jumper on. They took the jumper and shirt off. I was just in vest and underpants and socks. They started the same again, one at the back and front, punching and kicking all the time. One was still punching me from the back. I said I couldn't help them at all. They put this jumper on me, put it around my head and took me out of the room and marched me next door.
When I walked in there, there were surgeons there, and like an operating table. They had big green cloaks and masks, round hats. They sat me down on a chair beside the table. On the table was a small bottle of stuff, and two syringes with needles, something like dark blue in the small bottle. There were two syringes. I was sitting on a chair. Somebody came from behind and put on a blindfold. Then I heard somebody saying he was going to give me an injection on the arm. He gave me an injection on the right arm, then he tied something round it, then he did something to my fingers, fiddling about with them. Then he says, âAre you going to tell us what you did with the gun?' Then I repeated the same answer, I never had a gun. Then I felt this feeling in my arm, electric shocks, but two given to start off with, not painful, just uncomfortable. Then every time they asked a question, it only kept increasing, got severer and severer. My mouth dried up. I couldn't even talk to them. They asked, âWhat is the matter?' I pointed to my throat. I was going to say, âI'm going to tell yous', but I couldn't talk. They turned it off altogether. I couldn't even feel my arm. They brought over a plastic cup of water and gave it to me to drink. I said, âAll right. I'll tell you what you want to know; I will tell you who fired the rifle'. They took the blindfold off then. One said, âDon't forget this can be put on again'. I told them it was me who fired the rifle, that I was told to go to a certain spot. They let me put on me again.
I was arrested at my girlfriend's house in Ardoyne, Monday morning about 3am, 24 January 1972. and was taken to Tennent Street Police Station and then brought to Girdwood Barracks. I wasn't long in the police station and wasn't touched there.
I was 36 hours in Girdwood Park. They let me sleep there until the next day. I don't know what time, but an hour after going there I was let go to bed. They questioned me the next day, but later on that night (Monday). They started to interrogate me, insulting me, made me take my boots and trousers off. They stood me against the wall, fingers on the wall, feet as far back as I could. One of them chopping me on the sides from behind. The other was hitting me in the stomach. This went on for about an hour or so. Then they put a coat over my head and brought me into the next room. They took the coat off and put on a blindfold. I saw one beside me, tall, dressed in dark green uniform. I thought he was a doctor. But later I knew it was one of those who interrogated me by the sound of his voice. He was wearing a mask and hat like a doctor, dark green. There was a needle there with purple stuff in it. I thought they were going to give me a truth drug. I don't think they gave me the needle. I didn't feel one anyhow. They sat me on a chair. They put a thing on my arm, still blindfold. They gave me electric shocks. I couldn't stand the pain. Then I admitted charges. After they asked me for a lot more information, about my area. I said I didn't know anybody.