Paul O'Connor, a well-known human rights campaigner, is the projects coordinator for the Derry-based Pat Finucane Centre. The centre is named in memory of Pat Finucane, a human rights lawyer from Belfast who was murdered in front of his wife and children on February 12, 1989 by the pro-British paramilitary Ulster Defence Association. Finucane had successfully challenged the British government over several important human rights cases.
The centre has been boosted by recent rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, in the cases of Jordan v UK, Shanaghan v UK, Kelly and Others v UK and McKerr v UK, which found in favour of families' demands for an adequate investigation into the deaths of their loved ones.
All four cases involve attempts by British authorities to cover up killings by security forces. Pearse Jordan was killed in an undercover Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) "shoot-to-kill" operation in November 1992, Patrick Shanaghan was killed in August 1991 by the paramilitary Ulster Freedom Fighters, allegedly with police collusion, Patrick Kelly and seven others were Irish Republican Army volunteers killed by the SAS in a May 1989 ambush at Loughgall, while Gervaise McKerr was killed in November 1982, in one of the first RUC "shoot-to-kill" operations.
O'Connor has worked tirelessly on behalf of those who have lost loved ones to state violence in Ireland. He discusses some of these campaigns, as well as recent developments on the human rights front, with STUART ROSS.
Some of the most important developments of late have been the four recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. Can you tell us more about these rulings?
What they were, basically, were a number of test cases that were taken to Europe challenging Article 2 of the European Convention [on Human Rights]. Article 2 is the so-called "right to life" convention which not only guarantees the right to life but also, under those circumstances when a state takes life, that article guarantees the rights of families to a fair investigation into the killing of their loved one.
Essentially what has been done is that a number of families have used that convention to challenge the British government on not only its denial of the right to life, but on its denial of a fair investigation into their loved ones' deaths. These test cases were brought in order to demonstrate that, in fact, this is part of a much greater and much broader picture.
In terms of your work at the centre, why might this ruling be so important?
It affects our work in the sense that — for the first time — there now appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel for a number of cases that we have been campaigning on for some time.
We've been trying to force the British government into some kind of response vis-a-vis the families. Thus far the British have been giving us the three monkeys' job of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" and simply not responding to our demands. These judgements are very much going to change the nature of right-to-truth campaigns in the future.
One might argue that these would have been the types of case that Pat Finucane would have taken on had he not been murdered. Can you bring us up to date on the Finucane case?
Before I do so, I should say that Pat did take one of them. Pat represented Gervaise McKerr's widow at [her husband's] inquest. He forced those members of the RUC who actually murdered him to attend. This caused great anger within the RUC at the time — eventually they changed the ruling [and the RUC weren't compelled to give evidence].
Where his case is at the moment is, well, in recent weeks there have been some fairly substantial admissions made regarding Pat's murder. Basically a retired RUC officer named Jonty Brown has said that he was present when an interview was done with the self-confessed triggerman in the murder.
The man made a full admission at the time and [RUC] Special Branch had taped the admission. They were fully aware of the implications of [the admission] but chose to bury it — to destroy the tape and ensure that the investigation was not followed up.
We also know that the Special Branch officer who was involved in burying this was, in fact, William Stobie's handler within Special Branch. [William Stobie was an RUC informer and the UDA quartermaster. Thus far, he is the only person who has been charged in relation to Finucane's murder.]
So the two trails from the murder scene at Pat Finucane's home lead clearly to army HQ and the activities of the Force Research Unit and to RUC HQ and the activities of the Special Branch. And the longer that they stall in setting up a fully independent judicial inquiry into the activities of these organisations, the more will come out in leaks — it's just simply not going to go away.
What about the case of Peter McBride, the teenager shot dead by Scots Guard in 1993?
[That case is] in the middle of a judicial review — it's once again at Belfast High Court and we're awaiting another decision from the judge.
There will be another hearing on June 25 and our hope is that we would have a decision in the next couple of months. Obviously, what we're fighting for is that [Justice Kerr] would overturn the second Army Board's decision to retain the two [Scots Guards found guilty of Peter McBride's murder.]
Meanwhile, there is quite a lot of activity going on "on the ground" in Germany to raise the fact that the two [soldiers] are based there. Of course, that is a source of some embarrassment to the German government.
So on some levels, things are looking up. Any thoughts as to what the immediate future holds?
It's almost impossible to say with certainty, because the implications of the European judgements are so massive. And remember, those aren't just implications for relations between Irish and British people — they will actually have great implications for the entire European community.
In the future, we won't have to go to the European Court of Human Rights to utilise the force of those judgements — those judgements are now law in the Belfast High Court.
I don't think any of us have worked out the full implications of this. There are a number of urgent meetings going on amongst various [human rights] groups and relatives groups to see what is the best way to move forward with all of this. It is quite clear that it has to be done in some collective way. There is no sense in people do things individually without cooperating with others. All of this is going to have profound consequences over the next three to five years.
[For more information about the Pat Finucane Centre, visit its web site at <http://www.serve.com/pfc>.]