BELFAST: Northern Ireland’s chief legal adviser sparked outrage yesterday when he called for an end to prosecutions stemming from the province’s decades of sectarian violence.
The proposal would effectively mean an amnesty for paramilitaries, the police and the British army for deaths, attacks and abuses committed during the ‘Troubles’ — the three decades of bloodshed between Protestants and Catholics in which more than 3,500 people died.
“The time has come to think about putting a line, set at Good Friday 1998 (when peace accords were signed), with respect to prosecutions, inquests and other inquiries,” said Attorney General John Larkin, who advises the devolved administration.
Larkin also said he favoured ruling out further inquests and other state investigations, but his suggestion sparked a wave of condemnation from politicians, rights groups and victims.
The Democratic Unionists, the pro-British party of First Minister Peter Robinson, warned it would set an “extremely dangerous precedent” for paramilitary groups around the world.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also seemed to pour cold water on the idea, saying it would be “dangerous” to block police and prosecutors from doing their job.
“The government has no plans to legislate for an amnesty for crimes that were committed during the Troubles,” he said in the London parliament.
Stephen Gault, whose father Samuel was among 12 people killed by the Irish Republican Army in the Enniskillen bombing in 1987, said the idea was “totally disgusting”. Noting that no one had been convicted for the attack, he said: “My father’s murder and countless thousands of others are just being brushed under the carpet to move things forward.”
The idea was also met with scorn on the other side of the sectarian divide. Mickey McKinney, whose brother William was killed when British soldiers fired on a civil rights march in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday in 1972, branded the idea “ridiculous”. “What they did that day, they have to be held accountable for,” he said.
Thirteen civilians were shot dead by soldiers during the incident. Amnesty International also weighed in, saying the proposal would be an “utter betrayal of victims’ fundamental right to justice (and) perpetuate impunity”.
Larkin argued that a line should be drawn under offences committed before the Good Friday peace accords, which largely brought the Troubles to an end.
“More than 15 years have passed since the Belfast Agreement,” he told the BBC.
“There have been very few prosecutions, and every competent criminal lawyer will tell you the prospects of conviction diminish, perhaps exponentially, with each passing year, so we are in a position now where I think we have to take stock.”
The cost of investigating episodes of the Troubles continues to place “significant pressure” on authorities in Northern Ireland, according to police chief Matt Bagott.
Reuters
