retired
Presbyterian minister -Roy Magee
"Ask
Roy Magee what he knows about the murder of Rev
Robert Bradford!"
Former cleric urges new probe into MP
murder - News - Sunday Life
Former cleric urges new
probe into MP murder
Sunday, April
29, 2007
By Pauline
Reynolds
THE former head of the
Methodist Church is to ask the Police Ombudsman to
investigate the IRA murder 26 years ago of UUP MP Rev
Robert Bradford.
Former Methodist president
Rev Jim Rea and Belfast councillor Jim Rodgers are
due to meet with Nuala O'Loan tomorrow to call for
the case to be re-opened following revelations in
Sunday Life.
In our story, journalist
Greg Harkin sensationally revealed how Special Branch
AND Army intelligence knew details of the murder plot
THREE days before.
Mr Rodgers also plans to
raise the case with the PSNI Historical Enquiries
Team.
He described our revelations
as "terribly disturbing".
"Some people may think
that because Robert was murdered so long ago it
doesn't really matter any more," he said.
"But I believe it's
important we find out the truth.
"Greg Harkin is a
highly respected journalist with very good contacts
and I have no reason to doubt his information.
"At the time of his
murder, it had been rumoured Robert may have been set
up, not by the Special Branch but by British
intelligence.
"There were also a
number of names put forward suggesting involvement in
the killing, but no one has ever been brought to
book. We need to get to the bottom of this and put it
to rest.
"These claims will
obviously have been very upsetting for Robert's wife
Nora and the couple's daughter."
Mr Rodgers and Rev Bradford
were good friends.
Added the councillor:
"We had a lot in common, belonging to the same
church and the same political party.
"We appeared on a
number of public platforms together and his views and
my own would have been very similar.
"He was a person who I
held in the highest regard."
.............................................................................
MP could have been saved
MP 'sacrificed to protect
agents within ranks of the provisionals'
Sunday, April
15, 2007
In the third part of our
explosive series The Special Branch Files, journalist
Greg Harkin reveals how a botched undercover
operation led to the murder of the Rev Robert
Bradford
Shortly before 11.30am on
Saturday, November 14, 1981, three armed IRA members
carrying ladders and dressed in painters' boilersuits
arrived at the community centre at Benmore Drive in
Finaghy.
At first their arrival did
not arouse suspicion; there was ongoing work at the
centre.
One of the gang members,
carrying a sub-machine-gun, took up position at the
front door.
One of his accomplices
shouted "freeze" before opening fire on the
caretaker, 29-year-old Kenneth Campbell, who was
returning to the centre after a break at his nearby
home.
While one of the IRA men
pinned an RUC bodyguard to the ground at gunpoint,
another gunman quickly turned to the Reverend Robert
Bradford, Ulster Unionist MP for South Belfast.
He opened fire, shooting him
in the eye, chest, neck and ear.
The 40-year-old
father-of-one died instantly.
As the IRA's active service
unit (ASU) fled, the RUC officer fired three shots
after their getaway car.
It was another horrific day
in a blood-spattered year in which 117 people lost
their lives in the Troubles - 1981, the year of the
hunger strikes.
Today, however, 26 years
later, Sunday Life can reveal that neither Rev
Bradford nor Mr Campbell should have died in the IRA
attack - RUC Special Branch and Army Intelligence had
prior knowledge of the incident an incredible THREE
DAYS beforehand.
They told neither the Rev
Bradford, nor his police protection officer.
Three years ago, a former
officer with the shadowy Army intelligence-gathering
outfit the Force Research Unit (FRU) contacted me
with information on several murders which took place
during the Troubles.
He knew of - but did not
know - 'Martin Ingram', another former FRU officer.
He hinted at a cover-up in
the murder of the Ulster Unionist MP in 1981.
Now, for the first time, he
has decided to tell the whole story.
I have since been able to
verify these claims with two other sources not known
to each other.
"The Rev Bradford was a
sitting duck. The IRA had checked out the (community)
centre before as a possible venue for a hit,"
said the source.
"He had certainly been
warned that he had to be extra careful when he was
there, but the information before the shooting was
100pc certain that an attack would take place that
Saturday, November 14.
"This was not a general
warning. We had someone in the IRA giving us
information on the planned attack.
"I know for a fact that
Special Branch also had someone inside giving them
the same information."
The ex-officer claims he had
spent that weekend expecting to hear about the
arrests or shootings of IRA members.
"I couldn't believe it
when the MP was taken out along with another
civilian," he recalled.
"I made a point of
finding out what went wrong. Our lot had put a great
deal into this intelligence operation and I know
Special Branch did, too.
"All the information
was passed up (the chain of command), but nothing
happened. I know that teams were prepared by the RUC
to intercept the IRA team, but they were still on
their way (to Finaghy) when the murders took place.
They were too late. It was mind-boggling.
"But they shouldn't
have been too late. They (the RUC) knew for three
f*****g days what was going to happen, but there was
no operation put in place around the IRA team as they
set off from Andersonstown, there was no operation
put in place around Mr Bradford or his home on the
Malone Road, and the operation for the community
centre was still leaving the station when the murders
took place.
"It defies belief that
this could have happened, but it did. Army
Intelligence would have had people on the ground the
night before, for God's sake."
But how could such a
monumental mistake take place?
Branch sources say officers
at the time were also furious that the Rev Bradford
had not been saved, but put the incident down to poor
planning and incompetence rather than any more
sinister reason.
The former soldier however
said he believed that now was the time for
information on the murder to be investigated -
believing there could have been other reasons.
"I believe the hit went
ahead to save agents' lives," he claimed.
He admitted that he had
"no evidence whatsoever" to substantiate
this claim, but insisted: "I find it hard to
believe any other reason.
"This is not just about
Mr Bradford, either. There was also Mr Campbell who
died and at least three Catholics were killed by
loyalists in retaliation in the days after the
killing."
Just hours after the
Bradford murder, Stephen Murphy (19) was shot by a
UVF gunman as he answered his door in the Oldpark
area of north Belfast. He died from his injuries 10
days later.
Thomas McNulty (18) was
murdered by the UVF as he walked home in the Short
Strand area of east Belfast the day after the
Bradford murder.
Two days later, Billy
Wright, then UVF leader in Mid-Ulster, shot dead
20-year-old Catholic Peader Fegan in Lurgan.
When the MP and Mr Campbell
were shot, children at a kids' disco witnessed the
horrific murders.
A 15-year-old DJ described
how he threw a chair at one of the killers while
shouting at other children to dive for cover.
"The gunmen pushed the
children out of the way as they made their way out of
the building," he added.
An 11-year-old told
reporters afterwards: "They shot the Rev
Bradford about six times. We were quite close by. The
shots were very loud."
The murders were widely
condemned.
TDs in Dail Eireann stood
for a minute's silence, but in Northern Ireland there
were fears of an all-out civil war.
The SDLP leader, John Hume,
said the murder was a deliberate attempt by the IRA
to provoke the community into civil conflict.
Unionists reacted with
anger. UUP leader James Molyneaux threatened a 'Third
Force' if the Secretary of State, Jim Prior, did not
announce a 'crackdown' on the paramilitaries.
At the Rev Bradford's
funeral, Mr Prior was jostled by dozens of mourners.
He recalled afterwards: "I had to make a run for
the church door with my detectives shielding me. I
just about managed to get through in one piece.
"
Heckled
He was later heckled inside
the church and as he left afterwards he was jostled
again by crowds shouting: "Kill him! Kill
him!"
Earlier, mourners cheered
and applauded when the minister conducting the
funeral service called for the reintroduction of
capital punishment.
The IRA admitted
responsibility for the murders just hours after the
killings.
The Provisionals' statement
read: "Belfast Brigade IRA claims responsibility
for the execution of Robert Bradford MP, one of the
key people responsible for winding up the loyalist
paramilitary sectarian machine in the North.
"Let Mr Tyrie (UDA
leader) and the UDA know well the cost of killing
innocent nationalist people."
The Rev Bradford had become
a Methodist minister when he was 22, turning his back
on a career as a professional footballer with
Sheffield Wednesday.
He joined the UUP when he
served as a minister in the loyalist enclave of
Suffolk in west Belfast and was elected MP for south
Belfast in 1974.
He became an outspoken
critic of the IRA and had demanded the reintroduction
of hanging for terrorist killers.
The Rev Bradford's widow,
Norah, was 33 at the time of the killing. They had
one daughter, Claire.
Speaking after the murder,
she told reporters: "They have tried several
times at the advice centre. They came at least two
times before and they were caught out watching the
advice centre, but he would not give it up just for
them.
"He knew it would be
the most likely place for them to get him.
"He never feared he
would be attacked. He felt it was a possibility. He
did not fear it."
It is clear from other
interviews at the time that the Rev Bradford knew he
was a target for the Provisionals.
He also knew the centre in
Finaghy where he attended clinics at least once a
month was a place where an attack could take place.
What makes the claims from a
former Army officer more serious is the fact that the
security forces knew an attempted murder was going to
take place on the morning of November 14, 1981 and
appeared to do very little to prevent it.
They know who was in the
gang, who was providing support and various other
details.
What is clear is that the
gang would not stop at these murders. The gun used to
kill the Rev Bradford was also used to shoot Judge
William Doyle and Mary Travers several years later.
"Northern Ireland has
to move on, but I don't think that is possible until
we have dealt with the past," said the ex-FRU
officer.
"I believe there has to
be a lawyer-free truth and reconciliation tribunal
where everyone makes statements about the past.
"Police officers, for
example, are allowed under the law to waive the
restrictions of the Official Secrets Act when they
talk to the Police Ombudsman. "A tribunal could
offer an amnesty to all participants - security
forces and paramilitaries - and a way forward that
doesn't involved expensive investigation and legal
fees."
Today's revelations will
certainly lead to calls for inquiries.
Mrs Bradford said of her
husband's killers at the time: "The Lord will
deal with them in his own good time. It is not for me
to speak of that."
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