by Paul Bruce
Days later, the Rt Hon Sir John Wheeler, Minister of State for Northern Ireland, replied to Mr Livingstone on behalf of the Prime Minister, saying, ‘The RUC’s Serious Crime Squad are investigating the claims made in this book.’
Three months later, Mr Livingstone wrote to the Prime Minister once more asking what progress the RUC had made in its enquiries. Sir John Wheeler again replied on behalf of John Major stating that the Royal Ulster Constabulary were still investigating the allegations.
Detective Chief Inspector William Heatherington of the RUC was put in charge of the investigation and asked to make a report to senior officers which would be forwarded to the Northern Ireland Office and the Ministry of Defence in London.
Accompanied by Detective Constable Billy Kerrigan, he flew to London in December 1995 to interview my publisher.
Later, an RUC spokesman commented, ‘We will be visiting the two burial sites with experts but no decision has yet been taken as to whether we will excavate them.’
Within weeks of the book’s publication, senior IRA and security sources disclosed to the media that twenty known victims of Republican murder squads are buried in secret graves on Black Mountain on the outskirts of Belfast. Relatives of families who suspected that their missing loved ones had been murdered believed the historic ceasefire had given them a new chance to locate the victims’ bodies. Relatives insisted that they wanted the truth rather than revenge for the killings, many of which took place during the 1970s when Republican and loyalist murder squads were active in Belfast. Helen McKendry, whose mother, Jean McConville, was abducted in December 1972 from their West Belfast home, said, ‘All I want is to bury my mother with dignity.’
Three months after the RUC started its investigation into the allegations in this book, Detective Chief Inspector Heatherington retired from the force. He was succeeded by Detective Inspector Bill McCleren.
I was contacted by a number of people with an intimate knowledge of the Northern Ireland situation in the 1970s. Perhaps the most important of these was Captain Fred Holroyd, who was sent to the Province as a Military Intelligence officer with MI6 after attending the Joint Services School of Intelligence in Ashford, Kent.
Within a matter of weeks, Captain Holroyd became aware that all the services then operating in Northern Ireland, including the security agencies MI5 and MI6, army intelligence and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, were involved in unlawful activities ranging from the professionally disreputable to murder.
‘Within a month of arriving in Northern Ireland,’ Captain Holroyd told me, ‘I was advised by a colleague in the army who was working with MI6 on the method then preferred for disposing of dead bodies.
‘He told me that there were a number of small lakes between Portadown and the border which were ideal for hiding a body. The lakes had a matrix of fallen vegetation and weeds pushing out up to twenty feet from the banks.
‘He said I should walk on top of the weeds near the bank and push the body back under the weed-bed with a heavy stick. He explained that the body would rise to the surface but would be hidden under the weeds until the gases dispersed. The fish would constantly nibble at the body and over a period of weeks the remains would drop down into the silt at the bottom of the lake, never to be recovered.
‘He added, “I give you this piece of advice because it is quite likely that during your tour of duty here you will have to get rid of a body or two.”’
Throughout Holroyd’s three years in Ireland, he was required to operate both north and south of the border. He was responsible for the passage of intelligence from Special Branch to the local army commander at the headquarters of 3 Infantry Brigade in Lurgan, which included recruiting operatives from both Protestant and Catholic communities. Another role was as an MI6 operative, based near Lisburn, Northern Ireland.
More often than not, each area of his work was compartmentalised, so that each commander was unaware of the work Holroyd carried out on behalf of his other two commanders.
In his position as liaison between Special Branch and the Brigade Headquarters, Captain Holroyd was required to pass secret and classified information between the police and army intelligence staff, and to encourage co-operation and trust in operational matters. He recruited paramilitaries and political activists from both communities, building up a network of informers, who would then work on behalf of the security forces.
‘One of the Catholics recruited as an A1 source, codenamed “Joe”, was a senior member of the Provisional IRA. I recruited him in the early months of 1972 and he provided excellent intelligence and a steady supply of information which resulted in many IRA weapons being recovered and a number of operations being thwarted,’ said Captain Holroyd.
‘On the Protestant side, a number of sources recruited by myself, in conjunction with the RUC Special Branch, later became involved in a number of killings and bombings against the Republican community in Northern Ireland and the civilian population in the south. Two of those recruited were responsible, with others, for the Miami Showband killings. This was an incident on 31 July 1975 when a bogus army road block, made up of Protestant paramilitaries, stopped the band’s van and were blown up while placing a bomb in the back of the vehicle, killing and maiming a number of people. The British Government has always denied that there was any link between British intelligence and that incident.’
In his second role, Captain Holroyd was based, most of the time, at Mahon Road camp in Portadown. His job was to collate all intelligence in ‘J’ division, the RUC operational area which covered Newry to the Monaghan district and up to Lough Neagh. He was also responsible for collecting intelligence about the infamous ‘Murder Triangle’, a rural area between Portadown, Armagh City and Dungannon, where Protestant murder gangs would go out and shoot Catholics at random in the sectarian war. Most of these killings took place throughout the 1970s and scores of innocent Catholics were shot down in cold blood, or blown up in outrages. Police estimate that up to 200 people were killed in that infamous triangle.
Captain Holroyd’s third responsibility as an MI6 officer concerned cross-border activities. He was involved in recruiting paid agents and informers living south of the border, who would supply detailed information about the provisional IRA and what was then called the International Republican Socialist Party (which later became INLA – the Irish National Liberation Army). They would supply information of the whereabouts of known and wanted Republican terrorists.
Captain Holroyd told me, ‘I was aware at the time, in the early 1970s, that SAS-manned and trained units were kidnapping Republicans wanted in the north for terrorist activities and handing them over to uniformed British soldiers north of the border.
‘It later became apparent to me that there were a number of small units, similar to the one which Paul Bruce was in, operating in this way. One I knew of, based at Castledillon, was called “4 Field Survey Troop”, Royal Engineers. When this unit was first identified in the House of Commons in February 1988 by MP Ken Livingstone, the Ministry of Defence totally denied its covert role. When pressed later, the MOD confirmed that the unit had been in existence but that all its records had been destroyed in a fire and, as a result, they were unable to say exactly what role the unit performed. Since that Commons statement, however, a soldier from the unit appeared unidentified on British television to claim that the unit had been involved in kidnappings and assassinations north and south of the border. The MOD never denied this soldier’s TV revelation and no action was ever taken.
‘I also received information of another unit, this one disguised as a Signals Troop, operating from somewhere near Ballykelly, which carried out kidnappings and assassinations. Although I have given evidence of this to the police, there has never been any official inquiry or follow-up.
‘It came as no surprise to me when I learned of the eight SAS men caught in the Republic driving civilian “Q” cars and carrying an assortment of odd weaponry in May 1976. The soldiers denied being SAS.
‘The steel-lined “sap” glove and Sykes-Fairburn Commando knife carried by this snatch team gave the game away to experienced military observers of the scandal, and more worldly journalists.
‘On 5 May 1976, two SAS soldiers, wearing civilian clothes, in a yellow Triumph 2,000 were apprehended in a joint Garda/Irish Army road block. They carried a 9mm Browning pistol and a Sterling 9mm SMG. A military logbook was found in the car. Both men denied being SAS, claiming that they had made a map-reading error, but were still taken to Omeath Garda Station.
‘Later that night, six more soldiers in two cars, a white Hillman Avenger and a Vauxhall Victor, both with army logbooks, were captured after an armed ‘stand-off’ by the Irish Army. Two of the men wore camouflage and had blackened faces. The other four were in civilian clothes. They carried two Browning 9mm pistols, three Sterling sub-machine guns, one pump-action (Remington) shotgun, a steel-lined leather “sap” glove and a Commando knife. They were bailed at £5,000 each.
‘In January 1977, Mr Roy Mason, Secretary of State to Northern Ireland, visited Dublin to discuss the case. On 7 May 1977, all were fined £100 each for taking weapons into the Republic without firearms certificates. The weapons were returned to the British authorities.
‘On 13 May, Dr Garret FitzGerald told the Dáil of 304 recorded cross-border incursions by British soldiers since 1973.
‘Another unit, known as the MRF, operated in Belfast. No one has properly identified its correct title, some calling it the Mobile Reaction Force and others the Military Reconnaissance Force. However, what has been confirmed is that some of its members, all serving officers and soldiers, were involved in the shooting of civilians in Northern Ireland with non-military weapons between 1971 and 1973. None of these members of the armed forces was ever brought to trial, having been posted away from the Province before legal proceedings could be brought.’
In 1976, Captain Fred Holroyd, then with the Royal Corps of Transport, resigned his commission in Her Majesty’s forces because the Ministry of Defence refused to carry out a proper inquiry into his allegations that a Republican from the Lurgan area, John Francis Green, had been murdered by an assassination team which was operating with the SAS in the Province. There was never an inquiry.
Holroyd also sought redress for the way he had been treated after he made the allegation. He has never been granted it. In 1978, he joined the Rhodesian Army. He was promoted to major and, when the war ended in 1980, President Mugabe appointed him Commandant of the Services Training School which united Mr Ian Smith’s army and the guerrilla forces into the Zimbabwe Army.
Since returning to Britain, Holroyd has focused on Britain’s military involvement in Northern Ireland since the troubles began in 1969. Many nefarious activities, undertaken by the British armed forces, the RUC, the IRA and paramilitary organisations that took place since then, have been brought to light by Captain Holroyd’s tenacious investigations.
Having read The Nemesis File, Captain Holroyd commented, ‘It recalled in stark reality my years in Northern Ireland. It seemed to me that finally here was a man confirming what I had known for many years, based upon the research that I and others had carried out. Now, here was confirmation from an SAS soldier, who was prepared to go public, revealing to the world that he had been a member of an SAS unit responsible for executing IRA suspects.
‘Over the years, I have spoken to a number of former SAS soldiers who not only confirmed such killings but were eager that I should try to continue to bring knowledge of such executions into the public domain. But not one, until Paul Bruce wrote this book, would admit to taking part in the killings.
‘I salute Paul Bruce. His decision to reveal the brutal truth is the act of a truly brave man.’
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First published in the UK in hardback 1995
Published in paperback 1996
This edition published in 2010
ISBN: 978 1 84358 273 1
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