Rosemary Nelson Inquiry Commences
The inquiry into one of the most controversial killings in the Six Counties formally commenced its public hearings on Tuesday 15th April.
Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson sustained serious, multiple injuries when a bomb attached to her car exploded seconds after she had left her family home in the town’s Ashford Grange to drive to work at 12.40 pm on March 15 1999. Her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah, was on a lunch break in her schoolyard, less than 50 yards away. At 3.10pm that same afternoon, Rosemary died from her horrific injuries.
Rosemary Nelson was an internationally known and respected human rights lawyer because of her dedication to her clients, often victims of violence and human rights violations in the Six Counties. Rosemary sought basic due process for her clients and legal protections for the community she represented. She frequently represented suspects detained for questioning about politically motivated offences.
One of a small number of solicitors brave enough to take up such sensitive cases, she was frequently the target of harassment, death threats and intimidation. She represented the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition, the Hamill family, whose son, Robert, was beaten to death by a loyalist mob in Portadown. She also represented the family of Sam Marshall, gunned down by a pro-British death squad in March 1990 minutes after leaving Lurgan RUC barracks where reported weekly to sign for bail.
Immediately following her death, two inter-linked controversies arose which have dominated the investigation of Rosemary’s killing.
The first concerned claims made by Rosemary Nelson herself, and by various human rights NGOs acting on her behalf, that members of the RUC had routinely intimidated and issued death threats against her. She had documented the threats to the United Nations, the US Congress, British Irish Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch, the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights, Amnesty International, the Committee on the Administration of Justice and to the Pat Finucane Centre.
Secondly, the attack took place against the backdrop of unprecedented activity by British Crown forces in the weeks and days leading up to the murder in the area surrounding the Nelson home.
Many aspects of Rosemary’s murder were immediately recognised as similar to those surrounding the murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989, a killing widely recognised as a result of British state collusion.
In 1998, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Param Cumaraswamy, reported the threats against Rosemary in his annual report, and stated in a television interview that he believed her life could be in danger.
He made recommendations to the British government concerning threats from the RUC against lawyers, which were not acted upon. In September 1998, Rosemary testified before a committee of the United States Congress investigating human rights abuses in the Six Counties, confirming that death threats had been made against her and her three children.
The present inquiry into Rosemary’s murder was established following the publication of a report in 2003 by Canadian judge, Peter Cory, who had conducted an investigation into the killing. Cory bluntly stated, “I am satisfied that there is evidence of collusion by Governmental Agencies in the murder of Rosemary Nelson that warrants holding a public inquiry”.
Many people still hold reservations about the ability of this present inquiry to get to truth behind Rosemary’s murder. They have good reason. It falls far short of the international independent inquiry sought by Rosemary’s family and friends. The chair of the three-person inquiry panel, retired British judge Michael Morland, is no stranger to the Six Counties and indeed his controversial history in relation to Ireland will not inspire confidence. He acted for the crown during 1973 internment proceedings and was a member of the 1974 Gardiner commission, which recommended phasing out special category status for political prisoners.
Among those who attended the opening of the inquiry were Rosemary’s husband, Paul, her mother Mrs Sheila Magee, and her brothers and sisters.
The solicitor’s brother, Eunan Magee, said the family would adopt a “wait and see attitude” to the hearings.
Mr Magee said the years since the killing had been horrendous.
He said: “We lost our father along the way, and I suppose the hardest thing of the whole lot is to sit and watch your parents having lost a child.
“From that point of view, it is something that we have to do in order to be able to move on with our own lives.
“I do believe that an awful lot is going to be relived over the next days and months and it is going to be hard to listen to.
“I do believe that we are just going to have to take a step above it.”
Éirígí spokesperson Daithí Mac An Mhaistír, expressed support for the Nelson and Magee families. “Éirígí fully supports the campaign for truth and justice which Rosemary Nelson’s family have pursued resolutely and with dignity since her murder in 1999. There is no doubt that the British government and their surrogates in the RUC-PSNI colluded with her killers.
“Rosemary’s murder, like that of Pat Finucane, was designed and sanctioned by the state to silence those who sought to expose human rights abuses in the Six Counties and the corrupt and unjust nature of the ongoing British occupation.”