|
Previous
on Guildford 4 | Birmingham
6 | Guiseppe Conlon |
The Guildford
4
Blair Apologizes to Wrongly
Convicted Men
By ED JOHNSON, Associated
Press Writer, February 9, 2005
LONDON -- British Prime Minister
Tony Blair issued a public apology Wednesday to members of two
families whose wrongful imprisonment for IRA bombings three decades
ago was dramatized in the film "In the Name of the Father."
Members of the Conlon and Maguire
families were jailed in connection with Irish Republican Army
bombings in Guildford and Woolwich in England in 1974. The attacks
killed seven people and injured more than 100.
Eleven people convicted in
connection with the attacks were subsequently acquitted, and
the case is regarded as one of Britain's biggest miscarriages
of justice.
"I am very sorry that
they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice," Blair
said in a statement. "The Guildford and Woolwich bombings
killed seven people and injured over 100. Their loss, the loss
suffered by their families, will never go away. But it serves
no one for the wrong people to be convicted for such an awful
crime."
Gerry Conlon was one of four
people found guilty of two IRA bombings of Guildford pubs on
Oct. 5, 1974, which killed five people and wounded 54.
During his interrogation, Conlon
implicated seven others as alleged bomb-makers, including his
own father, Guiseppe, who died in prison in 1980. Conlon says
police coerced false confessions by beating and disorienting
him.
Gerry Conlon and three others
were acquitted on appeal in 1989 after authorities concluded
their confessions to police had been fabricated and forensic
evidence favorable to their defense had been suppressed.
The other seven, including
Guiseppe Conlon, were acquitted in 1991, long after they had
served their sentences, when the forensic evidence used to convict
them was discredited.
The 1993 film dramatizing the
case earned seven Oscar nominations. Daniel-Day Lewis portrayed
Gerry Conlon and Pete Postlethwaite portrayed Guiseppe Conlon.
Last month, Gerry Conlon demanded
a formal apology from Blair for his imprisonment, calling it
"a dreadful miscarriage of justice."
"It is a matter of great
regret when anyone suffers a miscarriage of justice," Blair
said in Wednesday's statement. "I recognize the trauma that
the conviction caused the Conlon and Maguire families and the
stigma which wrongly attaches to them to this day.
"I am very sorry that
they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice. That's
why I am making this apology today. They deserve to be completely
and publicly exonerated."
Blair set a precedent for such
apologies soon after taking office in 1997, when he offered a
statement of regret for British policy during the 1845-1852 potato
famine, during which 1 million people died in Ireland and another
2 million fled to Britain or North America.
Blair's gesture Wednesday came
during the latest deadlock in Northern Ireland's long-running
peace process and with pressure mounting on Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked
party, over the outlawed group's alleged $50 million robbery
of a Belfast bank -- the biggest cash theft in history.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie
Ahern has said he believes the IRA committed the Dec. 20 raid
on Northern Bank and that senior figures in Sinn Fein authorized
it. The IRA has denied involvement, and police have made no arrests
and recovered none of the cash.
'Too soon' to confirm
cash origin
BBC NEWS, Feb. 21, 2005
Ireland's police chiefs
have said it is still too early to say if recent cash seizures
in the Republic of Ireland came from the Northern Bank robbery.
Chief Constable Hugh Orde and
Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy were speaking after signing a
new agreement to enhance cross-border policing.
Almost £3m has been seized
during police raids and it is being tested to see if there are
links to the robbery.
Mr Orde said a number of lines
of inquiry were being followed.
Mr Conroy added: "There
is a lot of money recovered and it will take quite a bit of time
to do all the technical examination that is required to be carried
out."
Mr Orde also said he did not
know if Sinn Fein leaders knew in advance about the £26.5m
robbery on 20 December, which police have blamed on the IRA.
He said he would not be drawn
on intelligence matters.
"I'm not clear in my mind
who knew and at what level and the cross-overs between the issues
around the inextricable links as they have described between
Sinn Fein and the IRA," he said.
"That's not my business.
Our business is to solve the crime and that's exactly what we
intend to do."
About £2m - £60,000
of Northern Bank notes - was seized last Thursday in the Irish
Republic by police investigating alleged money laundering.
Some £50,000 in new Northern
Bank notes was discovered at the weekend at a police sports club
in Belfast.
Mr Orde has said that he was
convinced republicans planted that money, which was stolen in
the raid.
The latest seizure - £437,000
- was made in the Irish Republic.
The police comments were made
during a news conference on Monday after the protocol document
was signed.
The document means officers
will be able to share knowledge and experience, including secondments
and placements.
Irish Justice Minister Michael
McDowell and Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy witnessed
the event.
Mr McDowell said it was an
"important day for policing on this island".
Mr Murphy said it marked an
important milestone in the implementation of the Patten recommendations
on reforms to policing.
"The PSNI and Garda Siochana
already have a close professional working relationship and the
protocols provide officers, from both forces, the opportunity
to enhance this relationship and to develop their own professional
skills.
"Allowing officers to
share knowledge and experience can only be of benefit to the
public, both North and South, in tackling crime."
Meanwhile, a Cork man who was
arrested as part of a garda investigation into money laundering
has been granted bail at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin.
Don Bullman, 30, a chef from
Wilton, was charged last Friday with membership of the Real IRA.
He was freed on bail on Monday,
despite garda objections.
'False allegation'
Earlier, Sinn Fein's Martin
McGuinness said that neither he nor two of his party colleagues
were on the IRA Army Council.
He was responding to an allegation
from Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell who claimed SF President
Gerry Adams, Mr McGuinness and Martin Ferris, an Irish TD, were
three members of the IRA's seven-man army council.
"It's not true. I reject
it completely. What he has alleged is totally and utterly false,"
he said.
"I'm not a member of the
IRA. I'm not a member of the IRA Army Council," he insisted
but admitted his past again saying: "I was a member of the
IRA many years ago".
Mr McGuinness also criticised
how the latest developments in the bank robbery story had been
reported.
He said that one single Sinn
Fein member had been arrested and was later released without
charge.
Conlon 'pleased' with Blair's
apology
Feb. 9, 2005
Gerry Conlon, one of the Guildford
Four wrongfully imprisoned for the IRA bomb attacks in Guildford
and Woolwich in 1974, has welcomed the British Prime Minister's
apology to the Conlon and Maguire families.
Emerging from the Commons after
a meeting with Tony Blair, Mr Conlon and the other family members
held aloft copies of Mr Blair's statement.
They said they were pleased
with the Prime Minister's words.
Amid a huge scrum of reporters
and cameramen, Mr Conlon said: "We can't say who the Speaker
will pick, or who he won't pick, but Tony Blair picked us.
"He didn't have to do
it and he did it and that is the important thing.
"He apologised profusely
and he was physically taken aback by the suffering that we have
all suffered."
"Tony Blair met us privately,
he spoke to every one of us, he took time, he listened to us,
he exceeded our expectations in apologising, he said it was long
overdue.''
He continued: "I asked
why we hadn't received the same treatment as John McCarthy, Terry
Waite and Brian Keenan, and he said he would make sure that we
got the help that we needed.
"Because this hasn't ended
for us. But today is the start of the end.
"We want parity of esteem
with other victims of miscarriage of justice, and we want other
miscarriage of justice victims to receive a public apology the
same way we have.
"If you damage people
and you can repair them, it is your duty to do that. We said
that to the Prime Minister, he accepted it. He went beyond our
expectations."
"Everyone has been affected
by this, everyone has suffered trauma from it. And the good thing
is that he has acknowledged it, and he accepts that we are in
pain, that we are suffering terrible, terrible nightmares and
terrible post-traumatic stress disorder."
Annie Maguire said: "We
have all suffered. And this is a great day for us, for all of
us."
She added: "It will help
our children and their children."
Sinn Féin said it hoped
the apology from the Prime Minister to the Conlon and Maguire
families would help end their decades-long ordeal.
Speaking on behalf of the party,
Lower Falls councillor Fra McCann said: "There was a grave
injustice visited upon the Conlon and Maguire families. The smear
campaign operated by the British establishment against those
freed from prison continued for years.
"It would be my sincere
hope that the apology issued by the British Prime Minister Tony
Blair marks an end to this and indeed goes some way to ending
the ordeal of the Conlon and Maguire families."
Here are some of the
key quotes from those involved.
PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR
PM apologises to families
Analysis: 'Glaring' miscarriage
We would like it to be the
police apologising -- Annie Maguire
"I'm very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal
and such an injustice.
That's why I'm making this
apology today. They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated."
GERRY CONLON, ONE OF THE
'GUILFORD FOUR'
"People thought that when
we were released it was the end of it, but it was only the start
of it.
Gerry Conlon was released from prison in 1989
It has been harder to clear our names than to get out of prison.
If they can damage you that
much by convicting you and publicly hang, draw and quarter you,
then they have a moral duty to repair that damage.
This apology is so important,
not just for me but for my mother, my sisters, my nieces, my
nephews, because this has seeped down the generations."
ANNIE MAGUIRE, ONE OF THE
'MAGUIRE SEVEN'
"This is very important
to my family and their children and our great grandchildren.
We would like it to be the
police...apologising. It is lovely for Mr Blair to do it."
PATRICK MAGUIRE, ANNIE'S
SON
"Going to prison, the
fears, the loneliness, the not knowing, having five birthdays
and Christmases away from my family. I just became a number,
33892.
Coming out of prison, that's
when my other sentence started. I became bitter and angry, a
life of crime was to be my only outlet ... having trouble with
the police for being one of the 'Maguire Seven' for many years.
I was at their mercy.
[In] January of last year,
I ended up in the Priory Hospital for nearly six months ... I
take up to 20 tablets a day and I have been told I will probably
have to take most of them for the rest of my life.
My own three children have
also paid the price, because their father is not the man he would
like to have been. For them this day is their day, and I would
like to say sorry to them
Blair Apologizes
to Wrongly Convicted Men
By ED JOHNSON, Associated
Press Writer, February 9, 2005
LONDON (AP) - British Prime
Minister Tony Blair issued a public apology Wednesday to members
of two families whose wrongful imprisonment for IRA bombings
three decades ago was dramatized in the film ``In the Name of
the Father.''
Members of the Conlon and Maguire
families were jailed in connection with Irish Republican Army
bombings in Guildford and Woolwich in England in 1974. The attacks
killed seven people and injured more than 100.
Eleven people convicted in
connection with the attacks were subsequently acquitted, and
the case is regarded as one of Britain's biggest miscarriages
of justice.
``I am very sorry that they
were subject to such an ordeal and injustice,'' Blair said in
a statement. ``The Guildford and Woolwich bombings killed seven
people and injured over 100. Their loss, the loss suffered by
their families, will never go away. But it serves no one for
the wrong people to be convicted for such an awful crime.''
Gerry Conlon was one of four
people found guilty of two IRA bombings of Guildford pubs on
Oct. 5, 1974, which killed five people and wounded 54.
During his interrogation, Conlon
implicated seven others as alleged bomb-makers, including his
own father, Guiseppe, who died in prison in 1980. Conlon says
police coerced false confessions by beating and disorienting
him.
Gerry Conlon and three others
were acquitted on appeal in 1989 after authorities concluded
their confessions to police had been fabricated and forensic
evidence favorable to their defense had been suppressed.
The other seven, including
Guiseppe Conlon, were acquitted in 1991, long after they had
served their sentences, when the forensic evidence used to convict
them was discredited.
The 1993 film dramatizing the
case earned seven Oscar nominations. Daniel-Day Lewis portrayed
Gerry Conlon and Pete Postlethwaite portrayed Guiseppe Conlon.
Last month, Gerry Conlon demanded
a formal apology from Blair for his imprisonment, calling it
``a dreadful miscarriage of justice.''
``It is a matter of great regret
when anyone suffers a miscarriage of justice,'' Blair said in
Wednesday's statement. ``I recognize the trauma that the conviction
caused the Conlon and Maguire families and the stigma which wrongly
attaches to them to this day.
``I am very sorry that they
were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice. That's
why I am making this apology today. They deserve to be completely
and publicly exonerated.''
Blair set a precedent for such
apologies soon after taking office in 1997, when he offered a
statement of regret for British policy during the 1845-1852 potato
famine, during which 1 million people died in Ireland and another
2 million fled to Britain or North America.
Blair's gesture Wednesday came
during the latest deadlock in Northern Ireland's long-running
peace process and with pressure mounting on Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked
party, over the outlawed group's alleged $50 million robbery
of a Belfast bank - the biggest cash theft in history.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie
Ahern has said he believes the IRA committed the Dec. 20 raid
on Northern Bank and that senior figures in Sinn Fein authorized
it. The IRA has denied involvement, and police have made no arrests
and recovered none of the cash.
Gerry Conlon Describes
Fight to Clear his Name
By Senan Hogan, PA, Feb. 9, 2005
Miscarriage of justice victim
Gerry Conlon said today it has been harder to clear his name
than to get out of prison.
The Prime Minister Tony Blair
is today expected to apologise over the wrongful imprisonment
of Mr Conlon and his father, Guiseppe, who died while wrongly
imprisoned for a bombing in Guilford in 1974.
Mr Conlon said: "People
thought that when we were released it was the end of it, but
it was only the start of it.
"It has been harder to
clear our names than to get out of prison."
The Conlon family, who will
be in the public gallery in the House of Commons today, has previously
received a "second-hand apology" sent to SDLP leader
Mark Durkan from Tony Blair.
Mr Conlon's mother Sarah is
unwell and won't travel to London.
"Mark always said that
a 'Dear Sarah' letter from Tony Blair was always going to be
better than a 'Dear Mark' letter," Mr Conlon told RTE Radio.
He added: "If they can
damage you that much by convicting you and publicly hang, draw
and quarter you, then they have a moral duty to repair that damage."
The Conlon family has fought
a long campaign for a public apology from the British Government
for the miscarriage of justice.
They have compiled a petition
which has been signed by tens of thousands of people.
Their case was brought to international
attention through the Oscar-nominated movie In the Name of the
Father, starring Daniel Day Lewis as Gerry Conlon and Pete Postlethwaite
as Guiseppe.
A House of Commons source confirmed
a question was being prepared by the SDLP's Eddie McGrady, which
would "provide ample opportunity for public recognition
of the wrongs inflicted on the Conlons".
"There have been positive
signs in recent days from
Northern Ireland Secretary]
Paul Murphy and from Tony Blair that an apology is coming."
Mr Gerry Conlon along
with Mr Paddy Armstrong, Mr Paul Hill and Ms Carole Richardson
were arrested in 1974 and wrongfully jailed for an IRA
bomb attack on the Horse and Groom pub in Guildford.
The blast killed five people
four soldiers and a civilian. The prisoners became known
as the Guildford Four.
Mr Conlon's father and members
of Mrs Annie Maguire's family were also later arrested and jailed
for the attack and other bombings in Woolwich, south east London,
after they were allegedly identified as being involved in the
bomb plot in confessions extracted by the police.
Mr Guiseppe Conlon, who had
a history of bronchial problems, died in prison while serving
his sentence in January 1980. In October 1989 the Court of Appeal
quashed the sentences of the Guildford Four after doubts were
raised about the police evidence.
In June 1991, the Court of
Appeal also overturned the sentences on the Maguires and Guiseppe
Conlon.
Last year in a letter to SDLP
leader Mr Mark Durkan, the British government acknowledged the
miscarriage of justice but the family wants public recognition.
Daniel Day Lewis and the director
of In the Name of the Father Jim Sheridan have joined with thousands
of people who have signed the petition.
The Irish prime minister Bertie
Ahern and Mr Durkan also lobbied Mr Blair directly during Downing
Street meetings last week.
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
