Robert McCartney (murder victim)

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For other people with similar names, see Robert McCartney (disambiguation)

Robert McCartney (1971 – 31 January 2005) was the victim of a murder in Belfast, Northern Ireland, allegedly carried out by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He was a father of two small children and was engaged to be married in June 2005 to his long-term partner, Bridgeen Hagans. He was a Catholic and lived in the predominantly nationalist Short Strand area of East Belfast and was said by some to be a supporter of Sinn Féin.

His killing by IRA members has had extensive political repercussions for Sinn Féin as many people have expressed revulsion to the crime in a way not seen before. Opinion polls, all over the island of Ireland, showed a dip in support for Sinn Féin[citation needed] after the murder, and Sinn Féin lost their council seat in the Short Strand in the local elections in March 2005. The murder of Mr. McCartney particularly impacted on Sinn Féin's support in the Republic of Ireland where the party has been consistently unable to break the 8% barrier in opinion polls.

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[edit] The fight

Robert McCartney was involved in a fight in a bar — Magennis's — on May Street, in the centre of Belfast, on the night of January 30, 2005. He was found unconscious with stab wounds in Cromac Street and died in hospital the following morning. He was 33 years old.

According to Robert's family, the fight arose when his friend, Brendan Devine, was accused by members of the IRA of making an insulting gesture or comment to a woman in their company. When Devine refused to accept this or apologise, a brawl began. The IRA men dragged them into Verner Street and beat and stabbed them. Devine also suffered a knife attack, but survived. In June 2005, Brendan Devine was sentenced to seven years in prison for taking part in a robbery on the outskirts of Belfast. McCartney friend jailed over raid

It is claimed by McCartney's family that the killers issued a threat to all those present not to discuss or report what they had seen. No ambulance was called and the bar was quickly cleaned. The UK edition of Marie Claire reported that female IRA members were called to the scene to clean with bleach because bleach destroys forensic evidence. They also said this was typical IRA procedure. Film from security cameras was removed and destroyed.

[edit] Investigation

When the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) launched a murder investigation they were met with a "wall of silence", with none of the estimated 72 witnesses to the altercation coming forward with information. This is not an unusual attitude among Irish nationalists, who have mixed views of the new police force. In conversations with family members, many potential witnesses claimed to have been in the pub's toilets at the time of the attacks; this led to the toilets being dubbed the TARDIS, after the time machine in the television series Doctor Who, which is much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Police carrying out search operations in the nationalist Short Strand and Markets areas of Belfast in connection with the investigation were attacked with stones and missiles. Cars were set on fire and some police officers were injured, although such treatment of the police by young nationalists is in no way unusual in Belfast. Several people, including a senior republican figure, were arrested. Sinn Féin claimed that the investigation was being used as an excuse to disrupt the community and accused the PSNI of heavy-handedness. Over a thousand people attended a vigil in memory of McCartney five days after his murder. A similar number attended his funeral.

McCartney's family were among those who publicly stated their belief that Provisional IRA members were responsible for the silence surrounding the murder, with his sister saying, "their cover-up and their clean-up operation afterwards was meticulous." The IRA expelled three members some weeks later. Mark Durkan of the moderate Nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) also accused the IRA of orchestrating a cover-up, claiming that the "full force of the IRA has been used to intimidate witnesses and prevent the killers from being brought to justice."

[edit] Political fallout

However, Gerry Adams, the President of Sinn Féin, urged witnesses to come forward to "the family, a solicitor, or any other authoritative or reputable person or body," also saying, "I want to make it absolutely clear that no one involved acted as a republican or on behalf of republicans." He suspended seven members of Sinn Féin. This stops short of asking witnesses to contact the police directly with information and this approach is consistent with the long standing position of Sinn Féin who, historically, have held no confidence in the police in Northern Ireland, whether it be the PSNI or its predecessor the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The usefulness of making witness statements to the victim's family or to a solicitor was derided by the McCartneys and by a prominent lawyer and SDLP politician, Alban Maginness, soon afterwards. In line with Sinn Fein's new policy of supporting the police Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said on 31 January 2007 that anyone with information about the murder should go to the police.[1]

This reference by Gerry Adams to the Sinn Féin political agenda in response to what was a passionate plea for justice from Robert's family was seen by some to be insensitive at best and potentially indicative of something much more sinister. One opinion piece on this subject from Trudy Rubin of The Philadelphia Inquirer even asks "Has the IRA `morphed into the mob'?" The McCartney family have remained quite firm that they do not wish to become involved in the long political debate over police sectarianism but that their sole aim is legitimate justice administered through due legal process and this is being denied because witnesses are being intimidated by people connected with the IRA and Sinn Féin.

For their part, the PSNI stated that they did not believe the IRA had sanctioned the killing, and that it was carried out by IRA members independently of the organisation's leadership. They later claimed that a very senior IRA man was involved in the murder. The victim's family shared this assessment, claiming that it was the unnamed senior figure who ordered the killing. Gerry Kelly, a high ranking Sinn Féin member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and former IRA bomber, accepted that witness intimidation had occurred, but like Adams he did not call for witnesses to talk to the PSNI. Instead he encouraged those with information who did not trust the police to give it to the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, or to their own solicitors.

On February 16 the IRA issued a statement denying involvement in the murder and calling on the perpetrators to "take responsibility". McCartney's family welcomed this, but insisted that intimidation and threats had come "from the highest level of Sinn Féin and IRA". Gerry Kelly denied that this had been the case.

The McCartney family has stated that a total of 20 individuals were involved with the murder.

The murder came amidst controversy following the Northern Bank robbery of December 2004, in which £26.5 million was stolen from a bank in Belfast. The belief that this had been carried out by the IRA is widely held, and many lamented that the scandal surrounding alleged IRA involvement in this kind of criminality had overshadowed the scandal surrounding the possibility that its members had killed a man in a pub brawl for no good reason, or had at least tried to cover up the circumstances of his death. The murder and its aftermath resulted in a strong backlash against the IRA in the Short Strand, a nationalist enclave in an overwhelmingly unionist area. The area is traditionally regarded as strongly republican, due in part to its "siege mentality" and history of attacks by unionists, from which the IRA had defended the community and its church, St. Matthew's, when no-one else would. The most famous was in 1969, an action which drew many supporters to its ranks.

On March 8 the IRA issued an unprecedented statement saying that they had made an offer to McCartney's family to shoot the members involved in the murder. The family made it clear that they wanted the people concerned prosecuted, not physically harmed.

All five McCartney sisters and his partner, Bridgeen Hagans, expressly rejected the IRA's offer to shoot the men, and again asked that the IRA lift their threats against witnesses to McCartney's murder, allowing them to testify to the PSNI. Their cousin, Gerry Quinn, stated that McCartney's family wanted "justice, not revenge."

Since this time, the sisters of Robert McCartney have maintained an increasingly public campaign for justice (through the legal process) which saw Martin McGuinness make a public pronouncement that the sisters should be careful that they were not being manipulated for political ends (this was reported by many news agencies, including the BBC on 14 March 2005). This was interpreted by some as a veiled threat towards the McCartney family.

The McCartney family travelled to the United States during the 2005 St Patrick's Day celebrations where they were met by US Senators (including Hillary Clinton and John McCain) and US President George W. Bush who expressed 100% support in their campaign for justice. Meanwhile Gerry Adams was noticeably shunned by senior US politicians, especially Senator Ted Kennedy, who had previously welcomed Adams in an attempt to assist the peace process in Northern Ireland.

On May 5, Terence Davison and James McCormick were remanded in custody, charged with murdering McCartney and attempting to murder Devine respectively. Terence Davison is the uncle of Gerard 'Jock' Davison. McCormick is originally from England.

[edit] Driven out by intimidation

The McCartney family had lived in the Short Strand area of Belfast for five generations. However some local people in the Short Strand area, which is a largely Nationalist area, did not welcome their dispute with the IRA and allegedly drove them to leave by threats of violence. The last McCartney sister to leave the area (Paula) departed Short Strand on 26 October 2005. They received some of their popularity back when they refused to take a seat beside Margaret Thatcher, a highly unpopular figure amongst the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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