The News of the World
Martin Breen
KILLER NAMES BOMBING GANG TO BARRON INQUIRY
DUBLIN car bomb suspect James Mitchell was "fully involved" in loyalist terrorism and made explosives in his farmyard, it is claimed.
The allegations, by ex-cop and convicted murderer John Weir, are spelt out in Mr Justice Henry Barron's damning report into the 1974 atrocities, which killed 33 plus an unborn child.
As well as the Dublin and Monaghan massacres, Weir lays the blame for a spate of other murderous attacks at the door of a terrorist cell he says operated from Mitchell's farm on the Co Armagh border.
They include the murder of IRA man John Green near Castleblaney in January 1975, bomb attacks on south Armagh bars, the murders of five Catholics in south Armagh and the killing of RUC Sergeant Joseph Campbell at Cushendall in February 1977.
Mitchell, who still lives at the farm where the deadly plots were allegedly hatched, yesterday reacted angrily to the claims. Now a frail pensioner in his eighties, he stormed: "It's all a parcel of lies. I had nothing to do with it."
But in his conclusions on the Dublin and Monaghan blasts outrage, Judge Barron writes: "It is likely that the farm of James Mitchell...played a significant part in the preparation for the attacks.
"It is also likely that members of the UDR and RUC either participated in, or were aware of those preparations."
Judge Barron, who spent three years investigating the atrocities, also devotes several pages to evidence from Weir.
Attacks
The former RUC sergeant, who was jailed for the murder of a Catholic chemist in 1977, claims Mitchell's farm was the place where "most of the attacks" by the UVF around the border and in the Republic were planned and where bombs were built.
Weir stated: "The farm owner, James Mitchell, (who was a member of the RUC Reserve) was fully involved in this."
The report later adds: "Weir also claimed to have seen James Mitchell mixing homemade ANFO explosive (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) in the farmyard on one occasion."
The retired Supreme Court judge's 350 page report reveals that Mitchell was once convicted over an arms find on his land in December 1978.
It adds that an investigation "in fact established that Mitchell's farm was a major arms dump for the UVF".
Judge Barron's inquiry also reports that Mitchell was interviewed by police on August 9, 2000, about the Dublin and Monaghan blasts but considered the allegations "to be outrageous and concocted by Weir for no apparent reason".
However Mitchell confessed he had met with Weir a number of times.
Weir also named Robin 'The Jackal' Jackson, William 'Frenchy' Marchant and David 'Davy' Payne-all now dead-as the UVF bombers behind the outrages in Dublin and Monaghan. All three names were given to the Barron inquiry by other sources as well.
Marchant, then the West Belfast UVF commander, was later shot dead by the IRA on the Shankill Road in 1987. Mid-Ulster UVF leader Jackson died from cancer in 1998.
And Payne died earlier this year from heart problems.
The Barron probe also makes an intriguing link between British SAS hero Captain Robert Nairac and Jackson. An appendix to the report contains an entire transcript of a Yorkshire Television documentary called Hidden Hand which was screened in Northern Ireland on Channel Four in 1993.
The programme probed the possibility of collusion between loyalist terrorists and officials working for British security in the North and played a key role in the establishment of the independent inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
Judge Barron has given it so much credence, he opted to reproduce the full transcript of the hour long show in the first appendix to his report to the Dublin government.
But the report stops short of implicating Nairac-who was based at Castledillon in the North-in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
Instead it simply remarks: "Nairac's job at Castledillon was as a source handler.
He was getting intelligence and had contacts on both sides.
"Three of the Dublin bomb suspects at the time of the outrage were run by Nairac.
That has been confirmed to us by a series of security force sources from 1974.
"In particular, the man called The Jackal was run before and after the Dublin bombing by Captain Nairac."
Nairac, who worked undercover, was first tortured and then killed by the IRA in 1977 after he was snatched from a pub on the border. Afterwards the Provos said he was the bravest man they had ever met.
It is believed his body was fed into an animal food shredder and then scattered around Ravensdale Forest, Co Louth.
Judge Barron's report into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings was presented to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the end of October before being made public on Friday.
Mr Ahern, who has read the report with key members of his cabinet, has described the bombings as "among the most appalling outrages in the history of the island."
The inquiry was set up to establish whether there was British security collusion in the atrocity, the adequacy of the Garda investigation and the issues raised by the damning Hidden Hand telly show.
It was supposed to be completed within two years-but took three-and was released by the Oireachtas Justice, Equality and Defence Committee.
Last Friday the government ruled out both a tribunal of inquiry and compensation for victims' families.
The government fears a tribunal because of the huge costs involved and because most of the main figures are dead.
They are worried it could turn into another Saville Inquiry, which is still probing the deaths of 13 civilians shot by the British Army in Derry which has so far cost the British Government 207million.
Deputy Sean Ardagh, who chairs the Oireachtas Justice, Equality and Defence Committee says it has yet to decide if an inquiry would be "required or fruitful".
And he admitted that the Committee cannot force witnesses to make submissions.
People involved or named in the Barron report can make submissions to the Oireachtas Justice committee until January 9th 2004.
The first of the public hearings are set to begin on January 20th with relatives of the victims first on the stand.
Meanwhile it emerged yesterday that one of the alleged Dublin bombers died on Wednesday night just before the Barron Report was made public.
Portadown man David Alexander Mulholland, who died in Chester from kidney failure, is described in one police document contained in the report as a prime suspect over the car bomb which exploded in Parnell Street.
Disgrace
His family yesterday said he died aged 65 with "this cloud hanging over his head" and insisted he was innocent. Sister Beth Freeburn added: "David was lifted years ago about the bombing and held for four days but he was never charged.
"How do you think it made the family feel when we had to read about this just after he died. I think it is a disgrace that at a time like this when we are grieving that we have had all this dragged up again.
"It is very hurtful. If David had had anything to do with this he would have been charged years ago, but he was an innocent man." He will be cremated in Chester on Friday.
Justice Barron reported that three separate witnesses identified Mulholland from a photograph as being in the car which contained the Parnell Street bomb.
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