Troubles team is accused of bias
A LEADING policing board member has echoed calls from the Progressive Unionist Party for action to address the “imbalance” in historic terrorist investigations.
UUP MLA Basil McCrea described the religious breakdown of arrests made by the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team (HET) as giving rise to “potential problems”.
A recent freedom of information release has revealed that all but one of the 71 HET arrests have been loyalists, leading the Lagan Valley MLA to warn of “considerable unrest” if the continuing peace process “does not recognise that the majority of killings were carried out by the Provisional IRA”.
Mr McCrea was speaking as the PUP prepared to picket PSNI headquarters this morning in protest against the HET.
PUP leader Brian Ervine said there was a feeling of “rejection and frustration” in loyalist communities.
Speaking to the News Letter last night, Mr Ervine said he was “flabbergasted” at the HET’s arrest record.
“I was absolutely shocked at those figures. They [HET] are scapegoating our community as far as the Troubles are concerned. Where is the parity of esteem in this?
“Republicans carried out the lion’s share of murders and atrocities in this country.
“Now, the loyalists were culpable and some of the things they did were awful, and I don’t have a problem with the truth, but the horrible spin-off of this is the anger and frustration in these areas that the men who brokered the peace are being sought by the Historical Enquiries Team.”
Since the establishment of the HET in 2006, it has completed 830 cases involving 1,082 victims and is actively working on a further 367 cases (as of January 2011).
The freedom of information release defines their role as dealing with all deaths attributable to the ‘Troubles’ including “deaths caused by the security forces and deaths caused by terrorists placing bombs that prematurely exploded”.
The PUP leader says he is in favour of the HET in principle but hit out at what he called the “sectarian nature” of the body.
Mr Ervine claimed: “Not one shinner or Provisional IRA man has been prosecuted and yet it [HET] was set up in 2006. The government keeps telling the paramilitaries leave the past behind and move on yet they brought back the supergrass trials – but only for the Protestant community.
“Like I said, I don’t have a problem with investigations but I do have a problem with the sectarian nature of the HET’s one-sided approach.”
Mr McCrea said he recently raised similar issues with the board.
“I have been warning repeatedly at the policing board that if we do not deal with this perceived imbalance then there is the potential for problems in the months and years to come.
“That said, it is right and proper that the police will follow the evidencewherever the evidence leads, but there is a bigger political issue that must be addressed and thus far it has been completely ignored by the major political parties.
“It must be remembered that the majority of killings were carried out by the Provisional IRA and any continuation of the peace process tha does not recognise that fact is in dangeof causing considerable unrest.”
Mr McCrea added: “As part of the political settlement, evidence was destroyed whenever the [Provisional IRA] guns were put beyond use.
“This means that the section of the conflict that was responsible for the majority of the killings is not amenable to justice in the normal way because the evidence is difficult to find.”
In response to the criticism, the HET said the “religion or political affiliationof a suspect” is not an issue.
A spokesman for the body said: “The HET is a policing initiative and investigators deal in facts and evidencenot in perceptions.
“The Historical Enquiries Team has been tasked to review the circumstances and investigations of the deaths of more than three thousand people between 1968 and the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998.”
The spokesman said they were still working through the caseload and added: “The HET cannot ignore potential evidential opportunities nor can it create them when they do not exist.
“It can only work with the information available.”
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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