Clonoe IRA gang unlawful killing verdict proof of Republican double-standards, says TUV's Timothy Gaston
A court ruling that the SAS acted unlawfully in shooting dead a heavily armed IRA gang is proof of Republican double-standards.
That’s according to TUV MLA Timothy Gaston, at any rate, who argues that the coroner’s court verdict is yet more unequal treatment of the security forces veterans compared to paramilitaries who committed atrocities during the Troubles.
And he claims it exposes double-standards shown by IRA supporters.
“On the one hand they argue they engaged in a legitimate war,” he said today (Monday), “yet on the other, when anyone fired on Republicans they cry foul.
“It’s OK when they shoot an unarmed off duty UDR man in the back, but unfair when heavily armed terrorists are taken out by the SAS. What sort of “war” is that?”
He was speaking after securing a “matter of the day” speaking right at Stormont on the issue.
On February 16, 1992, four IRA gang members were killed around 15 minutes after pumping 30 rounds of armour-piercing tracer ammunition from a Soviet-made heavy machine gun into a Coalisland police station.
Still armed with assault rifles and speeding their hijacked lorry into a church car park in the nearby village of Clonoe, where their getaway vehicles were stashed, the paramilitaries were surprised by an SAS squad waiting in ambush and shot dead.
Last week a coroner ruled the SAS weren’t justified in using lethal force during the incident – raising the ire of unionists.
But for Mr Gaston, the events of that day are “exceedingly simple to understand if looked at objectively”.
“This was at 10:45pm in February,” he said.
“It was therefore dark and they were engaging heavily armed terrorists – terrorists who were more heavily armed than the SAS were.
“You aren't out for a quiet evening drive in a stolen lorry with a heavy machine gun welded to the back while armed with an assortment of assault rifles.
“If the continuing threat posed by such fully armed would-be murderers is neutralised, then that is a service to the public to whom they are a danger to.
“There was no warning from those IRA terrorists to those they set out to murder in Coalisland RUC station.
“Last week we had another illustration of the coroner system putting the security forces, but never the terrorists, in the dock.”