Captain Robert Nairac: New appeal in bid to find murdered soldier’s body

Sunderland-raised Captain Robert Nairac was kidnapped and executed by the IRA 45 years ago.

While six men were later convicted of their part in his murder, none of them revealed what happened to his remains.

Geoff Knupfer, the lead investigator for the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR), has said: “We would appeal to anyone with any information about where Robert is to please contact us.

”Whatever information we are provided with cannot be used in any court of law.

“It is a humanitarian issue so that we can return Robert to his family and his surviving sisters so that they can give him a burial.”

Mr Knupfer believes the Grenadier Guard’s remains are buried in dense Co Louth countryside.

A 2019 investigation in part of the vast Ravensdale Forest found no evidence of a grave and a new search will only commence once the ICLVR receives intelligence about a more precise location.

Mr Knupfer has also repeatedly discounted rumours that Captain Nairac’s body was quickly fed to an industrial mincer.

Captain Nairac reputedly sang republican songs in the Three Steps pub, in Dromintee, south Armagh, on May 14, 1977, while working undercover.

After his behaviour aroused suspicion, he was overpowered and abducted following a fight in the bar’s car park and executed the following morning across the border in the Republic of Ireland.

His pistol and traces of his hair and blood were recovered as evidence with one of his murderers later admitting in court: “He never told us anything. He was a great soldier.”

Captain Nairac, who was 28, is one of only four out of the so-called 17 Disappeared whose remains have still to be recovered following the end of the Troubles.

Mr Knupfer has said: “This is an entirely humanitarian process and we really do need help to return these lost souls to their loved ones for Christian burial.

“I would remind everyone that since its inception in 1999 no one has ever been interviewed as a suspect, arrested, charged or convicted as a result of information that was passed to the commission on the Disappeared.”