Remembering David Cuthbert - teenage Royal Navy chef murdered in Brazil for IRA in 1972 after Bloody Sunday
This week marks 54 years since terrorists murdered a teenage Royal Navy chef in Brazil in solidarity with the IRA.
David Cuthbert was murdered in Rio de Janeiro on 5th February 1972.
The 18-year-old Royal Navy Cook attached to HMS Triumph was shot by Brazilian terrorists in a passing car while off duty and seated in a taxi.
Leaflets dropped at the scene expressed “solidarity with the combatants in Ireland and all over the world”.
The murder came six days after Bloody Sunday when 13 civil rights protestors were shot dead by Parachute Regiment in Londonderry on 30 January 1972.
David was from Long Common near Shipston on Stour, Warwickshire in England. He was one of five children and was buried in the Churchyard at the village where he grew up.
His dad, a quarry manager, told of his son`s irresistible call to the sea.
Kenny Donaldson, director of victims group SEFF, said: "We have remembered David annually on our SEFF Social Media Anniversary posts for several years; and whilst officially he is not listed as a victim or survivor of The Northern Ireland Troubles, we are very clear that his death was as a direct consequence of events which occurred here in Northern Ireland.
"David was just a boy of 18 years and he had his whole life before him. Those who murdered him did so claiming that it was 'an act of solidarity' with the IRA, once again illustrating the interconnectedness of terrorism the world over."
He added: "We have always acknowledged those who perished on the streets of Derry/Londondonderry on 30th January 1972 and the pain that this has brought to their families, and we will continue to do so."
But he said SEFF will also continue to remember David, and Major Nigel Alers-Hankey who also died on Bloody Sunday - from gunshots sustained in Londonderry several months earlier while trying to protect firemen from stone throwers.
Mr Donaldson said they would also remember two RUC GC Officers murdered in the city three days before Bloody Sunday Sgt Peter Gilgunn and Const David Montgomery.
Carlos Alberto Sales, one of the last surviving participants in Cuthbert’s killing, opened up more recently about the murder – saying it achieved nothing and he would not do it today.
“The motivation for that operation was the massacre in Ireland,” he said, as reported by the Irish Times.
Now aged 70, he runs a small bakery business in a Rio slum where the poverty he murdered to oppose 50 years ago remains unchanged.
He long ago gave up believing armed struggle was the solution to his country’s many ills.
Recalling the murder of the teenage chef, he said: “It was an action carried out in the emotion of the times. We had suffered so many casualties. We felt the loss of those we considered comrades even if they were abroad.
"It was an act of revenge in solidarity with them. But I realise it didn’t achieve anything. Maybe the Irish comrades felt good when they heard about it. But today I wouldn’t do it.”
In 2010, David’s family were among the first to receive the Elizabeth Cross, a new award granted to the next-of-kin of members of the British armed forces killed on operations or as a result of terrorism.