‘RUC success’ against IRA real reason for collusion claims: Allister

The track record of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in curtailing IRA terrorism is the real reason the RUC’s detractors make repeated ‘collusion’ claims, Jim Allister has claimed.

Following a decision by RTE to broadcast the film Unquiet Graves, which was shown on RTE1 last night, the TUV leader said that “propagandists” are continually seeking “to blacken the good name of those who prevented this country slipping into the abyss”.

Unquiet Graves is produced and directed by Sean Murray, the son of senior Sinn Fein strategist and former IRA member Sean ‘Spike’ Murray.

The film gives a platform to rogue RUC officer John Weir, who was convicted of murdering a Catholic show owner in Co Antrim in 1977, to allege British Intelligence agents encouraged loyalist terrorists to carry out a mass murder at a Catholic primary school.

Yesterday, the News Letter published interviews with two of the RUC detectives who brought him to justice. They pointed out that Weir failed to mention his long list of allegations against his former colleagues – including that his terrorism was condoned by senior security force figures – until almost 20 years after his conviction.

Mr Allister said: “The hatred of the RUC is not motivated by evidence of collusion between them and loyalist murderers, but by the fact that they stood in the way of the PIRA visiting terror in this province on a scale which far surpassed what terrorists sadly did manage to bring on many innocent families. Anyone who has read William Matchett’s book ‘Secret Victory’ will be in no doubt that it was the RUC’s work which had effectively crippled the IRA by the mid-1990s.”

Mr Allister added: “If what Weir is now saying is true why did he keep quiet about it for the best part of 20 years?

“The real story of the RUC is of a force made up of men and women who put their lives on the line to serve both sections of a divided community.

“The greatest scandal of the terror visited on Northern Ireland is that in many instances the ability of the RUC to do their job was hampered by Dublin.

“If RTE wants to screen documentaries about what happened here and why many people, unlike Weir, never served a day in jail for their crimes it could do worse than to start with looking at why 93% of extradition requests were refused by the Republic.

“Why are people like the family of Ian Sproule, gunned down in Castlederg by the PIRA after an inaccurate Garda file was leaked to the Provisionals, still waiting for any answers from Dublin? Where is justice for that family?”

Former officers’ dismay at RTE platform for killer’s ‘collusion’ claims

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