Unionists ‘sick and tired’ of seeing investigators focus on police not paramilitaries

The chairman of a group which brings together loyalist paramilitaries has said that impatience is growing with official investigations into alleged wrongdoing by the security forces.
By Adam Kula
Published 11th Mar 2022, 15:51 BST
David CampbellDavid Campbell
David Campbell

Instead, David Campbell said that republicans are the ones whose actions should be placed in the spotlight.

The chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council is a former aide to David Trimble, and was reacting to the latest report from the Police Ombudsman.

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It found that police had not leaked the whereabouts of top Sinn Fein man Denis Donaldson after he was outed as a police informer.

But the ombudsman criticsed the PSNI for not doing a sufficiently up-to-date risk assessment of the former IRA man’s safety before he was shot dead in 2006 (a killing claimed by the Real IRA).

Donaldson’s exposure had come about amid a PSNI probe into an IRA spy ring operating at Stormont.

Mr Campbell said: “As one who was a recipient of police warnings that my movements and activity was being monitored by the spy ring at Stormont, the real investigation should centre on who conducted the spying...

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“Equally, those responsible for Denis Donaldson’s murder were not the PSNI or MI5, but the republican terrorists who shot him and those who ordered his execution.

“The other begging question is: was the Real IRA not simply a flag of convenience for PIRA?”

He said that the pre-eminent focus nowadays on alleged state wrongdoing during the Troubles only serves to “allow the guilty parties to remain untouched and unpunished”.

He added that the unionist community at large has become “sick and tired” of seeing police investigated instead of paramilitaries.

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