'˜IRA didn't give RUC officer choice of arrest at Loughgall'

The IRA did not give an RUC officer it murdered at Loughgall a choice to be arrested or executed, a councillor has said.
The scene at Loughgall RUC station where 8 IRA men were shot dead in 1987.The scene at Loughgall RUC station where 8 IRA men were shot dead in 1987.
The scene at Loughgall RUC station where 8 IRA men were shot dead in 1987.

Armagh independent councillor Paul Berry was speaking about his uncle Reginald Williamson, who died in an IRA car bomb at Loughgall in 1993.

He was speaking the day after a lawyer at a Belfast inquest claimed that SAS soldiers who shot dead eight IRA men as they attacked Loughgall police station in 1987 acted disproportionately - and should have arrested the gang instead.

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Solicitor Peter Corrigan said: “The state authorities had prior knowledge and did not effect arrests when they entered Loughgall - they acted disproportionately and excessively.”

But Mr Berry hit back: “As far as I am concerned, there never should have been any inquest into the deaths of this IRA murder squad outside Loughgall RUC Station.

“It is even more sickening to listen to solicitors on behalf of the families of the IRA murder squads raising concerns about their deaths and why they weren’t arrested instead.

“My uncle who served in Loughgall RUC was brutally murdered by an IRA car bomb outside Loughgall in 1993 and the IRA didn’t give him a choice when they cowardly planted a bomb under his car with the clear intention of murdering him.”

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He added: “I am glad the SAS had prior knowledge of this attack and that this IRA murder squad was intercepted and stopped in their tracks for good so they could not continue their bloody campaign of murder in the East Tyrone and Armagh areas.

“It is such a shame that the SAS had no prior knowledge of Teebane, Kingsmills, Tullyvallen, La Mon and many other atrocities carried out by the IRA murder squads.

“It is time the families of these IRA cowards put up and shut up and accept that if they lived by the sword then they died by it, and that was the choice they made each time they went out with hatred in their hearts.”

Loughgall DUP councillor Jonathan Buckley expressed “dismay” at the solicitor’s comments, adding that it could be described as “a blatant attempt to rewrite history”.

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He added: “Ultimately, dozens of peoples’ lives were saved that day as some of the main members of the East Tyrone Brigade of the IRA were justifiably prevented from carrying out evil acts.

“It is important to remember that the IRA men who were stopped had set out with lethal intent and ultimately had no regard for human life as they sought to inflict total misery and pain.”