Interview claims highlight legacy imbalance scandal

As elderly soldiers face trial for shootings almost half a century ago, when the state was trying frantically to combat terror, the criminal justice system has failed abjectly to make progress against unsolved terrorism.

Now Michael Christopher Hayes, 69, speaking from the Republic of Ireland, has said that he was in Birmingham on the night of the 1974 attacks, but he has declined to divulge whether or not he was directly involved. He told the BBC that two men were responsible but he will not name them.

As the DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson says, we must find who ordered the bombs and who planted them. If lowly members of the security soldiers are to face charges late in life, then every resource must go into finding and jailing IRA leaders, who were at the helm of a republican terror campaign in which more than 2,000 people were murdered. This includes a large number of unsolved massacres of civilians.

The people of Northern Ireland reacted with generosity and forgiveness to that onslaught, but that is not being reciprocated. Ex RUC and army are being exhaustively investigated.

Therefore, paramilitary leaders must be hunted down.

If there is no clear path out of current imbalance, then as the war veteran Captain Doug Beattie says Stormont House (SHA) legacy structures must be scrapped. In any event, SHA needs much more scrutiny, given the disturbing turn of events in legacy in the years since SHA was agreed.

Jim Allister MLA yesterday called for the issuing of a European Arrest Warrant. In the meantime Dublin could clarify its position regarding IRA fugitives in its jurisdiction. Irish ministers have lectured London on legacy – the former foreign minister Charlie Flanagan told Britain not to introduce a statute of limitations for ex security forces. It was one of a number of unhelpful Irish interventions. Now they should tell us how they will help secure justice against terrorists.