Inquest into killing of IRA men will put our soldiers through yet another ordeal

Here we go again. Have we learnt nothing? Has the government learnt nothing?

On June 3 1991, three IRA terrorists set out to murder an officer of the UDR. The SAS with an eight man team were waiting and neutralised their targets in Coagh.

The three ‘men’ were Tony Doris from Coalisland, Pete Ryan from Ardboe, and Lawrence McNally from Ballinderry. These were not ‘men’ they were cowards, intent on murder.

It has been announced that an inquest will be held in September next year. Trailing our soldiers yet again through an appalling ordeal. Did we learn nothing from Dennis Hutchings?

The pursuit of our armed forces who served during Op Banner must end. Without that SAS team how many innocent lives would have been lost at the hands of those three terrorists?

Whilst the IRA sit on their On The Run (OTR) comfort letters and royal pardons, their political wing Sinn Fein encourage the hunt of our veterans with the help from the British government.

The IRA claim they were fighting ‘a war of liberation’ they did so by setting out to murder and maim innocent men, women and children.

If, as they claim (when it suits them) that this was a ‘war’ they will have no problem handing back their letters and pardons and return to prison to carry out their sentences given to them by a court of law, they will have no problem owning their actions.

They will have no problem disclosing who carried out the shootings, the bombings, their ‘nutting squad’, where the bodies of the disappeared are.

Instead, the British government pander to the whims of republicans.

Why?

At what point did our once proud establishment become so morally corrupt, that it is willing to let veterans who were sent to Northern Ireland to carry out a job, protecting British citizens be hounded?

Without our armed forces in Northern Ireland many more innocent people would have died.

The British government do not owe Sinn Fein or the IRA a thing.

We as veterans and as a community do not owe them a thing, so why are we paying for it?

Lorna Smyth, Conlig

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