IRA Clonoe gang deaths: Unionists blast 'ludicrous' SAS unjustified force ruling, as coroner accused of treating terrorists like 'innocents out for an evening drive'
Major Unionist voices have blasted a ruling that the SAS weren’t justified using lethal force against an armed IRA gang in the aftermath of a machine-gun attack on a police station.
Slating the verdict for treating armed terrorists as if they were “innocents out for an evening drive”, Baroness Kate Hoey slammed the ruling as another slap in the face for victims who will never see Republican gunmen brought to justice – and TUV leader Jim Allister accused the UK government of continuing a policy of “putting security forces in the dock, but never the terrorists”.
Meanwhile DUP leader Gavin Robinson stated the judgement “beggars belief”, arguing that the SAS “had to act decisively to neutralise the threat”.
Four IRA gang members were killed around 15 minutes after pumping 30 rounds of armour-piercing tracer ammunition from a Soviet-made heavy machine gun into a Coalisland RUC station on February 16, 1992.
Still armed with assault rifles and speeding their hijacked lorry into a church car park in the nearby village of Clonoe, where their getaway vehicles were stashed, the paramilitaries were surprised by an SAS squad waiting in ambush and shot dead.
Today (Thursday) a coroner ruled the SAS weren’t justified in using lethal force during the incident – raising the ire of Unionists of all stripes.
Baroness Kate Hoey reinforced that at the time, the security forces were fighting “an enemy who had no boundaries in their terror campaign of bombings and shootings of ordinary peaceful Protestants in border areas”.
"Their evil acts deserved no mercy,” she said, “and the coroner’s verdict in this case is yet another blow to those who will never see most IRA terrorists brought to justice.
“The UK government must speak out and condemn the attempts to rewrite history, as if those killed while on active service for the IRA were innocents out for an evening drive.”
The TUV’s Jim Allister MP argued that the getaway drive formed a deliberate and planned part of an active terrorist mission, adding that the gang were still armed with rifles at that point and therefore a “continuing threat”.
“If the continuing threat posed by such fully armed would-be murderers is neutralised, then that is a service to the public to whom they are a danger,” he said.
"Today we had another illustration of the coronial system, which Labour is pledged to continue, of putting the security forces, but never the terrorists, in the dock.”
Branding the ruling “ludicrous”, Ulster Unionist justice spokesman, Doug Beattie MLA, stated that the SAS made a split-second decision that “may well have saved lives”.
“In the cold light of day, in a warm courtroom, it is easy to criticise the actions of the military and the decisions they made,” he said.
"However, instead of dead police officers, civilians and lawful military personnel, four PIRA terrorists were killed.
"Nobody wants to see loss of life but when we weigh up the intent of the terrorists in what was an organised and murderous action, the end result is, to all right-minded people, justified.”
DUP leader Gavin Robinson MP maintained that in the context of the Troubles, the SAS’s actions were “a proportionate and justified counterterrorism measure aimed at protecting lives”.
He added: “The SAS operation at Clonoe was absolutely necessary and lawful action against an armed IRA unit that had just carried out an attack on a police station, posing an immediate and ongoing threat to security forces and civilians.
"This judgement beggars belief.
“Given the IRA’s history of deadly ambushes and refusal to surrender, the SAS had to act decisively to neutralise the threat.”
And fellow DUP MP Jim Shannon described the verdict as an “outrageous ruling”.
"The SAS were doing their job - stopping terrorists in their tracks,” he stated.