Victims say it is ‘scandalous’ that Government Libya-IRA assessor William Shawcross met Sinn Fein but not victims - but republican party hits back

Libyan leader Col Gaddafi supplied weapons and Semtex to the IRA, the explosive used in many atrocities like Enniskillen and the London Docklands bomb attacks.

In 2019 the government appointed William Shawcross to assess the levels of compensation due to victims. 

He submitted his report to the government a year ago but this week the government said once and for all that it would not be published as it was “an internal scoping report”.

Mr Shawcross was questioned by MPs on the NI Affairs Committee today, where he admitted in the closing minutes of the hearing that he had met Sinn Fein representatives at Stormont about compensating the IRA victims.

However, terror victims were angered as he had already repeatedly told MPs that he had been advised against meeting IRA victims during his six-month probe.

“I was at Stormont and I did meet with republican politicians at Stormont,” Mr Shawcross told DUP MP Ian Paisley.

Mr Paisley asked if he had heard their representations “on the basis that they may have had a conflict of interest?”.

Mr Shawcross replied: “I heard their representations because they were members of Parliament ... at Stormont.”

Kenny Donaldson of victims’ umbrella group, Innocent Victims United, said they had repeatedly asked to meet Mr Shawcross without success.

“It is nothing short of scandalous that William Shawcross was actively dissuaded from meeting with victims’ groups who support the innocents of Gaddafi-sponsored Provisional IRA terrorism,” he said.

“We can confirm that we requested an engagement session with Mr Shawcross which was not facilitated and nor were we reached out to by him despite the fact that we are the largest consortia of organisations supporting the innocent victims of terrorism.”

A Sinn Fein spokesperson confirmed it had met Mr Shawcross and told him that “all” victims deserved compensation.

“We made it clear that all victims deserve truth and justice and proper compensation for the hurt they have suffered during the conflict,” the party said.

“The biggest problem we have in moving all of this on is the British government’s failure to implement the agreements made in New Decade New Approach (NDNA) and the Stormont House Agreement on dealing with the past. These were international agreements and commitments and negotiated with the Irish and British governments and the political parties here.

“The failure to honour agreements damages politics but more importantly denies equality of truth, justice and adequate compensation to victims who have waited decades on the truth.”

Mr Shawcross said he had been advised that even doing the report was “a great mistake” because of the tensions it could create between communities in Northern Ireland if Gaddafi victims were “singled out” to the “detriment” of other victims.

He had been advised that it could “cause problems between families and neighbours and communities if Gaddafi victims were singled out for special treatment. And that is one of the issues I have gone into in the report ... I am also aware that the way of sorting out that pain that is not to the detriment of others is complicated ....”.

He had also been advised against meeting victims because it would raise expectations too high for a solution, he added.

“I had wished and hoped to speak to victims but because it was only a scoping exercise I was strongly advised by people in NI whom I respected not to approach victims themselves directly and not even to approach the main victims groups because that - and I agreed with it - would add too much to people’s expectations that this was going to be a complete answer.
“After six months it was clear to me after six months and the differences between victims of different atrocities was so complicated that it would be impudent and completely wrong of me to say - here is the solution.
So my report did not provide an easy answer to the government.”

Mr Shawcross revealed he said in his report that evidence on IRA murders may be “too old” to use for compensation.

”One or two people including serious politicians in Northern Ireland said to me - your work is very difficult to justify because it is so long ago that these things happened - it is too late to reopen them. It is going to be too painful and it is going to be too complicated and we can never get the truth of the total number of people hurt by Gaddafi-IRA weapons. The evidence is too old. Several people have said that to me and I have concluded that sentiment in the report.” 

However DUP committee member Gregory Campbell MP responded that “the length of time hasn’t stopped the police knocking on the doors of former soldiers forty or fifty years after their service in Northern Ireland”.

Mr Shawcross also told Mr Paisley that determining the number of claimants is “one of the real problems”.

He did not conclude it was too complicated to solve but understood why a lot of people would think that.

“People in Northern Ireland whom I respect said that to me that it is too complicated to solve and that the process of investigation and trying to find a solution could cause a lot of grief and arouse emotional feelings that have been dimmed. The way it was expressed to me was that ‘there are downsides to what you are doing’ - that is putting it mildly.”

He added: “That is the complexity of it all - you probably know that better than I do because you all know Northern Ireland but I haven’t come to any conclusions. Six months was not enough time to lay down the law.”

Mr Shawcross asked Mr Paisley if compensation should be “wider than victims of Gaddafi IRA atrocities”, saying it was a question he raised in his report, though he did not draw a conclusion on it.

And he added that the issues were too complex to come to definitive conclusions on in the six months he had been allocated for his report.

Committee chair Simon Hoare noted that the government had used very definite language to the committee in 2019 when describing what it expected from Mr Shawcross.

He read from its statement in 2019 in which it said his appointment would “bring greater focus to our efforts to support these victims” and that one of the issues he would advise on is “the amount of compensation that should be sought”.

The government had added that “we are committed to supporting these victims and we are confident that the appointment of a Special Representative will bring greater focus to our efforts”.

But Mr Hoare said there was “a little bit of retrofitting” now by the government because it was now insisting that Mr Shawcross’s report had always been intended to be “an internal scoping report” and not for publication.

There had been no mention of this in the press statement announcing his appointment and assignment, he added.

Mr Shawcross said he could not explain the disparity between what the government said in 2019 and what it said this week about his report. He added that the issues were too complex to come to definitive conclusions on in six months he had been allocated.

He noted that the government takes £5m a year in tax from the interest on the £12bn of Libyan assets frozen in the UK by the UN. And he suggested there is “a strong argument” that the government could decide to use this for Libya-IRA victims.

He added that a “responsible” UK government should use its seat on the UN Security Council to veto any unfreezing of Libyan assets until a compensation plan is agreed.

The question arose as to whether it was appropriate for the Libya assets to be used for IRA victims when Libya is in such turmoil - and if the money might be better used for Libyan healthcare and education.
But Chairman Mr Hoare said that while there is huge disruption in Libya, given its natural resources it is “not what one would describe as an impoverished country, it is probably as wealthy per capita if not more so than Saudi Arabia”.

POLITICAL REACTION

Commenting after the hearing, Shadow Secretary of State Louise Haigh MP said: “Not only have victims of Libyan-sponsored IRA terror been left in the dark, but the author of a key report effectively silenced. The failure of Ministers to provide even the most basic answers to victims is an insult. The Government have serious questions to answer over their conduct.”

After the hearing DUP MP Nigel Dodds called on the government to release Mr Shawcross’ report.

“I think they do now need to come clean as to what is in this report that they are so afraid of the public having sight of and MPs having sight of,” he said.

UUP peer Lord Empey described the government’s announcement that it will not use tax from frozen Libyan assets to compensate IRA victims “as appalling and shameful”.

Lord Empey, who has campaigned for compensation for Libya-IRA victims since 2002, said the government statement on the matter this week made it clear that it would not use its veto at the UN Security Council to prevent the release of Libyan frozen assets around the world until the country agrees to compensate UK victims.

“The government’s attitude is particularly galling given that the USA, France and Germany have all extracted compensation from Libya for the death and injury of their citizens,” he said.

DUP MP Gregory Campbell, a member of the NI Affairs Committee, said the appearance of William Shawcross before the committee today has only further reinforced the view that the government has no real interest in pursuing compensation.

“Mr Shawcross submitted his report to the government around 10 months ago yet we now know that no minister or official during that time made contact with him for a discussion about it,” he said. “This does nothing to dispel the view that the government has no real interest in pursuing this issue.”

SDLP MP Claire Hanna, also a member of the committee, expressed frustration at the UK government’s refusal to publish the Shawcross report. “At the very least, victims should have expected that they would see the terms of the report,” she said.

The TUV said it was “most interesting” that Mr Shawcross met with Sinn Fein but not terror victims.

TUV Comber councillor Stephen Cooper noted that William Shawcross repeatedly made reference to the “complexities” of NI during his evidence to the NI Affairs Committee.

“There was no recognition of the fact that when it came to Libyan links to terrorism there was nothing particularly complex about it,” he said. “The weapons and explosives were smuggled to the IRA and used by republicans to murder.

“Would it create difficulties for the process to compensate victims of IRA terror? What a telling commentary on the process that such a question can even be asked! It was most interesting that Mr Shawcross agreed to accede to advice that he should not meet with victims of the IRA. One would have expected that this would have been a very basic starting point.”

‘Shameful’ that government won’t publish Libyan/IRA terror redress report

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