The Sunday Tribune, Letters to the Editor, 19 September 1999:

In 1999 the respected journalist  Ed Moloney, Northern Editor of The Sunday Tribune,  was being threatened with imprisonment for doing his job as an investigative journalist. He refused to hand over interview notes from an interview he conducted several years before with an RUC informer who was involved in the vile murder of a nationalist solicitor Pat Finucane.

The fact that the individual concerned had already confessed in a statement to the RUC his involvement in the murder of the Belfast lawyer proves that his interview notes were not the real issue. In a gesture of support for the journalist who helped bring the murder of Seamus Ludlow back into public notice after so many years, a letter was sent to The Sunday Tribune.

 It was published on 19 September 1999. Kevin Ludlow and Jimmy Sharkey wrote:

In support of Ed Moloney

We are writing to you on behalf of the Ludlow family to lodge with you our strongest support for your Northern Editor, Ed Moloney, in his action to hold onto his notes in relation to an interview which was given to him by William Stobie, who has since been charged in relation to the murder of Pat Finucane in 1989.

It was Moloney who first printed in the Sunday Tribune on 8 March 1998 an interview with one of the suspects in the car the night our brother and uncle Seamus Ludlow was murdered in 1976.

This interview threw a spanner in the works because the family and relatives strongly believe if it had not been for this article both the RUC and the gardai were going to cover up this man's murder again.

The RUC admitted that they interviewed Stobie about his involvement in the murder of Pat Finucane 10 years ago so why do they want Moloney's notes when they had enough information to charge Stobie with murder at that time? Why did the RUC not visit Moloney after he printed the story about the murder of Seamus Ludlow?

 Why did the RUC not visit Moloney after he printed the story about the murder of Seamus Ludlow?  Why did the Stevens inquiry team take action legal against Moloney within weeks of him publishing the  article (about the Pat Finucane murder)? Why has it taken the DPP in Northern Ireland over 10 months to make a decision whether or not to prosecute the four suspects in the Ludlow murder?

We feel that the real reason for this disgusting behaviour towards Ed Moloney is to discredit him both as a human being and a journalist.

If the case against him goes ahead families like ourselves who are seeking justice will have lost the last hope of achieving this.

Kevin Ludlow (brother)

Jimmy Sharkey (nephew)

I Homepage I I Top I I Press coverage I I Irish Victims Commission Report. I I The Irish News, 7 August 1999: Ludlows call for public inquiry I I The Dundalk Democrat, 7 August 1999: Ludlow murder inquiry report "A place and a name" I The Sunday Tribune, 8 August 1999: The case that is not going to go away I