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The Barron Inquiry
- Draft Terms of Reference for
Inquiry - A Fresh Inquest -
2005 Inquest Account - BIRW
Report - Witness Account - Ludlow
Family Account - Sunday
World report May 1976 - Meeting the
Police Ombudsman - Ed Moloney Radio
Interview - 25th Anniversary - Profile
- Questions - Photographs
- Press Release -
Letter to RUC - Magill article
1999 - Press Coverage - Barron
Report Published - Ludlow Family
Response to Barron Report - Download
the Barron Report from the Oireachtas website (pdf file) - Statement
from Justice for the Forgotten - Joint
Oireachtas Committee Request for Submissions - Joint
statement from Justice for the Forgotten, Relatives for Justice and
the Pat Finucane Centre -
Download
Transcript of Ludlow family meeting with Oireachtas Sub-Committee
(Word file)
Original
Ludlow Family website - Second
Ludlow Family website - The
Dundalk Bombing
The Irish
Times, 9 February 2006:
McDowell
reluctant to inquire into Ludlow shooting
Christine
Newman
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has cast doubt on the possibility
setting up of a public tribunal of inquiry into the 1976 murder of Séamus
Ludlow.
At the Oireachtas justice committee on the Barron report into the Co Louth man's
murder, Mr McDowell said there were serious constitutional issues about setting
up an inquiry to effectively mimic a criminal trial 30 years after the crime.
Journalist Ed Moloney, who in 1998 wrote about the murder in the Sunday Tribune
and interviewed a suspect, said he disagreed with Mr McDowell and called for a
public inquiry to make recompense to the family.
Solicitor Francis Keenan, who attended with Mr Moloney, said an unnamed client
would be willing to give evidence at an independent judicial inquiry.
Mr Ludlow (47), a single man and forestry worker, was shot dead on May 2nd,
1976, at Thistle Cross, Dundalk, Co Louth, as he went home after a night out.
The Barron report said he had no connections with any subversive organisation.
No one has ever been charged with the murder.
The report states that the RUC told the Garda in 1979 it believed four named
loyalists were involved in Mr Ludlow's killing but the information was not
pursued by gardaí. The Minister said serious constitutional difficulties would
surround a public inquiry to establish whether someone did or did not commit a
crime 10, 20, 30 years earlier.
The committee might conclude that there was an unsatisfactory investigation and
that the DPP in Northern Ireland was right in 1999 to say there was insufficient
evidence to charge the four suspects with which the DPP in the State concurred.
"But it still doesn't follow that it is lawful for the Irish State to
establish an inquiry to effectively mimic a criminal trial," he said.
Mr Moloney said the family had been treated abominably.
"A full public inquiry could only begin to make recompense. I do not agree
with the Minister. It flies in the face of his own Government policy to support
the Bloody Sunday inquiry and that was 30 years later. The Government supported
that, so why not this?" .
Mr Moloney said it was not the job of a public inquiry to try the suspects but
to inquire into whether the State fell down in its duty in investigating the
murder.
The question had to be asked, no matter how awkward or embarrassing. Was one of
the killers a loyalist paramilitary, an agent of British intelligence and was it
covered up by the RUC and gardaí, he asked.
He interviewed one of the four suspects. He said he was not at liberty to
describe details but he would tell a public inquiry.
Mr Keenan said: "I have received instructions from another client, who for
obvious reasons I cannot name, that in the event of an independent judicial
inquiry and he is satisfied with the guarantees offered to him, would be willing
to appear and give evidence."
Asked if he would give the name privately, he refused: "I don't think it
would take the wisdom of Solomon to work it out from the range of persons."
Download
the Barron Report from the Oireachtas website (pdf file)
SUPPORT THE SEAMUS LUDLOW APPEAL
FUND
Bank
of Ireland
78
Clanbrassil Street
Dundalk
County Louth
Ireland
Account No.
70037984
Thank You.
Copyright © 2006
the Ludlow family. All rights reserved. Revised: February 09, 2006
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