Sas Case Gives Army Licence Kill

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Irish workers and youth.

acquitted SAS gunmen Alan Bohun and Ronald Temperley of the murder of 16 year-old John Boyle in a Dunloy graveyard last July. • A post-martem had shown that Boyle-who had been alieged to have picked up an Armalite rifle and aimed it at an SAS 'stake out' manned by Bohun and Temperley-was shot in the back.

Bohun, the only one of the accused to go into the witness box, made the claim that Boyle had seemed to aim the weapon at him.

No evidence But no forensic evidence was forthcoming to prove that Boyle had even handled the unloaded rifle, and Bolun himself was described by the judge as "an untrustworthy witness" whose evidence was "vague and unsatisfactory"

When asked by the prosecution if his briefing before the stake-out had included reference to the fact that a "killing" would be preferable to a capture, Bolun also admitted that this could have been the case.

But no such evidence influenced judge Lowry; his commitment to the defence of the lawiess acts of British imperialist terror squads made him impregnable to the facts, and the absence of a jury facilitated an easy acquittal.

Indeed despite attempts by the liberal' British press to create the impression of divisions between the RUC and the army over this court case, the whole affair has been marked by a grand-scale cover-up on all sides.

RUC investigations into the killing were hampered from the outset by the fact that at first the army would only identify the killers às 'Soldier A' and 'Soldier B' Then at the initial hearing the proceedings degenerated to outright farce as a crowd of seven men walked into the dock, with no clue as to which were the two actual defendants.

Photofit But as Republican News has pointed out, as the trial began the RUC made a major bid to provide the SAS men with a rational explanation for their murder by issuing a photofit of Tyrone youth Eugene O'Neill, supposedly wanted for offences in South Derry.

O'Neill's mother immediately protested thet the RUC had not even sought to find him Mason at home, and that he was working in the Republic-but to no avail.

A few days later the defence counsel referred to O'Neill as a "suspected terrorist" for whom John Boyle had been supposedly mistaken and shot in the Dunloy cemetary!

The whole affair, and the brazen bias of the judge in acquitting the murderers spells out the reality of British army terror in Ireland-that it is above and outside the law, and that any hired imperialist gunman has licence to kill.

This licence was dramatically extended by the last Labour government, under which Ireland torture chief Roy Mason stepped up SAS activity and urged troops to shoot first and ask questions afterwards.

Last week saw the Labour leadership continue this policy by voting once more to renew the Emergency Powers Act through which imperialist rule continues to be imposed on the Irish people.

But the "licence to kill' is not restricted to British state forces in Ireland: the recent murder of Blair Peach in Southall by the Special Patrol Group shows the meaning of such unrestricted powers.

The British workers' movement must take up its historic responsibility to force the NOW!

*Down ploitation, for an frish savage hatred of the Irish people is matched only by their hostility to the British working class.

It is for this reason that the Workers Socialist League will be fighting for the maximum possible labour movement turn out on the August 12 national demonstration on Ireland to take place in London.

Within that mobilisation we will fight for the clear policies of:

*Troops out now! Self determination for the Irish people.

*Restore POW status to the heroic 'blanket' protestors in the 'H' Blocks and Armagh jail!

with capitalist exNorth and South: workers' Republic!