Daily Ireland, March 11, 2005
The former highly-placed RUC officer Johnston Brown claims that
the loyalist paramilitaries behind a series of sickening murders in the 1990 were working
as RUC Special Branch agents at the time.
On January 17, 1993, 27-year-old North Belfast Catholic Sharon McKenna went
to the home of a sick Protestant OAP, a family friend not long out of
hospital for whom she intended to make dinner.
As she tended to the pensioner’s needs, two UVF men entered and blasted her
to death with a 12-bore shotgun.
“Both of these men were working for Special Branch at the time and both
would have told their handlers,” said Mr Brown, who added, “they may well
have told their handlers about the murder before it happened.”
The murderers are still living in Belfast as free men. The RUC is meanwhile renamed to PSNI,
the Special Branch has never been disbanded as demanded
by the Patten proposal for a new beginning to policing. No Special Branch member has
been made accountable so far. Political policing still has not the priority of fighting
criminality but sees republican communities as the real enemy.
For more detail on the issue of policing see the interview with Gerry Kelly (Sinn Féin)
by the North Belfast News in July 2003!
Father’s struggle goes on
A former leading RUC officer yesterday confirmed that two UVF men behind a
series of murders in the 1990s had been working as police agents at the time.
Johnston Brown, a former CID detective, told Daily Ireland that both men had
been working as Special Branch agents at the time of their involvement in
several murders in Belfast.
The revelation yesterday provoked a furious reaction from the families of
two of the killers’ victims. The identity of both the killers is known to
Daily Ireland. One is a senior UVF man based in north Belfast with a long
history of paramilitary involvement.
When contacted yesterday, Mr Brown confirmed the two men had both been
Special Branch agents at the time of the murder of 27-year-old Sharon
McKenna, who was shot dead at the home of a pensioner on north Belfast’s
Shore Road in January 1993.
“Both of these men were working for Special Branch at the time and both
would have told their handlers,” said Mr Brown.“What happened with Special
Branch over the years is a disgrace. It undermines all confidence people
have in the police because of the actions of a few,” he said.
Paul McKenna, a brother of the dead woman, said he now wanted the Police
Ombudsman to investigate his sister’s murder.
“The fact that my sister was murdered by Special Branch agents is not in
doubt, and the ombudsman should investigate on that basis,” said Mr McKenna.
“The only question is whether or not their handlers knew of the plan
beforehand, although the pattern of other cases would suggest they did know
about it before.”
Mr Brown fell foul of Special Branch in the 1990s when he revealed that Ken
Barrett, a convicted loyalist murderer, had confessed to killing the Belfast
solicitor Pat Finucane.
He told Special Branch, which took no action against Mr Barrett and later
claimed to have lost the tape recording of the loyalist’s confession.
The same two loyalists are also alleged to have murdered Raymond McCord, a
22-year-old Protestant man who was beaten to death in Belfast in 1997.
His father, Raymond McCord Sr, said he had no doubt his son’s killers had
been allowed to get away with murder.
“They murdered my son, they murdered Sharon McKenna and at least three more
people in north Belfast, while they were working for the police.
Mr McCord said he wanted justice.
“These men and their handlers need to be brought to justice,” he said.
Editorial: Britain must answer for agent killings
Now that the British government has spent some five weeks lecturing
republicans on the need to renounce violence and give justice to the
McCartney family, perhaps this morning it will consider its own position in
relation to its own agents and in particular the revelations in this paper
today by former CID detective Johnston ‘Jonty’ Brown.
In a devastating series of allegations, the once highly-placed RUC officer
claims that the loyalist paramilitaries behind a series of sickening murders
that took place as recently as the 1990s were working as Special Branch
agents at the time.
For its part, the PSNI – so earnestly appealing at present for evidence that
will enable them to act against the killers of Robert McCartney – should act
as a matter of urgency on the statement of Jonty Brown, but something tells
us that a sense of urgency may be somehow lacking in this case.
On January 17, 1993, 27-year-old North Belfast Catholic Sharon McKenna went
to the home of a sick Protestant OAP, a family friend not long out of
hospital for whom she intended to make dinner.
As she tended to the pensioner’s needs, two UVF men entered and blasted her
to death with a 12-bore shotgun.
“Both of these men were working for Special Branch at the time and both
would have told their handlers,” said Mr Brown, who added, “they may well
have told their handlers about the murder before it happened.”
Whatever the RUC/PSNI think about Jonty Brown – and some significant Special
Branch figures despise him for blowing the whistle on Ken Barrett, the
killer of Pat Finucane – they are duty-bound to act on this information, and
act fast because Jonty Brown is a man who’s in a position to know what he’s
talking about.
While Robert McCartney’s murder in a Belfast bar was a savage act, it was
the result of a barroom brawl and not a sanctioned IRA operation – something
that even the fiercest critics of republicanism readily concede.
The death of Robert McCartney has been given blanket media coverage here and
overseas – partly because the dead man’s sisters are articulate and
passionate, partly because it’s an opportunity to bash Sinn Féin.
How much more shocking than a fight in a pub is the idea of two loyalist
paramilitaries in the employ of the British state emptying a shotgun into a
young Catholic woman who was preparing dinner for a sick Protestant
pensioner?
The dead woman’s family want Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan to get involved – she
should, of course, because there is little or no prospect of the PSNI acting
decisively and effectively in this case.
The same two ruthless killers are alleged to have been involved in the
murder of Raymond McCord, a 22-year-old Protestant beaten to death by the
UVF in 1997.
The dead man’s father, Raymond McCord Snr, has waged a brave and energetic
campaign to have the men responsible – men whose names he says he knows –
put behind bars.
The McCartney family know better than anyone what these two families have
been through for the past 12 and eight years respectively – the McKenna and
McCord families can be assured of their sympathy.
In the light of these latest claims, will either family be invited to the
White House?
Will either family be visited by Fine Gael TDs?
We suspect that they already know the answer to those questions.
