Police dismiss Duffy’s ‘planted DNA’ claims
POLICE have dismissed claims from Colin Duffy that officers planted his DNA in the getaway car used in the murders of two soldiers at Massereene Barracks.
In a statement released at the weekend, the dissident republican who was cleared of the murders of Sappers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey described the charges against him as spurious.
His co-accused Brian Shivers was convicted on Friday of the Real IRA attack at the Army base in Antrim in 2009.
“I am firmly of the view that my DNA arose there because it was planted,” alleged Duffy.
I was never in that car.
“I state quite categorically here that I had no involvement in what happened at Massereene, no involvement whatsoever, and that has been vindicated in court because there was no credible evidence to suggest otherwise.” Yesterday, a PSNI spokesman pointed to the findings issued by Mr Justice Anthony Hart.
“The issue of DNA and how it got there was fully explored through the trial and referred to in the judgment,” he said.
Mr Justice Hart did dismiss the notion that the DNA evidence had been planted by detectives.
The judge said: “Had it been desired to concoct such evidence by placing such DNA on the latex tip, why not place the DNA on the jar found in the glove compartment and/or the bullets found in that jar, thereby constructing a much stronger case and potentially irrefutable inference that Duffy was intimately involved with these guns and therefore intimately involved with the attack itself?”
Duffy – who was cleared for a third time of murdering security force members – also said in his statement that he was “happy” to be called a dissident republican.
But he said he had no questions to answer.
“I did not need to answer to the spurious evidence or so-called evidence that they were adducing at the trial,” he said.
“The decision not to give evidence was a decision that we took on the basis of my view legally of how the case was going.”
Mr Justice Hart referred to Duffy’s decision not to take the stand when he said: “I am satisfied that the only sensible explanation for his silence is that he has no answer, or no answer that would stand up to examination when questioned about the presence of his DNA on the latex tip and on the seat-belt buckles.”
Brian Shivers, a divorcee, unemployed because of his illness from cystic fibrosis and engaged to a Protestant woman, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Sappers Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, and Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham, were gunned down as they collected a pizza delivery outside the Massereene Army barracks in Antrim.
Dissident republican group the Real IRA claimed responsibility.
Jaime Quinsey, who said her brother Mark’s death had devastated her family, appealed for public support in the ongoing police investigation.
“We know there are more people involved and we want to see them sentenced,” she said. “Please help the police before these people destroy more families.”
