Insufficient evidence to prosecute McGuinness
PROSECUTORS have said that Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness was not charged with terrorist offences, including membership of the IRA, in 1994 because there was not enough evidence.
In a statement to the News Letter, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said that the senior Sinn Fein MP, who has since admitted to being an IRA commander during the Troubles, said that it “carefully considered” a police file but concluded there was not enough evidence to prosecute.
Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister, who complained to the Police Ombudsman that there had been political interference which prevented Mr McGuinness being prosecuted, said that it was politically expedient for the authorities to stop pursuing the case.
The Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) — now the PPS — had in 1994 been considering a police file after Mr McGuinness was investigated in connection with eight murders as well as conspiracies to murder and IRA membership, Mr Allister said.
Around that time, on December 9, 1994, Mr McGuinness had his first official meeting with British Government officials which led to a series of meetings and culminated in Sinn Fein’s first meeting with a British Government minister in May 1995.
Mr Allister said: “However, as the talks with Sinn Fein continued, the DPP in March 1995 directed ‘no prosecution’, the political convenience of which has caused me to question if McGuinness was afforded special treatment.”
More recently, a 21-month investigation has been carried out by the Police Ombudsman into a complaint made by the TUV leader as to whether political considerations had affected the outcome of ‘Operation Taurus’, a police investigation into the Mid Ulster MP’s IRA links launched in the wake of TV revelations in the Cook Report.
Mr Allister said: “It is a fundamental tenet of any worthwhile society that all citizens should be equal under the law and equally subject to the law.
“Political considerations should play no part in bringing wrongdoers to justice.
“Thus I am appalled to have it confirmed that the file forwarded on McGuinness, at the conclusion of Operation Taurus, contained direct, though secret, reference to the imminence of Government contacts with Sinn Fein as a material consideration in deciding whether or not to prosecute him.
“This was not, in my view, a legitimate policing or prosecution consideration, but the fact that it figured suggests to me that politics was allowed to taint the process.
“When justice is overwhelmed by political considerations, then justice is diminished and undermined.”
In a statement, the PPS said: “It is noted that the Police Ombudsman has concluded that the police conducted a proper investigation into the matter referred to.
“The PPS can confirm that following receipt of a file from the police and after careful consideration of the evidence it was concluded that the evidential test for prosecution was not met.”
A spokesman from the Police Ombudsman’s Office said: “The Police Ombudsman’s Office has conducted an investigation into a complaint that police failed to properly investigate allegations contained in a Cook Report television programme in 1993, and published in 2001 in a book entitled ‘From Guns to Government’.
“The investigation concluded that police had conducted a proper investigation into these matters and forwarded all necessary material to the Director of Public Prosecutions for his consideration.”
The PSNI refused to comment, saying: “We do not discuss named individuals.”
However a Sinn Féin spokesman said: “These allegations are not new and continue to resurface every time a new anti-peace process unionist politician tries to make a name for himself.
“It is an historical fact that the RUC was a political police force intent on imprisoning republican leaders at all costs even if it meant fabricating charges.
“The RUC regularly leaked misinformation to unionist politicians and anti-republican elements in the media at every sensitive juncture in the peace process in attempts to derail any possibility of progress and change.
“It therefore should surprise no one that the same RUC would be attempting to create the conditions whereby they could arrest such a high profile republican as Martin McGuinness.”
