HET report says ‘soldiers watched as teen was killed’
Undercover soldiers were watching as loyalists murdered a Catholic teenager in west Belfast, a report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) has found.
Damien Walsh, 17, was shot dead as he worked at a coal supply business in Twinbrook in 1993.
The HET said the security forces had been watching the Dairy Farm shopping centre because it had been frequented by IRA men and because they had information that bomb making materials were being stored there.
Five tonnes of fertiliser were found in a unit of the complex following Damien’s murder.
The report said Damien Walsh had not been involved in paramilitary activity and had not been the UFF’s intended target.
It found that the undercover soldiers had been too far away to intervene and stop the killing.
They had radioed the police with details of the killers’ getaway car, but got the make and model wrong.
The HET report concluded that there were no new lines of enquiry.
The Walsh family said the report had raised more questions than answers.
It has already asked the police ombudsman’s office to carry out a separate investigation into how the RUC murder inquiry was conducted.
