The Irish High Court has granted a temporary injunction to stop the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) from taking possession of incriminating interviews with a former IRA bomber.
According to the BBC, Judge Justice Treacy prevented the PSNI from receiving tape recordings that were carried out with former IRA member Dolours Price, who made them on the condition that the tapes not be released in her lifetimes. The tapes were made for a history project at Boston College and in July a US appeal court ruled that they should be handed over to the PSNI.
The order will remain in place until a legal challenge by Anthony McIntyre gets under way in Belfast next Wednesday.
McIntyre, who is himself a former IRA volunteer turned academic, is seeking to judicially review the police over their attempts to secure the tapes for their investigation into the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, one of the so-called Disappeared.
McIntyre's lawyers have forcefully argued that disclosing the sealed transcripts will put his life at risk.
Loyalist and republican paramilitaries reportedly gave sensitive and highly detailed interviews to McIntyre and journalist Ed Moloney for Boston College's Belfast Project, which closely examined the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Price, one of their interviewees, was jailed for her part in a bomb attack on the Old Bailey in London in 1973 which injured more than 200 people.
With the expiry of the seven-day stay on supplying the material to police looming, lawyers for McIntyre have argued it was academic work which should not be disclosed.
McIntyre's lawyer said David Scoffield said: 'The PSNI seeing or receiving this material is going to be putting the applicant's life at risk.'
During the hearing the judge departed from this assessment, however, saying: 'Material was provided on a voluntary basis by people who apparently were members of the IRA and subject to a code of secrecy who nonetheless apparently gave accounts of their involvement to people in America under assurances of confidentiality which they must have known, or should have known, is not something they could give.
'Ultimately a court will determine whether it should yield to public interest.'
The judge then pointed out that a book by Moloney based on the same research project has already been published. 'It was the journalists themselves who used the material to publish a book,' Justice Treacy said.
The judge also asked whether the latest legal moves in Northern Ireland were an attempt to 'circumvent' the rulings on challenges in the United States.
'It seems a bit rich, having taken that step, then coming to this court having failed in America, to seek to restrict the police access to this material in discharging their obligation to investigate serious crime.'
Scoffield argued that the PSNI had failed to take into account his client's right to life under European law. He added that he was only seeking a short restraining order until the merits of his judicial review application can be assessed.
Opposing on behalf of the PSNI, barrister Peter Coll argued that the legal challenge in America had already delayed police investigations by nearly two years.
'They are engaged in an active, live criminal investigation into the kidnapping, murder and other offences involving what has been described as the Disappeared, including Jean McConville,' he said.
'The applicant knew the purpose from his own prospective, that this oral history would be taken and, upon the death of the participants to this history, it would be open season in respect of the releasing of this material. We say it is somewhat incongruous for the applicant to say he now takes the view that his rights to life have been infringed.'
Justice Treacy however agreed to grant the interim order sought, citing the human rights aspect and limited period involved.
He added: 'There is no question whatsoever of this being an injunction directed towards any American authorities. The interim relief is directed solely at the PSNI and any other relevant UK authorities.'
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Jacob | Sep 11, 2012, 03:31 AM EDT
So Mr Justice Treacy sits in the 'Irish High Court' does he? I think you'll find his resume says otherwise!
seanomelb | Sep 10, 2012, 08:01 PM EDT
Try structuring your posts in commonsense format Alois
aloistmartin | Sep 10, 2012, 04:18 PM EDT
IrelandNorth@ ... ? Anglo-Saxonia, Adrian IV, Henry II ? Curse St. Patrick, bring the Snakes back to Hibernia ! Let Snakes Run, where No Roman Sandal did tread ! Support Basque Independence ! et al.
IrelandNorth | Sep 10, 2012, 08:44 AM EDT
PS Any preliminary manouevres towards democracy for the great unwashed will forever be a criminal conspiracy for the the imperial classes whose God given right it is to lord it over the peasantry. The 11th commandment of the code of old Anglo-Saxonia is that Hibernia shall forever be in vassalage to Britannia. Did not Pope Adrain IV say as much to Henry II in his dubious Laudibiliter?
IrelandNorth | Sep 10, 2012, 08:40 AM EDT
British archives on the 1916 Rising were only released 90 years ex-post facto, so seemingly controversial were they. That's three times the normal 30 year rule. Thrice the norm of controversiality? The danger as I see it is that a loose cabal of harboiled English imperialist are willing to subvert peace processes because they can't give up on empire. And, after all, loyalist paramilitary elements stand to gain from privilege information too, do they not?
seanomelb | Sep 10, 2012, 06:46 AM EDT
What's your point aloismartin!!!
Realist | Sep 10, 2012, 04:01 AM EDT
I think the next article on this subject will be to report the actual hand over of the tapes to the British authorities (MI5, MI6, and the PSNI). Only a matter of time....tick, tock, tick, tock.
aloistmartin | Sep 09, 2012, 05:56 PM EDT
seanbomelb@ Alois (Fr. Boastful Warrior ?), was my Alsace maternal grandmother`s short name for Albert Louis. That Tragic Figures should come as no surprise to a People robbed of her Revolutionary Ideals; And forced to seek Succouth, from the Manor`s of her former Bourgeois Aristocrat Masters ? Tragic ? Yes tragic, Indeed seanomelb@
Searlit | Sep 08, 2012, 09:16 PM EDT
800 hundred years of atrocities committed against the Irish people by England and now they want to put the lives of two journalists and a woman (who gave an interview for a college), at risk. It seems that they are still trying to suppress the truth on their side, while using extreme tactics to get info out of the other side. I'm so sorry to see this. Ireland remains a Republic with a unique history, all her own. The Isle of The Gaels that somehow mystify their otherwise close neighbor.
occassio | Sep 08, 2012, 07:36 PM EDT
I find ironic Justice Treacy’s comments that having lost on challenges in the United States the plaintiffs now are attempting to stop the police (The Historical Crimes Unit) in discharging their obligation to investigate serious crime. One of those crimes was the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, which the PSNI never sought fit to investigate when it occurred. The McConville family deserves a truthful accounting. Unfortunately, British Intelligence and the PSNI have sanitized accounts of their brutal participation during the Troubles. Are we now to believe that they have become dependable resources and will act with dispassionate integrity in discharging their obligations? It’s farcical.
seanomelb | Sep 08, 2012, 07:32 PM EDT
Aloismartin and her gutter hate what a tragic figure she/he/it is.
merefalow | Sep 08, 2012, 07:26 PM EDT
I THOUGHT THERE WAS A SUPPOSED TO BE A TRUCE,THIS IS ONE SIDED SUB JUSTICE.THERE IS MORE THAN ONE SIDE THAT COMMITTED CERTAIN ACTS,ACTS OF WAR,WAR CRIMES,MURDER ETC ETC,WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO CALL THEM..IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THERE ARE CERTAIN PEOPLE WITH AN AGENDA,A WILL, TO KICK THE WHOLE BLOODY THING OFF AGAIN.
aloistmartin | Sep 08, 2012, 04:55 PM EDT
The more Money, the more Democratic Ethic ? Only proves Ireland is nothing more than a Den of Snakes, like a Dog returning to its own Vomit ! Bravo for the American Constitution !
Searlit | Sep 08, 2012, 04:55 PM EDT
You are so right, slainte9!
slainte9 | Sep 08, 2012, 11:47 AM EDT
When the British open up all their files, then the tapes should be released. There should be one standard for everyone involved. To date no one in the British government or army has be prosecuted for war crimes.