Councillor assassinated by loyalists, claim family

Businessmen hired loyalist assassins to gun down a Sinn Fein councillor after he refused to accept their bribes, it was claimed today.

Eddie Fullerton was killed just a month after he was asked to name his price, according to his son Albert.

The family has now launched a campaign in a bid to have the shooting included in a major Government-backed investigation into allegations of corruption by gardai in Co Donegal, where he lived.

Mr Fullerton, then aged 56, was a Sinn Fein councillor in Buncrana where the Ulster Freedom Fighters struck in May 1991. The killers later claimed the shooting was in retaliation for the murder of a Protestant man.

But relatives claimed today the shooting was carried out to silence Mr Fullerton who refused to accept bribes from businessmen.

They have also accused gardai of carrying out a seriously flawed inquiry and, with the backing of Donegal Council, claim to have the support of up to 130,000 people in the county.

Albert Fullerton said: “The killers were offered blood money, lots of it.”

Nobody has ever been charged with the murder.

The UFF – a cover name for the Ulster Defence Association – claimed the Sinn Fein councillor was shot because he allegedly help set up a Protestant man killed by IRA gunmen in Castlederg, Co Tyrone, the previous month.

But Mr Fullerton’s family claimed their suspicions of another motive were raised soon afterwards.

Albert Fullerton, a building worker, asked: “Why would loyalists cross the border and come this deep into what they would call ‘enemy territory’ when they could have attacked any number of Sinn Fein councillors closer to home?

“The logistics and planning of the operation were so complex and their intelligence so good that there must have been a stronger motive, and we believe that motive was money.

“This murder took place during a loyalist ceasefire, yet the Ulster Freedom Fighters quickly admitted responsibility and conveniently said that that ceasefire did not extend to the Irish Republic.”

Mr Fullerton said the family was determined to press the authorities to include their father’s murder in the ongoing Morris Tribunal which is investigating allegations of police corruption in Co Donegal.

If not, then they could launch a High Court civil action.

A committee has been set up to try to raise estimated court costs of £250,000.

Police did not follow standard investigation procedures, they claim.

Mr Fullerton was shot dead by a gang which had earlier held the occupants of a nearby bed and breakfast hostage before using a sledgehammer to break down Mr Fullerton’s front door. At least three shots were fired at him as he came down the stairs to investigate.

A burning car was later found abandoned shortly after the murder in the Culmore area of Derry, not far from the shores of Lough Foyle. It is understood the gunmen escaped in a boat across the water to Magilligan to avoid checkpoints.

Loyalists claimed at the time the murder was in revenge for the IRA killing of Protestant man Ian Sproule, 23, in Castlederg, Co Tyrone, the previous month. They alleged Mr Fullerton gave the IRA information about Mr Sproule.

The family denied it and claimed that, a year before his death, the Sinn Fein councillor had received threats.

Key questions remained unanswered, according to Mr Fullerton.

He added: “We will not rest until we establish who paid for my father’s murder, who carried it out and who covered it up.”

Albert Fullerton, his wife Stephanie and their three sons still live in the house where his father was murdered.

“I probably wouldn’t have the energy to pursue this 12 years on if I did not pass the spot on the landing where my father was murdered every morning and every night,” he said.

“I won’t have my children ask me when they grow up ‘Why did you do not anything about granddad’s murder?’

“The killers were offered blood money, and lots of it. We will not rest until the the full truth of what happened to my father is established.”

Mr Fullerton said his father told him a month before his murder that he had attended a meeting in a Co Tyrone hotel with four businessmen.

“He told me they passed a cheque across the table and asked him to put a figure on it, but he said he would not be bought and left,” he said.

“My father was really rattled that night and said he knew that the money he turned down would then go elsewhere. probably to a loyalist death squad.”

Mr Fullerton said his family had not received the support he might have expected from the leadership of Sinn Fein, but the party had passed a motion unanimously at its recent Ard Fheis (annual conference) to call for his father’s murder to be considered by the Morris Tribunal.

He also accused Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of hypocrisy.

“Mr Ahern has called for a full public independent inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane in another jurisdiction,” he said.

“However, he has not done the same when a public representative was killed in his own jurisdiction, despite saying he held my father in high regard.”

Donegal Fine Gael councillor Sean Maloney, who called for the matter to be examined by the Morris Tribunal, said the Fullerton family had been humiliated by the Irish government.

“The Fullertons have been treated disgracefully by the forces of the state and I felt it was important to give them any help I could,” he said.

“The council’s resolution will now go on to the Morris Tribunal and to the Department of Justice.

“Eddie Fullerton was a decent man who got on well with everyone and his family have never received the answers they deserve. The garda investigation seems to have been non-conclusive and the family were not kept informed.”

A garda spokeswoman insisted the police investigation into Mr Fullerton’s murder was still open.

“A superintendent carried out a detailed review of the case file in October 2002,” she said.

“The case is still very much open and will remain so until it is solved.

“No new evidence has come to light and we would appeal to anyone with new information to come forward and contact gardai in Buncrana.”