New probe urged into unsolved murders

The British government was today facing fresh calls in Northern Ireland to reopen investigations into unsolved murders in south Armagh during the Troubles.

Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson and members of the victims organisation Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (Fair) will launch a new campaign for investigations into several incidents including the 1975 Tullyvallen and 1976 Kingsmills massacres.

They will also call for an inquiry into allegations of collusion between gardaí here and the IRA in several murders.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is being urged to reopen case files on the murders of five Orangemen gunned down by the IRA in Tullyvallen in September 1975.

Father and son William and James McKee, aged 70 and 40, were among those shot dead in Tullyvaen Orange Hall on the Altnamackin Road near Newtownhamilton.

The other victims included 40-year-old livestock mart manager Nevin McConnell, 80-year-old retired farmer John Johnson and 67-year-old William Herron The PSNI is also being asked to reopen the investigation into the murder of 10 Protestant workmen in Kingsmills.

The victims were ordered off a bus, lined up on the roadside and machine gunned in Kingsmills in January 1976 by a gang calling itself the Republican Action Force – believed to be a cover name for the IRA.

They were Robert Walker 46, Joseph Lemmon, 46, Reginald Chapman, 25 and his brother Walter, 23, James McWhirter, 58, Robert Chambers, 19, John McConville, 20, John Bryans, 46, Robert Freeburn, 50 and Kenneth Worton, 24.

As they prepared to launch the campaign in Bessbrook, Co Armagh today, Mr Donaldson said the “spotlight needed to return” to the barbarity of IRA violence.

Noting over 92% of murders in south Armagh during the Troubles remained unsolved, the Lagan Valley MP said: “These stark statistics are an absolute travesty of justice.

“It is little wonder that the victims of south Armagh are crying out for somebody to listen and hear their cause.

“With millions of pounds spent on judicial inquiries into Bloody Sunday and investigations into the (Pat) Finucane, (Rosemary) Nelson and (Robert) Hamill cases it is clear little or nothing is being done about the IRA’s murderous reign in south Armagh or to give justice to the victims of their violence.

“With the huge amount of resources allocated to meeting the demands of republicans for investigations and inquiries, we believe it is time the government devoted resources to further investigate IRA atrocities like Kingsmills and Tullyvallen and numerous other murders in the south Armagh area.

“It is time the Protestant community was treated equally and with a sensitivity that hitherto we have not seen.

“In recent times republicans have tried to rewrite the history of the past 30 years of conflict and put the police and Army under the spotlight. Now is the time for the spotlight to be shone onto the IRA which after all was responsible for more killings than anyone.”

Fair representative Willie Frazer last week met with police in south Armagh to discuss a dossier compiled by his group into killings in the area.