Teenage murder victim was not informant, Republicans admit

The family of a teenager murdered by the IRA at the height of the Troubles said republican claims he was a security forces' informant had finally been dismissed.

Bernard Teggert was 15, though relatives at the time said he had the mental age of a child, when he was kidnapped by the IRA in 1973.

The IRA accused Bernard, from New Barnsley in west Belfast, of being an informant and shot him.

The organisation did not admit to the killing at the time, but in October 2004 the IRA issued a statement accepting responsibility for his death. It apologised to the family for the pain and grief that it had caused and said the boy's death was wrong.

Now republican sources are said to have confirmed categorically to the family that the murdered boy was not a security forces' informant.

The dead boy's family told the republican newspaper, An Phoblacht: "We know Bernard was innocent. He was not an informer. We are glad that that stigma has been removed."

Republican sources had repeated what were described as profound regrets about the killing of Bernard Teggert and acknowledged that it should not have happened.

The paper reported: "Hopefully the stigma which surrounded Bernard's death will now be removed and this will help the Teggert family who have suffered grievously as a result of the conflict."

News reports from the time of Bernard's death said that he had seen IRA members hijacking a beer lorry in west Belfast and after witnessing them hold a gun to the driver's head, he shouted at them to leave the man alone. A relative interviewed in 2004 said the boy, who they described as an innocent with a mental age of eight or nine, had shouted: "I am going to tell on youse."

When soldiers coincidentally arrived on the scene and captured the IRA members, it appeared that Bernard was later blamed.

Bernard's father Danny Teggert was killed in August 1971 by soldiers under controversial circumstances - a case which itself is now being championed by relatives who said he too was an innocent victim.

Mr Teggert was shot dead by soldiers in one of a series of army shootings that killed 11 people in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast.

The violence surrounded the introduction of internment without trial and a Catholic priest was among those killed in shootings that occurred over three days and were blamed on the Parachute Regiment.

Campaigners who have raised awareness of the case over recent years have said all those killed were unarmed civilians.