Gardaí refused probe into murder, says former Garda

A FORMER head of the garda murder squad made startling claims yesterday that garda headquarters suppressed an investigation into the killing of a Louth man 29 years ago.

John Courtney was a detective inspector with the murder squad investigating the killing of Seamus Ludlow when he met two RUC detectives who named the killers. However, when Mr Courtney sought authority to investigate further, he was refused by C3, the gardaí’s anti-terrorism branch.

Mr Courtney, a former head of the murder squad and a man who has led some of the largest murder investigations in the State, told an inquest into Mr Ludlow’s death yesterday that the investigation was suppressed. “They (RUC detectives) gave details of what happened and the names of the persons involved. I was happy enough they would be persons involved and the suspects (responsible) based on the information they gave me.”

Mr Courtney said he wrote a report about this new information which was sent to the chief superintendent in the area, Dick Fahy, and onto C3.

“I heard no more about it afterwards. I made enquiries and was told nothing was being done about it.”

Less than a month later he followed up on it, as he wanted to interview the suspects but needed “authority and I didn’t get any authority to do it.” He was told by a garda in C3, that the “man in charge would not do anything about it.” There was no more explanation, he said.

Cross-examined by Deirdre Murphy, for the Ludlow family, whether he got some explanation from headquarters, Mr Courtney said: “I suppose they sat on it in headquarters. I was anxious to interview them; I couldn’t do it without authority and I didn’t get any authority to do it.”

The body of Ludlow, was found with three gunshot wounds after being dumped in a laneway not far from his home at Culfore, Mountpleasant, Dundalk, on Sunday, May 2, 1976.

His family, who campaigned for this inquest, the second into the death, always believed he was hitching a lift home when he was picked up by loyalist paramilitaries; they also have concerns about possible collusion.

Mr Courtney said within three months he had ruled out the possibility that the IRA was responsible. For years the family said the gardaí led them to believe the IRA had killed him.