Alleged IRA bomber interviewed by gardaí over Birmingham blasts

Self-confessed IRA bomber Michael Hayes has been interviewed by the Garda in Dublin over the 1974 Birmingham bombs that killed 21 people.

Speaking at his Dublin home to The Irish Times on Thursday night, Mr Hayes said members of the Special Detective Unit, which investigates terrorism, had interviewed him last week.

“I told them: ‘Ask what you want; do what you want’,” he said.

Hayes, who turned 70 last weekend, earlier this month told the BBC he accepted “collective responsibility” for the killings in Birmingham.

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On Thursday, at a pre-inquest reviewing hearing in the UK, lawyers for coroner Peter Thornton QC said “a request to the Irish gardaí to interview Mr Hayes” had been made with the Irish authorities.

Peter Skelton QC, counsel to the inquests, added: “We’re discussing our involvement in any interview with West Midlands Police.”

The force also confirmed in the hearing that it was “also considering an application for Mr Hayes to be interviewed”.

However, Mr Hayes said he was interviewed, though not arrested, at his south Dublin home last week. He did not know if further interviews would follow.

Fresh inquests

Mr Hayes, a married father of two, said he had decided to speak out at this time because the long-sought-for fresh inquests into the killings were beginning.

He believed he would “probably” face some form of criminal process arising from admitting being linked to the bombings on November 21st, 1974.

However, he has said he did not plant the bombs. He has refused to name those who did and said he would never implicate anybody else.

Asked why he had spoken out now he told The Irish Times: “The British are telling these lies all the time and they have no contradiction.

“I said, right I will speak and I will face them. And more than that, I will face them on camera and let the world see what I am saying is the truth. I’m not going to a third party. I am facing people.

“And what I say to people is that on behalf of the Irish Republican Army, we’re sorry.

“I’m an old man now; I’m 70 now. Of course it has stayed with me. I’m a human being, I’m not at peace. I also suffered.”

Economic crime

He said he had “no hatred for English people” and that the three planned bombs, of which two exploded in crowded pubs, were intended as an economic crime rather than the mass murders they proved to be.

“I was commander of the Republican forces in England; I had trained in Libya.

“But in England the campaign was never against the English people. I admire the English people; it was supposed to be a commercial [bombing] campaign.”

He reiterated the claim that an IRA member had tried to phone in a 30-minute warning about the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town bombs, encountering broken and occupied public phones.

Eight minutes were lost as a result, he said, and when he heard there were casualties and then the numbers he was stunned.

“When I heard the news I was in Highgrove Road in Moseley and I thought sweet heart of Jesus,” he said.

“And I thought what happened to the warning? And the biggest bomb; I defused it. I defused it in a doctor’s garden with only the light of a street lamp.

“A young volunteer I was with, he was very young and nervous and he had never seen kills before.

“I said ‘go home son’. I defused that third bomb; it was the biggest and that was after the two bombs had gone off.”

News that Mr Hayes had been interviewed by the Garda comes as the campaign group Justice4the21, whose work brought about the fresh inquests into the bombing killings, announced it was boycotting the hearings.

In a statement, campaigners said they would “no longer participate” after Mr Thornton ruled out naming alleged suspects in evidence at the inquest.

Lawyers for 10 families, in a joint statement, said they would try to crowd-fund a judicial review of the coroner’s ruling on what is known as the perpetrator issue.