Keith Surtees, a blunt-speaking former Metropolitan Police commander, vividly illustrates the difficulties facing investigators examining decades-old Troubles killings.
Speaking in the Belfast offices of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) Surtees says it has sought information from Garda south of the Border in almost a dozen cases.
The cases involved bombings or shootings that happened “within hundreds of yards of the Border, where the killers fled straight across, in some cases straight into the guards’ arms, who arrested them,” he says.
The cases are just a few of about 500 IRA killings with connections to the South, the commission believes, yet it is barred by the Republic’s Government from getting information from the Garda about any of them.
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The Northern Ireland-based ICRIR was set up – over strong objections by victims’ groups and political parties – by the last Conservative British government to investigate deaths during the conflict, in which more than 3,600 people were killed and thousands more injured.
Today, the obvious steps, says Surtees, for investigators looking for information from the South would be to ask the Garda what the men said when they were arrested and “why did they grab them?”
Some were subsequently let go.
Others were prosecuted for firearms possession, but none implicated in the dozen or so cases requested were ever convicted for any of the offences the ICRIR is investigating.
Not a single case alleges collusion or improper action by the Garda, Surtees stresses, repeatedly emphasising that the lack of information-sharing is down to instructions of the Dublin Government.
Eight letters to the Garda and the Department of Justice have merited nothing more than an acknowledgment, while just one – prompted after ICRIR criticisms of Dublin in Westminster – led to a “we’ll get back to you” letter.
Legacy has long been difficult, mired in controversy caused by the last British Conservative government’s unilateral actions spurred in no small part by its primary concerns for British military veterans.
Dublin has long had objections.
The Government argues that the ICRIR is not a police force and therefore cannot be given confidential information. Equally, it believes it cannot comply with article two of the European Convention on Human Rights that says everyone’s right to life should be protected by law.
Dublin is not alone; nearly all of Northern Ireland’s political parties hold gripes. So too has the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the Council of Europe and the United Nations’ human rights officials.
The ICRIR’s powers to investigate are doubted, especially because the Northern Ireland Secretary of State retains powers over the disclosure of confidential British national security files.
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Surtees accepts the ICRIR is not a police force, but neither was Operation Kenova – the investigation into the British Army agent in the IRA Freddie Scappaticci, and allegations of British collusion – and he met frequently senior gardaí during his years as senior investigator with Kenova.
“It is hugely disappointing that the engagement that would have occurred three years ago with Operation Kenova’s investigators now has completely disappeared. It’s now off the agenda,” he says.
“I can’t go and sit in Garda Headquarters and have the same conversations with the same people who undoubtedly have the ability to reach into repositories to get information and evidence that can help us.”
Surtees is speaking to The Irish Times alongside the head of the legacy body, Declan Morgan, the former chief justice of Northern Ireland, and Peter Sheridan, the ICRIR’s commissioner for investigations.
Morgan, now aged 75, believes Dublin has “never bought into telling everybody the truth” partly because the Troubles does not affect southern society today.
Despite its own “significant” trauma, especially over the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings, “the effect of the Troubles” was “quite different” in the South.
“There isn’t the same long tail of people – including intergenerationally – who are still experiencing the effects,” he says.
“It would be understandable that it doesn’t see the need as urgently as we do in Northern Ireland. But you have to tell the truth about the hurt that people suffered.”
Some Dublin politicians and officials may wonder “what’s in it for us?”, he concedes, especially where it could lead to “highly critical” commentary of the State’s handling of “terrorists who were on the Border”.
“That the upside doesn’t really outweigh the downside for them – I can perfectly see that. The same is true for the British state too. But the truth is either we want to do this for these people or we don’t,” Morgan says.
The three recently met Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly after he was given permission by the Minister for Justice, though requests to meet the Minister or the Taoiseach have been left unanswered for two years.
It was the ICRIR’s first meeting with any Garda Commissioner, since one never happened when Kelly’s predecessor Drew Harris was in command.
“We didn’t get any answer from Drew. We didn’t even get to meet Drew. We got to meet Justin. He told us that the Minister had allowed him to meet, but he would not be sharing any information,” says Sheridan, once the highest-ranked Catholic in the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
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Making clear his frustrations, Sheridan says the Garda should share with the ICRIR as it is a “law enforcement agency” given that Dublin shares information with HM Revenue and Customs and the National Crime Agency in the UK, which are both law enforcement agencies.
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“I have absolutely no doubt that the Irish Government uses and accesses the United Kingdom’s national cybersecurity centre about international threats, because it doesn’t have its own,” he says.
Pointing to the 300 families who have approached the ICRIR, Sheridan says they know 95 per cent will never see a prosecution. More would approach the commission, if they believed Dublin would co-operate.
“A lot of families say: ‘What’s the point? They won’t tell you anything’,” he says.
Believing Dublin could play a central role, Morgan says the commission does not want “to do half the job” by failing to offer families key information, even though it believes it knows where the information is.
On Dublin’s European Convention on Human Rights article two concerns, he thinks “they’re wrong about that” – an opinion shared by the UK supreme court.
Surtees, Morgan and Sheridan don’t disagree with criticisms of the ICRIR’s powers.
“Belfast City Council have more powers than we have to find out whether a 17-year-old is buying alcohol at an off-licence premises,” says Surtees.
British legislation setting up the ICRIR denied the commission police powers, including surveillance, prompted in part by unionist fears that it would become a “parallel” police force, though it does have powers to arrest.
Nor does the legislation allow the commission to ask the PSNI to conduct surveillance on its behalf. Such changes do not happen by accident, says Morgan.
“Someone must have understood the difference between the powers of a police constable and the powers of a police force, and to give us the powers of a police constable. That must have been deliberate,” he says.
With a decade’s experience in Belfast, Surtees has established credibility with victims’ families, earning an MBE in the 2020 UK’s royal honours list and praise from the head of Operation Kenova, Jon Boutcher, who is now the PSNI Chief Constable.
“He built relationships and trust with families in a way that other inquiries had not been able to. The impact that Keith’s efforts has had on Troubles-related legacy investigations cannot be overstated,” Boutcher said then.
Surtees still shakes his head on how Troubles cases are treated compared with Britain “where nobody bats an eyelid” if police dig up Gloucestershire gardens for more victims of multiple killers, Fred and Rosemary West.
“It’s a complicated landscape here. I get that. No doubt about it. I’m not trying to make it more simplistic. But where evidence exists, investigators should have access to it,” he says.
“Here, it turns into a political football because we have the audacity to reinvestigate cases where we might bring the perpetrators to justice. It isn’t a political debate; it’s about law and order.”
