U.S. House urges Britain to launch fair inquiry into Irish lawyer's murder - Brief Article

National Catholic Reporter, May 7, 1999

The U.S. House of Representatives has urged the British government to launch an independent, public inquiry into the March 15 car bomb murder of Northern Ireland defense attorney Rosemary Nelson.

In a resolution that passed April 20 by a vote of 421-2, the House condemned the Catholic lawyer's murder and "all violence committed in violation of the Northern Ireland cease-fire agreement," and challenged Britain to protect defense attorneys in the troubled province.

The resolution also calls for additional independent inquiries into broader allegations of harassment of defense attorneys by Northern Ireland's largely Protestant police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, or RUC, and into allegations of official collusion in the 1989 murder of another defense attorney, Patrick Finucane.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ., chairman of the House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, introduced the resolution. In recent years, Smith, a Catholic, has conducted hearings on human rights abuses in Northern Ireland and visited there in 1997.

Nelson had testified last September before the subcommittee. According to the resolution, she "stated that she had been harassed and intimidated by the Northern Ireland police force ... in her capacity as a defense attorney, and that she had been `physically assaulted by a number of RUC officers.'"

She also described difficulties with the RUC that involved, "at their most serious, making threats against my personal safety, including death threats."

Despite these threats, said the resolution, Nelson "courageously continued to represent the rights of Catholic clients in high profile cases," including residents trying to stop controversial marches in their neighborhood and the family of a beating victim.

The mother of three young children, Nelson died from her injuries after a bomb placed under her car exploded in Lurgan, Northern Ireland. No warning had been given, and a loyalist paramilitary group calling itself the Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility for the attack. Currently, the RUC is investigating her murder.

Following the House vote, Smith said in a statement: "The rare speed with which the whole House moved to pass this resolution attests to the overwhelming sense in the Congress that any investigation that has the taint of the RUC raises doubts and will not provide Rosemary's friends and family with a real sense of closure."

Before his murder Finucane also had reported receiving numerous death threats from RUC officers. His concerns were documented in a 1998 report by Parum Cumaraswamy, who led a U.N. human rights investigative mission to the United Kingdom.

Cumaraswamy also testified before the House subcommittee last September. He said he had found evidence of "consistent and systematic" RUC harassment and intimidation of defense attorneys in Northern Ireland, and specifically recommended anew inquiry in the Finucane case.

In his statement, Smith said, 'For far too long, the people of Northern Ireland have lived in fear of their own police force."

He said one of the tenets of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement is a "police force that will secure due process rights -- rather than disrupt them -- for members of both communities in Northern Ireland."

The "sense of the House" resolution is a nonbinding measure and does not go to the Senate for further action.