Army chiefs back calls for judicial review of Troubles ruling

As published in the Telegraph

Former British military chiefs have called for a judicial review after a coroner ruled four IRA terrorists were unlawfully killed by SAS soldiers in a Troubles ambush.

A senior coroner found earlier this month that the use of lethal force against the gunmen, who had just attacked a police station, was not justified.

In a letter to The Telegraph, Gen Lord Houghton, Gen Lord Dannatt and Adm Lord West said the findings contradicted “natural justice” and risked the prosecution of “elderly retired soldiers”.

“This will ruin the lives of patriotic soldiers and allow the IRA to rewrite the history of the Troubles to its own advantage,” they wrote.

Gen Tim Collins, Sir Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, and Sir David Davis, the Tory MP, also signed the letter.

“The military is there to defend our nation and uphold our laws,” they added. “Surely the nation should in turn protect the soldiers, the rule of law, and the truth. That is real justice.”

In the ruling, coroner Mr Justice Humphreys rejected claims made by two soldiers, who are now in their 50s, that they held the “honest belief” they needed to use lethal force in the February 1992 ambush.

The IRA squad had fired 30 rounds from close range into a fortified Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police station in Coalisland using a Soviet-made DSHK anti-aircraft machine gun mounted on the back of a stolen lorry.

The IRA members then drove two miles to the car park of a Roman Catholic church in Clonoe where the SAS unit was lying in wait.

Four Provisional IRA members – Kevin Barry O’Donnell, 21, Sean O’Farrell, 23, Peter Clancy, 19, and Daniel Vincent, 20 – were shot dead in the ambush.

“The objective was murder: fortunately it failed, but no thanks to the terrorists’ activities that day,” the letter reads.

“Our soldiers, on the other hand, were acting under orders, orders governed by strict legal guidelines, and they carried out those orders under extremely dangerous circumstances.

“Attempting to reimagine decisions taken virtually instantaneously in the chaos and pitch darkness of that night from the comfort of a courtroom 33 years later is unlikely to deliver justice.

“What it may do however is put elderly retired soldiers through the enormous stress of potentially being prosecuted in their twilight years.”

It is feared that the soldiers involved in the operation will be referred to Northern Irish prosecutors and police for criminal investigation.

A law brought in by the previous Conservative government offered conditional immunity from prosecution for both soldiers and paramilitaries, but it is being repealed by Labour.

Gen Lord Houghton was chief of the defence staff between 2013 and 2016 and Gen Lord Dannatt was chief of the general staff from 2006 until 2009. Adm Lord West was First Sea Lord between 2002 and 2006.