The assassination of Loyalism's King Rat

[Jan Klimkowski]

There's a long 2002 article on investigative journalist and onetime IRA activist Michael O'Hagan, who was murdered by Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) gunmen on September 28, 2001, at:

http://media.gn.apc.org/ohagan7.html

LVF leader, "King Rat" Billy Wright, had targetted O'Hagan.

The core allegation is that Wright was to be exposed as an agent of the deep British state.

Here are some excerpts from Michael Browne's article, which is worth reading in its entirety.

"The Committee" was groundbreaking investigative journalism exposing Loyalist collusion with local facilitators and the deep state.

A range of loyalists had been provoked with his (O'Hagan's) role in "The Committee". Martin supplied filmmaker Sean McPhilemy with the story and sources for The Committee, shown on Channel 4 in 1991. It led to complex legal battles, with McPhilemy successfully suing the Sunday Times in 2000. It claimed loyalist death squads had been controlled by a committee of security force members and extremist Protestant clergy and businessmen, in a sectarian murder campaign.

In 1998 McPhilemy published a book on The Committee, naming "Committee" members. It also contained an allegation one of its leaders had issued a threat against Martin, in front of two witnesses, one of whom was a serving police officer, who allegedly failed to report it. Although the person in question has denied the allegation, it has been investigated by the murder inquiry team, and remains a line of enquiry.

In terms of possible motives, two of the main sources for the book have now been killed by the LVF - Martin and Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson. According to Sean: "The 'Committee' story was Martin's. It's ironic that just as the murders raised by Martin and I in The Committee were not solved, neither will Martin's, until the north receives a proper police force. But it is much more difficult to cover something up than it is to discover the truth."

The "Wright" mentioned below is Billy Wright:

Martin (O'Hagan) was a highly intelligent, politically aware character. Like some later journalistic critics, he became embroiled in the Troubles, was interned and served time for Official IRA arms offences in the early 1970s, when he rejected violence. After entering journalism in the early 1980s he specialised in criminal and paramilitary stories, concentrating on security force direction of loyalist death squads, partly as the anti-establishment views of the Sunday World suited him, and partly because he was (bravely) writing about those things he knew best, events within his local community, including paramilitary links to drugs and crime. His expertise was readily used by outside filmmakers, including Panorama.

Along with mentor and colleague Jim Campbell he specialised in the exposés of official involvement in UVF murders in north Armagh in the 1970s, and specifically the role of UVF brigadier Robin Jackson, which provoked the notorious Shankill Butchers to shoot Campbell in 1984. He survived, but in 1992 the UVF bombed their Belfast office. Wright threatened Martin in 1992, forcing him to leave the north, but he returned two years later. He was once also interrogated by the south Armagh brigade of the Provisional IRA.

Wright went on to form the LVF in 1996, after being expelled by the UVF. He was killed by a republican splinter group in prison in 1997, but he had vowed that whatever happened to him would visit Martin "ten-fold". Martin's belief in the peace process may have made it easy for them. He had already surrendered his personal protection weapon, and had recently moved from the nationalist side of Lurgan town, to live adjacent to their Mourneview estate powerbase.

What was Martin working on that could have made him a target for the LVF? He was investigating a furniture company/front for LVF drugs, a solicitor believed to be defrauding the legal system for the LVF, and a local media personality he suspected was laundering funds for the LVF through a religious outlet. But friends believe little of his recent printed work could have provoked his killers.

Kevin Cooper, Chair of the Belfast and District NUJ branch, has done much to keep Martin's name alive, just as he intervened to keep Martin alive when Wright's threat was issued. He suspects Wright's threat was never lifted. He is demanding answers: "Martin's friends and colleagues in the Belfast and District Branch NUJ all miss him terribly. The Security Minister gave the NUJ assurances that all the resources necessary for the investigation would be made available. Why, one year on, have there been no arrests or prosecutions?"

The official line is because the police inquiry has "hit a wall".

Banging heads against bricks and mortar?

Methinks that "wall" is made of flesh and blood.

According to Detective Inspector Ian Montieth, from the murder inquiry team, the investigation has "hit a wall": "Our enquiries are limited now because we're finding nothing new. Without intelligence or witness evidence we can go no further, and we're getting to that stage. Resources for this have never been a problem, and we've put the best we can into this, but I wouldn't be sure more resources would take the inquiry further. We've made six arrests, we know who was there, but getting evidence is the problem. There are two lines of enquiry - who was involved, and the motive. I believe the motive was he was just an easy target."

But with revelations of security service and security force connections to the UFF killing of solicitor Pat Finucane, Martin's colleagues and friends remain suspicious that Special Branch, or another intelligence gathering agency, are blocking the murder inquiry to protect an informant or agent within the gang. But this is firmly rejected by DI Montieth: "I'm not aware of anything like that, and I may not be in a position to stop it, but I would raise it very strongly. I have very strong views on that."

More ominously, top UVF sources are adamant Wright was in fact a British agent, and that he established the LVF as cover, to pre-empt their unmasking of him. The UVF have shown a file on this to certain journalists. Given this, his threat against Martin must form a central part of any inquiry into Martin's murder. But for local journalists the question is - is anyone asking questions about the case at all, and does anyone even want the answers?