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Shoot-to-kill Policy In Northern Ireland
During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, British security forces were accused by some of operating a "shoot-to-kill" policy, under which suspected paramilitary members were killed without an attempt being made to arrest them. This alleged policy was claimed to be most frequently directed against suspected members of Irish republican paramilitary organisations, such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). According to a 1985 inquiry by a team of international lawyers titled ''Shoot to Kill?'', undercover security force units were "trained to shoot to kill even where killing is not legally justifiable and where alternative tactics could and should be used." The British government, including the Northern Ireland Office, consistently denied that there was ever a "shoot-to-kill" policy, stating that "like everyone else, the security forces must obey the law and are answerable to the courts for thei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Troubles
The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe. Sometimes described as an Asymmetric warfare, asymmetric or Irregular warfare, irregular war or a low-intensity conflict, the Troubles were a political and nationalistic struggle fueled by historical events, with a strong Ethnic conflict, ethnic and sectarian dimension, fought over the Partition of Ireland, status of Northern Ireland. Unionism in Ireland, Unionists and Ulster loyalism, loyalists, who for Plantation of Ulster, historical reasons were mostly Ulster Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee Clegg
Sergeant Lee Clegg (born c. 1969) is a British Army soldier who was convicted of murder for his involvement in the shooting dead of one teenage joyrider in West Belfast, Northern Ireland. His conviction was later overturned. Shooting The shooting took place in West Belfast on 30 September 1990. Clegg, then a private originally from Bradford, England, and his fellow soldiers manning the checkpoint on the Upper Glen Road, fired nineteen bullets into a stolen Vauxhall Astra that passed through their checkpoint travelling at high speed. Clegg fired four of the bullets, the last of which killed 18-year-old passenger Karen Reilly. The driver, 17-year-old Martin Peake, also died at the scene, while the third passenger, Markiewicz Gorman, escaped with minor injuries. Sentencing Clegg was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 1993, the court having decided that lethal force had been used without a lawful purpose. The fourth bullet was said to have been fired through the back of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barrack Buster
Barrack buster is the colloquial name given to several improvised mortars, developed in the 1990s by the engineering unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The improvised mortar properly called "barrack buster" - known to the British security forces as the Mark 15 mortar - fired a long metal propane cylinder with a diameter of , which contained around of home-made explosives and had a range of . The cylinder is an adaptation of a commercial gas cylinder produced by the Cobh company Kosangas for heating and cooking, and used in rural areas across Ireland.Geraghty 1998, p. 193 The Mark 15 was first used in an attack on 7 December 1992 against an RUC/British Army base in Ballygawley, County Tyrone,Geraghty 1998, p. 193Ryder 2005, p. 256 The projectile, fired from a tractor parked near the town's health center, was deflected by the branches of a tree beside the perimeter fence. A number of civilians had to be evacuated. It took ten hours for the British Army technici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
FARC
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (, FARC–EP or FARC) was a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict starting in 1964. The FARC-EP was officially founded in 1966 from peasant self-defense groups formed from 1948 during '' La Violencia'' as a peasant force promoting a political line of agrarianism and anti-imperialism. They are known to employ a variety of military tactics, in addition to more unconventional methods, including terrorism. The operations of the FARC–EP were funded by kidnap and ransom, illegal mining, extortion, and taxation of various forms of economic activity, and the production and distribution of illegal drugs. They are only one actor in a complex conflict where atrocities have been committed by the state, right-wing paramilitaries, and left-wing guerrillas not limited to FARC, such as ELN, M-19, and others. Colombia's National Centre for Historical Memory, a government agency, has esti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colombia Three
The Colombia Three are three men – Niall Connolly, James Monaghan, and Martin McCauley – who are currently living in the Republic of Ireland, having fled from Colombia where they had been sentenced to prison terms of seventeen years in 2003 on terrorism charges for training FARC rebels. The incident came during a crucial time in the Northern Ireland peace process and risked damaging it. The three were granted amnesty by a Colombian special court in April 2020. On 16 December 2022, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) revoked the amnesty, citing that the trio had not fully divulged the truth about their trip to Colombia in 2001. Biographies James Monaghan James William Monaghan was born on 9 August 1945, and is originally from County Donegal, but his last known address was in Newry, County Down. In the 1970s, he was believed to have been active in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), gaining the nickname 'Mortar' on account of his skill in manufacturi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Gibson
Sir Maurice Gibson, PC (1 May 1913 – 25 April 1987), was a Lord Justice of Appeal in Northern Ireland. He was killed, along with his wife Cecily, Lady Gibson by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Biography Sir Maurice was born in Montpelier House, Belfast. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and graduated with a law degree from Queen's University Belfast. He was called to the bar in 1937 and subsequently elected a bencher in 1961 and described by Lord MacDermott in 1968 as the best lawyer at the Bar. In 1968 he became Chancery Judge and in 1977 Lord Justice of Appeal. The couple had two children. In 1977, he acquitted the soldier who shot Majella O'Hare, a 12-year-old girl. The UK government apologised for this killing in 2011 and said the justification Gibson accepted was "unlikely". Death Lord Justice Gibson and his wife were killed by a remote controlled car bomb as they drove over the Irish border back into Northern Ireland on 25 April 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
County Armagh
County Armagh ( ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It is located in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and adjoins the southern shore of Lough Neagh. It borders the Northern Irish counties of County Tyrone, Tyrone to the west and County Down, Down to the east. The county borders County Louth, Louth and County Monaghan, Monaghan to the south and southwest, which are in the Republic of Ireland. It is named after its county town, Armagh, which derives from the Irish language, Irish ''Ard Mhacha'', meaning "Macha's height". Macha was a sovereignty goddess in Irish mythology and is said to have been buried on a wooded hill around which the town of Armagh grew. County Armagh is colloquially known as the "Orchard County" because of its many apple orchards. The county covers an area of , making it the smallest of Northern Ireland's six counties by size and the List of Irish counties by area, sixth-smallest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lurgan
Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and roughly southwest of Belfast. The town is linked to Belfast by both the M1 motorway (Northern Ireland), M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. Lurgan had a population of 31,136 (38,198 District Area) at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 UK census, and falls within the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon District Council, Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough. For certain purposes, Lurgan is treated as part of the "Craigavon Urban Area", along with neighbouring Craigavon, County Armagh, Craigavon and Portadown. Lurgan is typical of many Plantation of Ulster settlements, with its straight and wide, planned streets, and is the home of a number of historic listed buildings, such as Brownlow House and Lurgan Town Hall. Lurgan Park is the largest urban park in Northern Ireland. Historically, and after the Industrial Revolution, the town of Lurgan was known as a major centre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Headquarters Mobile Support Unit
The Headquarters Mobile Support Unit (HMSU) is the police tactical unit of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The HMSU was originally formed in the then Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) part of RUC Special Branch and was involved in several controversial shootings during The Troubles. Background The Headquarters Mobile Support Unit (HMSU) was a uniformed elite police tactical unit established by the RUC, intended to be their equivalent of the British Army Special Air Service (SAS). Members of the HMSU were enrolled into RUC Special Branch and were trained by the SAS to on how to confront Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and other opponents with "firepower, speed and aggression". The unit had its prototype in the Bessbrook Support Unit set up in 1977 as part of the scaling-up of the RUC's numbers and capabilities under Chief Constable Kenneth Newman to " Ulsterise" as far as possible the maintenance of security. The intensively trained and highly armed Bessbrook Su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greater Manchester Police
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England. , Greater Manchester Police employed 6,866 police officers, 3,524 members of police staff, and 560 police community support officers. Additionally, the force has 325 special constables. GMP is headquartered at Central Park, Northampton Road, Newton Heath, Manchester. In December 2020, GMP was placed into special measures by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), after a watchdog report found that GMP did not record one in five crimes between July 2019 and June 2020. They estimated the force failed to log around 80,100 crimes, a high proportion of which were violent offences. Following the announcement, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins resigned from his post. History Greater Manchester Police was directly created from two recently amalgamated city police forces, Man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
