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Please encourage others to sign this petition - friends, colleagues,
family members, your local elected representative.
JUSTICE FOR ROSEMARY
<http://www.free-eire.org/nelson.html>
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The Irish News 17 April 1999
Family of Nelson in campaign for justice
By Steven McCaffery
RELATIVES of murdered solicitor Rosemary Nelson are to launch a pressure
group demanding an independent and international inquiry into her death.
The 'Rosemary Nelson Campaign' will be officially launched at a Belfast
press conference on Monday due to be attended by Mrs Nelson's bereaved
husband Paul.
The campaign will also be endorsed by her wider family. The move follows
a week of unprecedented international pressure, with the United Nations,
European Parliament and US Congress all backing the call for an
independent inquiry.
It is understood the campaign group will call for an independent
international investigation into Mrs Nelson's murder in a loyalist
car-bomb attack on March 15, as well as a wider international and
judicial probe of the circumstances surrounding her death.
Meanwhile, the UN last week also claimed there was "prima facie
evidence" of military and/or RUC collusion in the 1989 loyalist murder
of solicitor Pat Finucane and the Irish News has since learned that the
Irish government has written to British authorities calling for a public
inquiry of this case. Last night, spokesman for the Rosemary Nelson
Campaign, Dr Robbie McVeigh, welcomed the international support already
given to the Nelson family.
Dr McVeigh, who has researched, lectured and written on human rights
issues, said: "The swift support for an independent inquiry into the
murder of Rosemary Nelson from both the US Congress and the
EuropeanParliament is an important step forward in the pursuit of truth
and justice in this case. This is evidence of the growing international
pressure in support of the Nelson family request for a fully
independent investigation and inquiry into the circumstances surrounding
Rosemary's murder."
This latest development comes after a week of intense pressure on the
RUC and British government. On Monday United Nations special
investigator Dato Param Cumaraswamy made a series of hard-hitting
criticisms of the police in both the Rosemary Nelson and Pat Finucane
cases.
On Thursday the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for an
independent investigation into Mrs Nelson's murder. This came hours
after the US Congress began moves to cut-off American funding for RUC
training programmes - unless inquiries were established into the murders
of both the Nelson and Finucane cases. The entire episode comes two
weeks after the RUC was heavily criticised for its handling of the
investigation into claims that officers made death threats against Mrs
Nelson.
Last night, in a further development, a second measure passing through
the US Congress in support of the Nelson inquiry calls passed its second
procedural hurdle. While it does not carry any financial penalty, its
architect, congressman Chris Smith, argues it carries heavy political
significance. SF assembly member for Upper Bann Dara O'Hagan welcomed
the European and US intervention.
She said: "It is time for the British government to grasp the nettle and
immediately set-up the international inquiries into these deaths now
demanded across the world." But last night an RUC spokesman argued that
the FBI representative overseeing the ongoing hunt for Mrs Nelson's
killers had endorsed the RUC's role.
In addition Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan said: "All the advice I
have had concurs with my own view that a totally independent
investigation without RUC involvement would not stand a hope of bringing
to justice the perpetrators of this dreadful deed and that must be our
first focus - the bringing to justice of those involved." Meanwhile,
the UDP criticised the US intervention. A UDP spokesman said: "The RUC
invited the FBI to oversee the investigation into the Rosemary Nelson
murder. They were quite satisfied with the professionalism of the
investigation."