State Violence (7 page)

After I had fallen asleep in the small room, I was told by a Northern Ireland accent to put the hood on. Then they came in. Taken out this time walking. Taken down what seemed to be a corridor, blankets hanging down, roughish hairy material. You had to move in and out between them. Then brought in for interrogation again.

This was the first interrogation with the hood off. Before Detention Order it was just rolled up a bit. Table there. Sat in a chair. Told not to look behind me. Hand was placed on each shoulder. The interrogator had black hair thinning a bit at the front, wearing a blue anorak, thinnish, round about thirty-five years old, spoke in educated type of accent, no Northern Ireland twang about it. He said, ‘You are in the IRA'. I said ‘No'. He talked about Republican parades. He said, ‘Do you deny you are a Republican?' I said, ‘No'. Then sort of casual questions. This particular interrogator never cut rough in the interrogations. Just straight forward simple questions.

Taken into another room. There was a mattress in this room. Later a blanket. After the door was closed I knew I was on my own and I could take the hood off. I took it off. I lay down on the mattress and went to sleep. The next thing I heard a banging on the door and a voice shouting, ‘Put on your hood'. I was taken by the arms and into a room. Sat in the chair again. The hood was taken off and the fella immediately grabbed me by the lapels of the boiler suit. He lifted me up roaring and shouting, ‘I don't want any nonsense out of you. I want the truth. You are going to tell me everything'. Then he sat down again. Then he started asking questions. ‘We know you are in the IRA, what is your rank?' Just general questions but pretty rough all the time. Shouting and slapping the table, pushing you about and things like that. I had about three separate interrogations with him. This man had a black heavy curly beard, black hair, combed straight forward, medium length, well-built, about just over thirty, maybe thirty-three. Always rough, losing his head, roaring and shouting.

Round about this time too I was sitting in the mattress room, might have been some time after I came out of the room where I got the first sleep. They came in and pulled the hood up to my nose and gave me some stew. I had to eat it with my fingers.

The period between these interrogations was not very long. I was brought into a different interrogator, in his fifties, going grey-haired, very big, heavy, about six foot two or three. He acted real nice, put his arm around me. Sat down. He talked about politics – where did I get my views from? Did I read any books? Did you ever join the IRA? and so on. He wouldn't ask the same question twice. If you said ‘No' to anything he would make you feel he believed you. He talked about Germany, Japan, the Free State, how well they were doing since the war. I was brought into him two or three times for interrogation. One time there was a plate of beans on the table. He said, ‘You can eat them'. I didn't. I was very sick at this stage.

I had never been to the toilet since I was put against the wall. When I was in the mattress room I was very nervous and tense at this stage and asked out to the toilet, anything to get out of the room; even looking forward to the interrogation.

On the last interrogation, the big tall grey-haired man came in and shouted, ‘Face the back wall'. He came in and spoke to me, ‘Come on, get your hood on, you are coming with me'. I went into the room again. The hood was taken off. This was the last interrogation. The big grey-haired fella interrogated me. He said, ‘Anything you want to eat at all, you can have'. I got a cup of tea, beans and sausages, bread. Then he put the hood on again. He himself took me to the washroom. I was filthy. He told me to get washed. Got sort of half washed. Then he told me I was for the Crumlin Road. I didn't really believe him at the time. I thought then this was a bluff. But I knew there was something on. Next he came in again. He had a sheet. He asked me to sign it. I told him I couldn't see. I got it and tried to read it. He got annoyed. I waited until I could see. Then I could make out ‘boots and socks', so I signed it. He took me to this room and I was photographed in it. I had a sort of medical check before I went into the room, could feel hands going over me, the hood was still on. I was photographed along with this interrogator. I had no clothes on. Then photographed me on my own, back and front. Then brought back to the room.

Then next time brought out treated gently, sort of guiding you instead of pushing you into the vehicle, your foot was lifted up and set into it. From that into the helicopter. The guard kept touching me reassuringly, patting me. Still hooded. Landed. Put into another Land Rover. The hood was taken off in the Land Rover. I was sitting among six or seven police, just outside the Crumlin Road Jail, Belfast. I said to one of them, ‘What day is it today?' He said, ‘Mind your own business'. I was brought into the Crumlin through a hole in the wall. As soon as I got out of the Land Rover I could see the jail.

During the time I was away sometimes I would be stubborn with them. Other times you would have done anything. Other times I didn't really believe it was me. The whole time I was against the wall I don't think I stopped praying. I may have thought out loud but all the time I was praying. One time I thought a whole lot of children had been shot in Drumbreda but I don't know whether I was told that by one of the interrogators or not.

Dear Jim,

You have now been imprisoned without trial for 14 months. During that time you suffered heavy interrogation in a military barracks, Armagh RUC station, and Portadown RUC station. You endured the rigours of the condemned prison ship,
Maidstone.
You have been treated like an animal in a cage in Long Kesh prison camp, a place precisely planned to break its prisoners by prolonged degradation. In Long Kesh you were beaten and injured by the British army on 25 October 1971, and on another occasion when being transferred from one compound to another.

This imprisonment, so terrible because of its injustice and its indefinite length, must weigh heavily on you, a man of nearly 50 years, considering too that you need medical care. As a peacemaker in the Armagh community you are appalled by the viciousness of the procedures employed to degrade men in Long Kesh. Not only the physical degradation causes you to suffer, but also the calumnies about internees of leading ministers of the British crown. Like the thousand or so Catholics who were arrested and detained, your basic liberty was taken from you. You had no just public trial and no proper means of defence – no warrant, no charge, no trial. Why are you being held without trial in Long Kesh prison camp? Was it because you were chairman of the National Graves Association? Would Mr Whitelaw, who reserves to himself the right to inspect each file, declare publicly or show you privately why you are being held away from your wife and family? Like yourself your wife is not in good health; deprived of her husband she has little to live on; she is on her own; she is one of ‘Mr Whitelaw's widows'. Your son, Tony, on 3 October 1972 was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment after being found to have 6 rounds of ammunition. The people of Armagh have noted that in the same week a UVF man got the same sentence as your son for being in possession of 3 rifles and 1,163 rounds of ammunition, under suspicious circumstances. Why have you not been allowed to visit your son in Crumlin Road Jail? Why has your request been turned down so often? Why was no reason for the refusal given to you or to the welfare officer? Such permission has been granted to others.

I know that your heart contains no bitterness after having heard of the tortures of others imprisoned without trial. I understand your distress at the recent ill-treatment of the remand prisoners. What possible justification can there be for holding you and the other 211 prisoners detained without trial? Are you hostages? Are you being held for ransom by Mr Whitelaw? Are you prisoners of war? Have you, like privy councillors and ex-ministers of government, threatened to liquidate your neighbours? It appears to the community here in Armagh that you and others, Jim Fields, are the victims of English political expediency. Other Catholic men have spent 12 years of their lives imprisoned without trial. Does Mr Whitelaw with the help of Special Courts intend to do the same with you and your fellow prisoners? Does he really have any idea of what constitutes fair play, equality, and treatment of men in accordance with human Christian dignity? Is it true that Mr Whitelaw intends to keep you in the Long Kesh cages over a second Christmas? The Christmas message of peace, good will, and family unity means little to those implementing the immoral procedures of internment. The ordinary citizen wants a lasting peace, based on justice. The ordinary citizen wants all internees released immediately.

Extract from the broadsheet ‘Whitelaw violates Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights'.

The Detention of Terrorists Order (NI) introduced on 7 November 1972 provided that the British Secretary of State could appoint commissioners to adjudicate on persons arrested and determine whether they should be detained. A person who was the subject of a Detention Order could also appeal to an Appeal Tribunal. Special tribunals were set up in Long Kesh Prison to enquire into cases of those detained. They soon became known as ‘Whitelaw's Tribunals'. I attended three, one on behalf of Patrick McNally, the same parishioner who had been tortured in Ballykelly Barracks and who had been brought to Long Kesh Internment Camp from Crumlin Road Prison, and the others on behalf of Éamon Hannaway and Brian J. Rafferty, also parishioners. These appeals were conducted by the doyen Armagh solicitor, Gerry Lennon. The appeals of Patrick McNally and Brian Rafferty failed. Éamon Hannaway's appeal was successful.

Tuesday, 14 November 1972, at 1.45pm a prison officer arrives at the door of Hut 82, Cage 9, and calls out the names of three internees. He tells them that they are to be taken to the ‘court'. A grey prison van is waiting at the gates of the cage. When the three men and their escort of four prison officers are aboard, it begins its short journey to Cage 14 where the commission to enquire into their cases is being held. On arrival at their destination, the men are taken, one at a time, from the van and are shown into a prefabricated hut where, under the watch of two prison officers, they are asked to wait.

Cage 14 where the ‘court' holds session is at first glance indistinguishable from the other cages in Long Kesh Internment Camp, four long Nissen huts with grey brick gable walls, corrugated tin roofs and sides. Directly in front of three of these huts are the tiny prefabricated buildings where the internees will wait, be thoroughly searched, and have all their belongings and the contents of their pockets, with the exception of a handkerchief, placed in a canvas sack. After waiting for perhaps a half-an-hour, the prison officers escort the internees into the main hut where the ‘court' is sitting. The main Nissen hut is partitioned into three areas, the commissioner's chamber, the court-room, and a section made up of six small rooms severed by a narrow corridor, three rooms on each side. At the end of this corridor a small door opens up into the court-room.

The ‘court' is a well-furnished room, the bare walls covered with sheets of brightly coloured insulating board and hung with scarlet and blue drapes. The floor is covered with a scarlet carpet. The main feature of the room is a large oval-shaped table of polished wood. The commissioner sits on a high-backed well-upholstered chair at the centre and to the right of this table. Above and slightly behind hangs a painting of the British coat of arms, complete with motto,
honi soit qui mal y pense.
The commissioner's chair is situated at the centre and to the right of the table. To the right of the commissioner sits a stenographer with a tape recorder and a microphone placed in front of him. Immediately in front of the oval table are a desk and chair at which sits the commissioner's clerk; on his desk are two microphones, one angled towards the crown prosecutor and the other towards the respondent. A few feet in front of him and facing the commissioner are two chairs, for the respondent and a prison officer. To the right of these two chairs is a desk behind which the crown prosecutor sits. There is a vacant desk and chair to the left and slightly behind the respondent's chair.

Three doors open into the court-room. One leads into the corridor already described. One is a few feet from this, but concealed by a screen of red velvet curtains, and through it come the Special Branch to take their seats and give evidence hidden from the ‘court'. The third door in the opposite wall faces this. Through this door is the commissioner's chamber, from which he appears.

I wrote the following piece after appearing for the defence of Éamon Hannaway. It was published in
Whitelaw's Tribunals.

The Tribunal and the Appeal Tribunal are held within the now great complex of the Long Kesh encampment. Yellow and black signs point to a special entrance towered over by a military post and guarding soldier. A shout from the soldier and a few accent misunderstandings before you realise that you have to wait. A soldier finally comes through a little door, checks your name and identity with his pad, and then disappears only to re-appear immediately to re-open the big gate and admit your car. Then you drive across a great waste-land surrounded by barbed wire and corrugated iron sheeting. To the right a worm-eaten cabbage patch catches your eye. It reminds you of your ‘T. S. Eliot schooldays'. The next entrance is blocked by two Kosangas bottles. A soldier removes them and now you are through to a place where there is a little bit more life. It even cheers you to have your car searched and go into a wooden hut where there is heat and light! It is still even pleasant to dump the contents of your pockets and be amiably ‘run over' by a smiling soldier. You go out clutching your permit which is now as valuable as a ration book. The two women witnesses have clambered into a van with two policewomen; the separation of the sexes of course for searching. You get into your own van. The solicitor is there and two other witnesses, the mate and father of the accused. And there are other lawyers who are putting their trust in their academic distinctions for their case, a formidable battery of learned lawyers.