THE Police Ombudsman in the North is to issue a public statement this week in relation to an investigation into the police handling of certain loyalist paramilitary murders and attempted murders during the period 1989 to 1993.
Among those murders Ombudsman Marie Anderson will speak about will be the Greysteel Rising Sun pub massacre in Co Derry on October 30, 1993 and the murder of Sinn Fein councillor Eddie Fullerton at Buncrana, on May 25, 1991.
A man in his 50s was recently arrested and held in Letterkenny Garda station in relation to this investigation but was released without charge.
The report considers RUC actions in relation to 19 murders and a number of attempted murders.
Others inlcude murders at Castlerock in Derry on 25 March 1993.
All of the attacks were carried out by the UDA/UFF based in the north west of the North of Ireland.
The murders and attempted murders referred to in the report are as follows:
The murder of Gerard Casey at Rasharkin, Co Antrim, on 4 April 1989;
The murder of Patrick Shanaghan at Castlederg, Co Tyrone, on 12 August 1991;
The murder of Thomas Donaghy, at Kilrea, Co Derry, on 16 August 1991;
Sinn Fein Councillor Eddie Fullerton
The attempted murder of James McCorriston at Coleraine, Co Derry, on 14 February 1992;
The murder of Daniel Cassidy at Kilrea, Co Derry, on 2 April 1992;
The attempted murder of Patrick McErlain at Dunloy, Co Antrim, on 28 August 1992;
The murder of Malachy Carey at Ballymoney, Co Antrim. Mr Carey was shot on 12 December 1992 and died the following day as a result of his injuries;
The murders of Robert Dalrymple, James Kelly, James McKenna, and Noel O’Kane at Castlerock, Co Derry, on 25 March 1993. A fifth man, Gerard McEldowney, was seriously injured in this attack; and
An RUC officer observes the devastation inside the Rising Sun Bar following the UFF massacre in 1993
A number of families made complaints about police actions surrounding the murder of their loved ones.
This resulted in the former Police Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire starting a broad-ranging thematic investigation into the complaints and other linked incidents.
The statement and an accompanying press release will be issued by email this Friday, January 14.
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