Family calls for inquiry

The call was made by the family of Sam Marshall at a commemoration ceremony on Sunday to mark the 20th anniversary of his murder.

The dead man’s family have called for an international and independent inquiry into all those cases 'where security force involvement with the killer gangs is strongly suspected'.

Speaking on Sunday afternoon, Gary Marshall said: “If the British government aren’t willing to tell the truth, then, perhaps, an independent and international inquiry is the only option for our family and for hundreds of other families.

“Judge Cory recommended independent investigations into those handful of cases which he was asked to examine. He found there was a definite case for Britain to answer in relation to the charges of collusion.

"His examination of those cases led to a number of inquiries, particularly into the murder of Rosemary Nelson, who represented our family until she was brutally murdered eleven years ago in March 1999.

“Imagine what conclusion Judge Cory would have arrived at if he had been asked to examine those hundreds of other cases - cases like Sam’s, like that of the two young Cairns’ brothers in the Bleary, cases like RoseAnn Mallon in Tyrone – cases where there already is ample evidence of direct police and military involvement."

Close to 500 people joined the Marshall family in a procession which traced the dead man’s last journey from the Kilwilke estate past Lurgan police station to Kilmaine St.

The parade stopped for a short time outside the police station before moving on again. No music was played on the Church Place section of the route.

The crowd included many other families who have claimed collusion in the deaths of their loved ones.

The dead man’s sister Fra stated that twenty years on from her own brother’s murder, there still had been no inquest. Nor, she added, had there ever been any public explanation given as to what three unmarked security force vehicles were doing in the vicinity of the murder scene that night immediately before the attack.

Fra told the crowd: “In the absence of any other explanation, the only conclusion that we, as a family, can come to, is that those vehicles and the undercover police and military personnel in them were there to assist and to provide cover for those who murdered our brother. We have many unanswered questions which still remain into Sam’s murder, particularly the whole aspect of state forces’ conspiracy and collusion with those who pulled the triggers.”

Referring to the families of the Bloody Sunday victims she said, “We can, and we do, take inspiration from the families of the victims of Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. 38 years after the mass murder of their loved ones, they still continue with their unparalleled campaign for justice and truth.

"Even now, the British government is still refusing to state whether it will finally publish the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The truth is all that those families have asked for. The truth is all that we ask for. The truth is all that so many other families in the same position as our family are asking for. Without the truth in each and every case, then none of us can have justice.”

Other speakers included Eamon Cairns who spoke about the murder of his two sons, Rory and Gerard, in October 1993, and Caitriona Duffy whose father, Colin, was one of three men targeted in the attack which resulted in Sam Marshall’s murder.