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Robert Mccartney (Murder Victim)Robert McCartney (1971 – 31 January 2005) was the victim of a murder in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, carried out by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He was a father of two and was engaged to be married in June 2005 to his long term partner. He was a Roman Catholic and lived in the predominently nationalist Short Strand area of Belfast and was known to be a supporter of Sinn Fein, which is closely linked to the IRA, in the past. His killing by the IRA has had extensive political repercussions for Sinn Fein as many of its traditional supporters have expressed revulsion to the crime in a way not seen before. Opinion polls, all over Ireland, have shown a fall in support for Sinn Fein since the murder. Robert McCartney was involved in a fight in a bar — Magennis's, in May Street, in the centre of Belfast, on the night of 30 January 2005. He was found unconscious with stab wounds in Cromac Street and died in hospital the following morning. According to Robert's family, the fight arose from his being accused by members of the IRA of looking inappropriately at one of their female companions. When Robert refused to accept this or apologise, the IRA members dragged him into Verner Street and beat and stabbed him. A friend, Brendan Devine, also suffered a knife attack, but survived. It was believed that the killers issued a threat to all those present not to discuss or report what they had seen. No ambulance was called and the bar was quickly cleaned to destroy forensic evidence. When the Police Service of Northern Ireland launched a murder investigation they were met with a "wall of silence", with none of the estimated 72 witnesses to the altercation coming forward with information. In conversations with family members, many potential witnesses claimed to have been in the pub's toilets at the time of the attacks; this led to the toilets being dubbed as the TARDIS, after the time machine in the television series Doctor Who which is much bigger on the inside than on the outside. Police carrying out search operations in the nationalist Short Strand and Markets areas of Belfast in connection with the investigation were attacked with stones and missiles. Cars were set on fire and some police officers were injured. Such treatment of the poice by young nationalists is in no way unusual in Belfast. Several people, including a senior republican figure, were arrested. Sinn Fin claimed that the investigation was being used as an excuse to disrupt the community and accused the PSNI of heavy-handedness. Over a thousand people attended a vigil in memory of McCartney five days after his murder. A similar number attended his funeral. McCartney's family were among those who publicly stated their belief that Provisional IRA members were responsible for the silence surrounding the murder, with his sister saying, "their cover-up and their clean-up operation afterwards was meticulous." The IRA admitted this some weeks later and expelled three members. Mark Durkan of the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party also accused the IRA of orchestrating a cover-up, saying that the "full force of the IRA has been used to intimidate witnesses and prevent the killers from being brought to justice." However, Gerry Adams, the President of Sinn Fin, urged witnesses to come forward to "the family, a solicitor, or any other authoritative or reputable person or body," also saying, "I want to make it absolutely clear that no one involved acted as a republican or on behalf of republicans." He suspended seven members of Sinn Fin. This stops short of asking witnesses to contact the police directly with information and this approach is consistent with the long standing position of Sinn Fin and thousands of Irish nationalists to express a lack of confidence in the Police in Northern Ireland, whether it be the PSNI or its predecessor the RUC. The usefulness of making witness statements to the victim's family or to a solicitor was derided by the McCartneys and by a prominent lawyer and SDLP politician, Alban Maginness, soon afterwards. Such reference to the Sinn Fin political agenda in response to what was a passionate plea for justice from Robert's family was seen by some to be insensitive at best and potentially indicative of something much more sinister. One opinion piece on this subject from Trudy Rubin of The Philadelphia Inquirer even asks "Has the IRA `morphed into the mob'?" Quoted here in the Miami Herald (which is a registration required site). The McCartney family have remained quite firm that they do not wish to become involved in the long political debate over sectarianism but that their sole aim is legitimate justice administered through due legal process and this is being denied them because witnesses are being intimidated by people connected with the IRA and Sinn Fin. For their part, the PSNI stated that they did not believe the IRA had sanctioned the killing, that it was carried out by IRA members independently of the organisation's leadership. They later claimed that a very senior IRA man was involved in the murder. The victim's family shared this assessment, claiming that it was the unnamed senior figure who ordered the killing. Gerry Kelly, a Sinn Fin member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, accepted that witness intimidation had occurred, but like Adams he did not call for witnesses to talk to the PSNI. Instead he encouraged those with information to give it to the Police Ombudsman. On 16 February the IRA issued a statement denying involvement in the murder and calling on the perpetrators to "take responsibility". McCartney's family welcomed this, but insisted that intimidation and threats had come "from the highest level of Sinn Fin and IRA". Gerry Kelly denied that this had been the case. The McCartney family has stated that a total of 20 individuals were involved with the murder. The murder came amidst controversy following the Northern Bank robbery of December 2004, in which 26.5 million was stolen from a bank in Belfast. The belief that this had been carried out by the IRA is widely held, and many lamented that the scandal surrounding alleged IRA involvement in this kind of criminality had overshadowed the scandal surrounding the possibility that its members had killed a man in a pub brawl for no good reason, or had at least tried to cover up the circumstances of his death. The murder and its aftermath resulted in a strong backlash against the IRA in the Short Strand area of East Belfast, a nationalist enclave in an overwhelmingly unionist area. The area is traditionally regarded as strongly republican, due in part to its "siege mentality" and history of attacks by unionists, which the IRA had defended the community from. On 8 March the IRA issued an unprecedented statement saying that they had made an offer to McCartney's family to shoot the members involved in the murder. The family made it clear that they wanted the people concerned prosecuted, not physically harmed. On the 9 March, the Daily Mail named the following men as three of the four men, all members of the Belfast Brigade, whom the PIRA offered to shoot in retailation for the murder of Robert MacCartney - Jim "Dim" McCormack, Gerard "Jock" Davison and Gerard Montgomery. The Mail stated that McCormack, aged about 42, is the Officer Commanding of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA. It also stated that Davison, 41, is a current and senior member of the Belfast Brigade, and its former O.C. According to the Mail, Montgomery — whom it showed in a crowd photograph — is also a long standing PIRA member, and has acted as a bodyguard to both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. All three men have close ties with Gerry Adams. The Mail also stated that both McCormack and Montogomery shot and killed UFF members and renowned killers of Catholics Joe Bratty and Raymond Elder in the months running up to the 1994 ceasefire. These murders apparently 'made' them amongst Belfast Republicans, and enshrined their reputations as "hard men". Virtually the same statements were made in the Irish Daily Mirror and the Irish Times, with only the Daily Mail actually naming the men. In the days running up to 9th March, Davison had made a number of comments posted in Irish and British newspapers denying all and any involvement in the murder of Robert McCartney. All five McCartney sisters and his parter expressly rejected the IRA's offer to kill the men, and again asked that the IRA lift their threats against witnesses to McCartney's murder, allowing them to testify to the PSNI. Their cousin, Gerry Quinn, stated that McCartney's family wanted "justice, not revenge." Since this time, the sisters of Robert McCartney have maintained an increasingly public campaign for justice (through the legal process) which saw Martin McGuinness make a public pronouncement that the sisters should be careful that they were not being manipulated for political ends (this was reported by many news agencies, including the BBC on 14 March 2005). This was interpreted as a veiled threat towards the McCartney family. The McCartney family travelled to the United States during the 2005 St Patrick's Day celebrations where they were met by US Senators and US President George W. Bush who expressed 100% support in their campaign for justice. Meanwhile Gerry Adams was noticably shunned by politicians, especially Senator Ted Kennedy, who had previously welcomed Adams in an attempt to assist the Peace Process in Northern Ireland. Police Service of Northern Ireland page appealing for information about the murder McCartney, Robert McCartney, Robert McCartney, Robert
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