Why?
Because not 1 strand of evidence exists to keep both innocent men imprisoned.
The Craigavon 2, are Irish citizens, Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton, both men were dragged before a British Occupation juryless Court and falsely sentenced for fatally shooting British PSNI officer Stephen Carroll on March 9th 2009.
The shooting took place in Craigavon, County Armagh in Occupied Ireland.
John Paul Wootton was 17 years old at the time of his arrest and interrogation. Brendan McConville at the time of his arrest was 38 years old and a former Sinn Féin Craigavon Borough Councillor.
The trial was placed under the jurisdiction of the juryless Diplock court system which has been called into question by Amnesty International and the Irish Human Rights Council.
These juryless courts are also applied against Irish Republicans in the 26 Counties and called the Special Courts.
Brendan McConville and John Paul are currently been held in Maghaberry Prison, 2 Innocent men, who received the wrath of British state injustice.
March 30th 2012 will be ingrained in both Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton’s hearts and minds forever, as this is the date that the Craigavon 2 were convicted of the shooting and sentenced to spend years in a British prison cell. Brendan was sentenced to 25 years and John Paul to 14, which was increased to 18 years.
Like many other Irish people in Occupied Ireland, both Irishmen were denied a jury to try them, (the basic right under all criminal law), instead the men were tried by a Diplock Judge who represented the British Security Services.
In the next few paragraphs we will outline the story of yet another and most probably the worst miscarriages of justice witnessed in Britain or Ireland since the days of the Guildford 4, the Birmingham 6 and the Sallins Train Robbery Frame-Up.
To quote Gerry Conlon, of the Guildford 4, “We can’t have innocent people going to jail and 15 years down the line them being released, their lives ruined … I believe a miscarriage of justice took place here on the basis of all the evidence I have read.”
While this miscarriage of justice has attracted international attention and gathered support of human rights activists, legal experts, political organisations and respected politicians, the British establishment like in many cases regarding Irish people have blatantly ignored the truth. The British elite who pride themselves on their justice system once again have chained up Irish citizens.
The award winning star performance in this case of the Craigavon 2 goes to Witness M, the witness who has been most handsomely financially rewarded for his elaborate and unstable tale of spin and lies.
The finance package he receives from the British Exchequer includes a weekly income signed off from the British policing force the PSNI including an allowance for childcare. All loans and overseas holidays facilitated for free gratis once requested, no questions asked with a nod nod – wink wink. The British red top tabloid The Sun even paid him a reward of £50,000!!!
So Witness M’s story to the Judge goes like this..
On that very dark and rainy night, he saw McConville, from a distance of about 16 yards by an electricity box wearing a green knee length army coat with a German logo.
Witness M, however, was proven to be astigmatic & short sighted, such conditions which would have made the star witness unable to see what he said he saw. Also his partner who was walking with him that night refused to corroborate his story. Witness M was that short sighted it took him nearly a full year to come forward by which time Wootton’s and McConville’s names had been widely spread by the British state media.
Witness M was shown to have repeatedly lied under oath, he had also contacted the police on a number of occasions while drunk or drinking and most importantly including the night of his original call.
Witness Z and his son Walter Mitty.
A not surprising act happened before the appeal case was heard when a new Witness, Witness Z was arrested and held for a number of days. The PSNI attempted to force him to take back his statement in a bid to fully sabotage the defence case but to no avail and Witness Z was able to attend the appeal hearing.
Witness Z – who is the father of Witness M, stated his son was a ‘Walter Mitty’ type character and a compulsive liar. “I didn’t want to see anybody in prison on the word of my son, because I know what he is like,” Witness Z further said “it was not possible for his son to have made the journey he described on the night of the shooting”.
Secrecy and Lies.
John Grisham, the world famous author couldn’t write a legal thriller like this, with the intrigue of secret hearings, tampered evidence and disappeared evidence.
Even the worldwide main stream press have been shocked at the public Interest Immunity orders put in place, all to keep the public uninformed and ignorant of how British injustice works when it sets its sights on innocent Irishmen.
The Tracking device.
During the show trial, so called evidence emerged that John Paul Wootton’s car had been under surveillance and had a tracking device fitted to his car by British Military Intelligence agents from MI5.
The tracker showed Wootton’s car had been around 240 meters from the scene up until 10 minutes after the shooting.
Sophisticated Tracker goes Missing.
When the sophisticated tracking device was to be handed over for professional analysis and scrutiny the MI5 agent in charge of the tracking device insisted the device had gone “walk about”. He insisted that the device was left on his desk and swore “There it was gone!”.
The tracking device went missing for over 2 weeks and when it was finally recovered it showed up to 3 hours of data recorded after the murder was mysteriously wiped clean from the device, all this was revealed to the juryless court.
What is crystal clear here is that the data on the tracking device was wiped off as it proved John Paul Wootton had nothing to do with the killing and was not at the scene and there is no evidence that puts Brendan McConville at the scene of the shooting either.
The Coat.
So the British State Prosecution alleged that a brown coat found in Wootton’s car belonged to McConville, this brown coat proves without a doubt, the prosecution insisted, that there was indeed the evidence of a clear connection to each other and to the shooting.
In simple facts the brown coat did not fit in with what the super Witness M claimed in his description of what McConville was wearing on that dark, damp and dreary night, Witness M saw a green knee length coat and not a brown waist length coat, in fact the brown coat was dry when the cops obtained it and not wet as you would have figured due to the bad weather.
A DNA expert for the prosecution stated that there were mixed profiles of between 3 and 8 people along with McConville’s on the coat. It was agreed that Brendan’s DNA found on the coat could have been distributed on the coat as a result of McConville speaking or sneezing over it while in the car on another occasion.
On another interesting fact regarding the coat, particles of gunpowder residue were found on it, but the residue did not match that of the rifle used in the killing of Carroll.
Facts on the weapon.
When the weapon, an AK47 that was used in the shooting was discovered, a partial fingerprint was found on the internal spring mechanism of the magazine. This fingerprint was checked against the fingerprints of McConville and Wootton and no matches were found, Also, according to the tracking device fitted to Wootton’s car it showed the car never went near the housing estate where the rifle was found.
Regarding the discovery of the AK47- the gun used that night, it was a tip off by a suspect in the case who was in custody at the time. It was revealed that he was arrested 3 times after the killing.
The suspect was shown to be a vulnerable person and should not have been interrogated without an appropriate adult.
Court papers reveal that he spoke with the PSNI off the record without his solicitor or an appropriate adult and revealed where the weapon was.
The suspect was been charged with withholding information but the charges were finally dropped in 2010.
When McConville’s solicitor Darragh Mackin asked what had happened to the charges, it was revealed that the defendant had taken a case against the British Government stating that the PSNI were carrying out surveillance of conversations between himself and his solicitor.
Subsequently his solicitors brought a case against the PSNI to the EU court of human rights which found that secret surveilence carried out on solicitors and clients is against European law.
Conviction.
Both McConville and Wootton were convicted of murder under the controversial joint enterprise doctrine, which holds that a person who assists or encourages a crime can be held just as legally responsible as the person who actually carries it out.
So they convicted the men with no real proof and with sketchy circumstantial evidence regarding a tampered tracker, a drunk witness and a brown, not a green coat.
The prosecution never attributed a direct role in the killing of the PSNI officer to both men.
The innocent men need our continued support.
Dublin City Cllr Cieran Perry brought a motion to Dublin City Council, which was unanimously passed. The motion called for the immediate release of both men. Cllr Cieran Perry, stated in the motion “”This case isn’t about a political ideology, it’s about a miscarriage of justice and an assault on the human rights of both men. Regardless of your view on the political situation in the 6 counties it’s important that as many people as possible highlight the case and support the men”.
These Irish citizens, Brendan and John Paul who are imprisoned in Occupied Ireland and known throughout the world as the Craigavon 2 demand Justice.
They need our support!
Its time that all of us who believe in human rights take a stand and demand justice for the Craigavon 2.
JFTC2!