Standing on the very spot where it all happened, I am trying to envisage being part of that SAS unit who were lying just behind a low hedge here in February 1992.
Three cars and a lorry full of gun-toting IRA terrorists have just screeched to a halt in front of you, the gun barrel of their Russian-built ‘Dushka’ heavy machine gun still hot from perforating a police station.
At which point, according to a senior British judge, there was only one correct and legal course of action. The SAS commanding officer should have stood up and declared: ‘Hands up! Put down your weapons. You are all under arrest.’
Is it any wonder that British Special Forces veterans now warn that soldiers are more at risk from ‘lawfare’ than warfare?
As I retrace the events of that night in slow motion, in the company of someone who knows that operation as well as anyone, I begin to despair of the creeping judicial over-reach that has now replaced common sense with legalistic wishful thinking.
Short of issuing instructions that the correct way to handle a charging elephant is with a pea shooter or that the appropriate response to a great white shark is to poke it in the eye, I cannot think of a more naive idea than the solution by Mr Justice Humphreys, presiding coroner for Northern Ireland, for disarming nine men pointing a heavy machine gun at your face.
Yet it is no joke. As a result, the judge has handed down a ruling at Northern Ireland’s Coroner’s Court which now casts serious doubt on the way in which the British state defends itself from future enemies.
All is tranquil at Clonoe chapel these days, the scene little changed except that the original hedge has vanished beneath an extension to the car park.
The SAS did indeed come here that night with the aim of capturing the East Tyrone Brigade of the IRA red-handed in the act of preparing an attack, though they were ready for every eventuality. And events did not go to plan.
The terrorists suddenly drove in already fully armed, their headlights exposing the soldiers lying on the ground. In that split second, the commanding officer had no idea if they had been spotted. Should he gamble his men’s lives by waiting to find out? Moments later, four IRA men lay dead with one injured and four more escaping. The IRA, Sinn Fein and the families of the dead now want this treated as a crime against humanity. So, 33 years on, and with £1.3million of taxpayers’ money already spent on a ‘legacy inquest’, those SAS soldiers must wait to see if they are to be prosecuted for murder.
That is because Sir Michael Humphreys (to give him his full title) has sent a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions having ruled that the SAS were in breach of the Human Rights Act – which did not even exist at the time. Both the Ministry of Defence and the veterans have now demanded a judicial review of the judge’s decision. Sinn Fein has described any quibbling with Sir Michael’s wisdom as ‘disgraceful’ and ‘a cynical attempt to deny families truth and justice’.
You do not have to probe very far to realise it would, in fact, be ‘disgraceful’ to let his verdict stand.
For, as we reveal today, it contains multiple flaws, starting with Sir Michael’s assertion that the troops had staged an ‘ambush’ with no serious intention of making arrests. He bases this on the fact that ‘the terminology of ‘ambush’ appears frequently in both RUC and MOD documents’.
However, as both soldiers and police from that era tell me, there is a world of difference between military jargon and a legalistic dictionary definition.
‘If this had been a proper ambush then it should be in every military textbook under the heading: ‘How not to stage an ambush’,’ says one senior veteran of covert operations in Northern Ireland.
‘If this really had been an ambush, you would have had at least three machine guns covering what would be called ‘the killing zone’.
Peter Clamcy was one of four provisional IRA members shot dead in an SAS ambush at Clonoe, near Coalisland in County Tyrone in February 1992
Patrick Vincent was also gunned down in the incident
Sean O’Farrell was one of the four killed in February 1992
Kevin Barry O’Donnell, pictured, was also killed. The IRA, Sinn Fein and the families of the dead now want this treated as a crime against humanity
‘This operation had one machine gun and no ‘killing zone’. If it really had been an SAS ambush, there is no way half of them would get away. They’d all be dead.’ Moreover, ‘ambush’ was a general term for catching all forms of criminality. ‘We used to go on border patrols to catch people smuggling cattle and butter,’ says a former RUC officer of the period.
‘We’d talk about a ‘butter ambush’ or a ‘cattle ambush’. It didn’t mean we shot the cattle or opened fire on the butter.’
What irks the veterans even more is the judge’s flat insistence that the terrorists never fired a single shot at the SAS. The ruling makes much of the fact that the dead IRA men were found with both the ‘Dushka’ machine gun and their AKM (Kalashnikov) rifles switched to ‘safe’ mode.
‘There is no evidence of any AKM weapon being fired in an exchange of gunfire,’ the judge declares. ‘I find, as a matter of fact, that no member of the Provisional IRA unit opened fire at the Clonoe chapel car park.’ To which the response of many veterans is simply unprintable. First, even if all the guns really were in ‘safe’ mode, there is no way the soldiers could have known that was the case. Just minutes earlier they heard the whole lot blasting away, both at the local police station and again, en route to the car park, while firing a salute over the house of a dead IRA man.
Second, the veterans argue that the weapons could easily have been switched to ‘safe’ as a matter of routine by the hordes of police, fireman, regular soldiers and other first responders crawling over the site.
Sir Michael states: ‘I have no doubt that this would have been recorded.’
Not so, say the soldiers.
In particular, one familiar with the ‘Dushka’ points out that it is a very complicated process to make it safe, requiring at least five separate movements which would be extremely difficult while clinging on to the back of a lorry careering round sharp corners.
The SAS did indeed come here that night with the aim of capturing the East Tyrone Brigade of the IRA red-handed in the act of preparing an attack
How the Daily Mail reported the Clonoe SAS operation that led to the deaths of four IRA members
Of much greater concern is the miraculous wound suffered by the one SAS casualty that night. As ‘Soldier H’ jumped up from behind the hedge, he was shot in the face by a bullet which went in cleanly above his upper lip and out through his cheek. In his verdict, Sir Michael states: ‘He was struck by a ricocheted bullet fired by one of his colleagues.’
Again, SAS veterans shake their heads. ‘You only need to see the photo of the wound to realise that this was not a ricochet,’ says George Simm, SAS Regimental Sergeant-Major at the time.
‘If it was, it must be the first case of a ricochet coming back at 180 degrees but with a nice neat hole.’ A bullet rebounding off a hard object he says is usually an irregular shape, ‘makes a hell of a mess’ and very often does not exit at all. ‘Besides, we were using armour-piercing rounds. What would they have been ricocheting from?’
Then there is the unanswered question of the guns that got away in the two IRA cars which escaped. One car was abandoned a mile away next to the local Gaelic football stadium.
The gang set it ablaze before fleeing. When the fire brigade arrived, they were pushed back by a mob who had suddenly appeared in order to ensure that any evidence was burned to a crisp. However, the report acknowledges two findings. First, all the car seats were folded down except the driver’s, as would happen if a machine gunner was operating in the back. Second, a clip from a belt of machine gun ammunition was still in the car. Might this explain why four soldiers reported seeing distinct ‘muzzle flashes’ from the IRA? The verdict also makes repeated mention of IRA men being shot when they ‘posed no threat to anyone’. Once again, the veterans suggest that this is pure guesswork by a judge-turned-tactical commander sitting at a desk three decades after the event.
‘You shoot until you perceive there is no further threat and that is when you stop,’ says Mr Simm, citing the occasion where he had his gun pointing at a gang who had just shot his commanding officer. As they raised their hands in the air, he did not open fire.
‘Just remember this,’ he says. ‘The SAS arrested more IRA terrorists than they killed in Northern Ireland.’ These are just few of the reasons why the SAS veterans feel that the Clonoe inquest is a turning point. Of much greater concern is the judge’s overall verdict that the soldiers did not have ‘an honest belief’ that they needed to shoot.
Perhaps more alarming still was his pronouncement that ‘the operation was not planned and controlled in such a way as to minimise to the greatest extent possible the need for recourse to lethal force’.
Pictured: The Russian made DHSK heavy machine-gun mounted on a lorry at Clonoe in 1992
If that is now the official benchmark by which Britain’s Special Forces are to operate, say the veterans, then we must take the judge at his word. Commanding officers must now make it very clear to new recruits that the most effective way to ‘minimise’ the possibility of killing our enemies ‘to the greatest extent possible’, is to avoid going anywhere near them in the first place. And whatever you do, please don’t shoot.
In short, the SAS set out that night to apprehend a gang assembling a gun. The judge disputes this and also says their lives were not at risk.
So let us leave the final word to the IRA. In their official statement the following day, the East Tyrone Brigade ‘acknowledged with pride’ that four of their men had ‘died gallantly in action’ during ‘an IRA operation’.
For the avoidance of doubt, walk a few yards round the corner from the Clonoe chapel car park to the IRA plaque on the wall honouring the dead men. There is no mention of an ambush, of foul play or subterfuge. It states clearly: ‘Killed On Active Service.’
