Families of loyalist paramilitary victims seek damages

A civil legal action seeking damages from the British government for relatives of victims of loyalist paramilitaries has opened in Belfast.

Lawyers are acting for two families who allege that the UK assisted and facilitated the importation of weapons used to murder their loved ones.

But the outcome of the trial at the High Court in Belfast, which is scheduled to run for five days, could have much wider implications as the weapons have been linked to at least 70 murders and hundreds of other incidents.

Dozens of relatives of victims and survivors of attacks linked to the weapons shipment are expected to attend the opening of the trial.

Belfast legal firm KRW Law said it believed it is the first civil trial in Northern Ireland to address the issue of state liability for collusion.

"The issue of state liability has never been addressed," solicitor Setanta Marley said in a statement.

"That is the purpose of this trial; to determine state liability for any deaths or injuries caused by weapons that emanated from this shipment," he added.

Weapons at centre of case

The weapons at the centre of the case were part of a huge consignment bought in South Africa and imported into Northern Ireland in 1987 by three different loyalist organisations, the UDA, UVF and Ulster Resistance.

It included VZ58 assault rifles, Browning type 9mm semi-automatic pistols, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, hand grenades and RPG rocket launchers.

In a report published in June 2016, Northern Ireland's Police Ombudsman said two of the weapons from the shipment had been used in the UVF attack on the Heights Bar in Loughinisland on 18 June 1994, in which six people were killed and five others were injured.

The ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, said he believed state informants had been involved "in the procurement and distribution of the weapons, including individuals at the most senior levels of the organisation(s) responsible for the importation".

His report said intelligence information about the role of loyalist paramilitary commanders was not passed on to detectives investigating the arms importation and consequently many were not subject of the investigation.

Dr Maguire described the decision by RUC Special Branch not to disseminate the information as "indefensible".

The action against the UK has been brought by Pat Frizzell on behalf of his brother Brian Frizzell, and Margaret Lundy on behalf of her husband Alan Lundy.

Mr Frizzell was one of three Catholics shot dead in a UVF attack on a mobile shop in Craigavon in March 1991.

They were killed with a 9mm handgun, which was amongst the weapons that slipped through the security force net.

"If that state had stopped the weapons being distributed, those murders wouldn't have taken place," he said.

"There still would have been murders but not at the scale that there was."

Mr Lundy was murdered by the UDA in west Belfast in May 1993.

Mr Marley said in his statement: "The VZ58 rifles alone were used in at least 70 murders and numerous other attempted murders after the Loughinisland attack.

"This trial and subsequent judgement will therefore impact on scores, if not hundreds, of cases spanning the late 1980s, 1990s and 2000s and touching every county in this jurisdiction where the weapons from this shipment were used."

The majority of the hearing, which is listed for five days, will be behind closed doors, with no members of the public or media permitted to attend because sensitive intelligence material is at the heart of the case.

There was a short public session this morning when legal representatives for the plaintiffs set out their case.

They said the state had knowledge of the arms importation from their agents within loyalism, but had failed to prevent it or impede the distribution of the guns.

The security services had been aware on 4-5 January 1988 that a container with the weapons inside was in a bonded warehouse awaiting customs clearance.

Days later, authorities became aware of plans to distribute the weapons among the UVF, UDA and Ulster Resistance.

On the day the weapons were moved the convoy was under surveillance, but the loyalists were lost for around an hour and a half, allowing a significant portion of the haul to be successfully spirited away.

The remainder of the shipment, including a large number of rifles and handguns, was seized near Portadown.

Solicitor Kevin Winters said the families were frustrated that they would not get to hear the evidence around intelligence and agents, but he said they understood why it was necessary.

"At least after all these years it is before a court," he said.

"We expect and really hope that after all these years, justice will be done," he said, while Pat Frizzell said he hoped the family would finally get more answers.

Mr Justice Humphries told relatives they should be assured that although they would not get to hear the witnesses and their evidence, it would be rigorously tested.

He said he would put as much of it as he could in the public domain within the limitations of national security considerations.

He said that after the five days of hearings, he would produce both a closed verdict and an open one, which would be available to the families.

Additional reporting by Conor Macauley