A lawyer for the families of the 10 men killed in the Kingsmill Massacre has urged police to fast-track the review of evidence against a suspect in the atrocity who later went on to secure a British government comfort letter.
The long running inquest into the 1976 massacre, which saw 10 Protestant workmen lined up and shot dead as they returned home from work, heard that two suspects named in documents related to the murders received On The Run (OTR) letters around 30 years later. The OTR scheme saw letters sent to republicans on the run during the 2000s assuring them they were not being actively sought by the authorities in the UK.
One of the suspects has since died, but on Wednesday last the inquest lawyer for some of the bereaved appealed to coroner Brian Sherrard to ask detectives to prioritise the case.
A critical report on the contentious OTR scheme led to the PSNI undertaking a review of 228 individuals considered under it, with a number of cases identified as a priority.
A lawyer for the PSNI told coroner, Mr Sherrard, at a preliminary inquest hearing in Belfast that the surviving Kingsmill suspect who possessed an OTR letter was not one of the the 228 priority cases so a review into the circumstances of that letter had not yet begun.
Alan Kane QC, representing some of victims, suggested that the coroner might “encourage if not ask” the PSNI to turn its focus to the Kingsmill suspect so “the work of this inquest could be brought to a conclusion sooner rather than later”.
Mr Sherrard said he would reflect on the request, adding that he had an “open mind” on the matter.
The coroner revealed that both OTR recipients were only mentioned once as suspects in all the files related to the killings so could be considered “peripheral” to the case, given the number of other suspects identified in the media.
Mr Sherrard said he would consider whether it was appropriate to request that a UK government representative appear before the inquest to explain issues related to the issue of the letters.
“I remain open minded and positive in relation to having someone here to talk to me about On The Runs,” he said.
“I would then decide the parameters of that questioning.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, the coroner also took the unusual step of confirming that an individual arrested in 2016 in connection with a palm print found on a suspected Kingsmill getaway vehicle was not a man a daily newspaper alleged was the owner of the print.
Mr Sherrard said he was responding to a “unique situation” in an effort to “address any confusion” among family members caused by the article.
The coroner confirmed he would not be releasing any further information about people named on Kingsmill files as suspects, who are referred to in court only by coded ciphers.
“The cipher system remains sacrosanct,” he said.
