Post by Wasp on Sept 26, 2009 20:50:04 GMT
Gerry bradley’s life in the ira
A MURDERED newsagent once described by former RUC chief constable Ronnie Flanagan as “absolutely innocent” has been named in a book as the IRA’s second-in-command in Belfast.
Former IRA member Gerry Bradley has claimed that James Brown, who was killed by the UVF 15 years ago, was the IRA’s ‘adjutant’ during the early 1970s.
The one-time docker and trade unionist was shot dead shortly after opening his shop at Garmoyle Street in the Docks area of the city on April 28 1994.
In the book Insider: Gerry Bradley’s Life in the IRA, written with historian Brian Feeney, the ex-prisoner claims Brown gave him an order to murder unionist leader Brian Faulkner in the winter of 1973 and supplied the weapons.
Bradley said an IRA squad was to assassinate the former Northern Ireland prime minister as he travelled to make a speech at an Orange hall near Newcastle, Co Down.
The operation was called off at the last minute.
Bradley said he and another man met Brown – the “Belfast Brigade adjutant” – in a flat in south Belfast on the night of the speech.
“Jim Brown told us the plan was to kill Faulkner and we were to do it,” Bradley says.
“He gave us sub-machine-guns. We were to be picked up from the flat in Stranmillis by IRA men from south Down – ‘countrymen’.”
Bradley claims the plan was to travel to the Co Down countryside and transfer to a car that had its rear window removed.
Faulkner was responsible for introducing internment without trial in August 1971 – the year in which Brown is understood to have been was interned.
After Brown’s murder loyalist paramilitaries issued a statement claiming he had been killed because he had been involved in the murder of an RUC constable.
Following his death, then RUC assistant chief constable Ronnie Flanagan said: “What we have here is a hard-working, absolutely innocent soft target who got up at 5.30 in the morning to provide a service to the community.”
At his inquest his family dismissed as “scurrilous innuendo” any suggestion Brown had been in the IRA.
Last night the Brown family said they were “shocked” at the new claim.
“When he was murdered in 1994 the police said that Jim was not involved in anything illegal and that he was just an innocent shopkeeper trying to do his business,” they said.
They said they were disappointed that the authors had not approached the family before publication.
“These claims will cause Jim’s relatives severe personal upset and annoyance and we have immediately been in touch with our solicitor,” they said.
A MURDERED newsagent once described by former RUC chief constable Ronnie Flanagan as “absolutely innocent” has been named in a book as the IRA’s second-in-command in Belfast.
Former IRA member Gerry Bradley has claimed that James Brown, who was killed by the UVF 15 years ago, was the IRA’s ‘adjutant’ during the early 1970s.
The one-time docker and trade unionist was shot dead shortly after opening his shop at Garmoyle Street in the Docks area of the city on April 28 1994.
In the book Insider: Gerry Bradley’s Life in the IRA, written with historian Brian Feeney, the ex-prisoner claims Brown gave him an order to murder unionist leader Brian Faulkner in the winter of 1973 and supplied the weapons.
Bradley said an IRA squad was to assassinate the former Northern Ireland prime minister as he travelled to make a speech at an Orange hall near Newcastle, Co Down.
The operation was called off at the last minute.
Bradley said he and another man met Brown – the “Belfast Brigade adjutant” – in a flat in south Belfast on the night of the speech.
“Jim Brown told us the plan was to kill Faulkner and we were to do it,” Bradley says.
“He gave us sub-machine-guns. We were to be picked up from the flat in Stranmillis by IRA men from south Down – ‘countrymen’.”
Bradley claims the plan was to travel to the Co Down countryside and transfer to a car that had its rear window removed.
Faulkner was responsible for introducing internment without trial in August 1971 – the year in which Brown is understood to have been was interned.
After Brown’s murder loyalist paramilitaries issued a statement claiming he had been killed because he had been involved in the murder of an RUC constable.
Following his death, then RUC assistant chief constable Ronnie Flanagan said: “What we have here is a hard-working, absolutely innocent soft target who got up at 5.30 in the morning to provide a service to the community.”
At his inquest his family dismissed as “scurrilous innuendo” any suggestion Brown had been in the IRA.
Last night the Brown family said they were “shocked” at the new claim.
“When he was murdered in 1994 the police said that Jim was not involved in anything illegal and that he was just an innocent shopkeeper trying to do his business,” they said.
They said they were disappointed that the authors had not approached the family before publication.
“These claims will cause Jim’s relatives severe personal upset and annoyance and we have immediately been in touch with our solicitor,” they said.
