Bus stop at Ballygawley in 1988

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The bus attack at Ballygawley occurred during the Northern Ireland conflict on August 20, 1988 in County Tyrone , near the village of Ballygawley . Eight British soldiers were killed and 28 injured by a Provisional IRA explosive device .

attack

The attack occurred around 12:30 a.m. local time on the A5 road in Townland Curr and hit a civilian bus that was carrying 36 soldiers from the 1st Battalion of The Light Infantry Regiment of the Light Division. The soldiers had been on short home leave, landed at the military section of Aldergrove Airport in Belfast, and were on their way back to Lisanelly Barracks in Omagh .

According to the police, a car bomb parked on the roadside , which contained around 91 kg of a Semtex mixture, had thrown the bus off the road. It is said to have been Semtex stocks from Libya , which the IRA is said to have acquired in the mid-1980s. Eight soldiers between the ages of 18 and 21 were killed and 28 others injured. The injured were treated in the hospitals of Omagh and Dungannon , among others .

consequences

After the attack, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ended her vacation in the south-west of England and met in London with UUP security spokesman Ken Maginnis , who named suspects and called for a mass arrest. Northern Ireland Minister Tom King also interrupted his vacation in England and returned to Belfast the same day, where he attended a security meeting. The Alliance head of government for the Mid Ulster district, Paddy Bogan, who lives near the attack site , was one of the first to arrive at the scene and provide first aid. Police Superintendent Wynnefield Hooke took over the investigation while the army cordoned off the scene. The Provisional IRA confessed to the attack, which it reported was carried out by the East Tyrone Brigade . The army stopped transporting troops overland to the east of Tyrone.

On August 30, 1988, the three IRA men Michael Harte, Martin Harte and Brian Mullin were shot dead by the Special Air Service (SAS) on the street near Omagh under unexplained circumstances . According to security authorities, the three men were armed and wanted to carry out an assassination attempt on a member of the Ulster Defense Regiment. Michael Harte was the commander of the Mid-Tyrone Unit of the Provisional IRA and thus the organizer of numerous attacks in the area, including the bus attack at Ballygawley. His brother Martin was also considered to be involved in numerous IRA operations and had already been questioned as a suspect about the attack in Balleygawley. Brian Mullin was the brother-in-law of the Harte brothers, who was also called a terrorist by the police.

In response to the attack, the Criminal Evidence (North Ireland) Order was enacted in November 1988 , which enabled courts in Northern Ireland to draw adverse conclusions against silent suspects during police interrogations or trials. According to Amnesty International, a violation of the presumption of innocence and the right to refuse to testify , which are secured by international provisions such as the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights .

From October 1988, the British government also banned the broadcasting of interviews and speeches by Irish Republican parties and groups on radio and television.

Memorials on the scene and in Shrewsbury commemorate the attack .

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