Martin McGartland

Martin McGartland (born January 30, 1970 in Belfast ) is a former member of the Irish Republican Army , IRA for short, who was recruited as an agent by the British secret service MI5 . After his exposure as a spy by IRA comrades in 1991, he was brought to the British main island. There he lived undisturbed under a new name for eight years. He survived an assassination attempt in 1999, seriously injured, and has since changed his identity and place of residence regularly.

youth

Born into a strictly Irish Republican Catholic family, McGartland grew up with his mother, brother Joe and sisters Elizabeth and Catherine. His home was a council house in Moyard, on the western outskirts of Belfast. Martin, nicknamed Marty , attended the primary school "Vere Foster" and later the secondary school "St. Thomas". He was considered a rascal who was known for various pranks.

Moyard is located in the infamous Ballymurphy district . The bombings and shootings of the IRA, which McGartland witnessed first hand, made him grow up quickly according to his own admission. He joined the older boys in his neighborhood who provoked the British army or Protestant youths by throwing stones.

His sister Catherine was one of many children employed by the IRA in arms smuggling in the Ballymurphy district of Belfast. She later died in an accident in which she fell through a skylight at her school.

In his teenage years, Martin was friends with a homeless man named Oliver, who found shelter in the abandoned Old Broadway Cinema on Falls Road. McGartland supported the man with food and money.

McGartland's first job was delivering newspapers, then he worked as a milk supplier.

First agent activity

He was initially known to the police for petty crime. But the moral guardians of the IRA also became aware of him; However, he was always able to escape their thugs. Since the late 1970s, Catholics have been pressured to report crimes to the Sinn Féin instead of the police. The Sinn Féin is considered the political arm of the IRA. So it came about that the IRA took on the role of law enforcement officer in the Catholic neighborhoods. Disgusted by the violence against petty criminal youth of his class, at the age of 16 he agreed to provide the police with information about local IRA members. In this way, numerous attacks on security forces could be prevented. With the Northern Irish Police ( RUC ) he was given the internal code name Agent Carol .

At the same time - 1986 - the IRA employed him as a guard in a protection racket. His job was to guard a construction site in Ballymurphy that was under the protection of the IRA. He then worked for a local taxi company without a driver's license. He had to cede a certain share of his income to the IRA. In his biography, Fifty Dead Men Walking , McGartland reports that he occasionally drove fellow thugs to their locations and heard them brag about their acts of violence. Many of the victims were innocent and had drawn the ire of the IRA in some other way. One of the punitive measures was breaking the legs.

Admission to the IRA

Davy Adams, head of the IRA and nephew of Sinn Fein chairman Gerry Adams , showed interest in the young McGartland and was able to win him as a new member in the fall of 1989. The recommendation came from Harry Fitzsimmons, a childhood friend of McGartland's, whom he often chauffeured around Belfast. Fitzsimmons was already actively involved in IRA bomb attacks at that time. McGartland's first assignment was to check the house of a well-known Ulster official .

McGartland was a lieutenant in the IRA Belfast Intelligence unit . He mainly worked for Davy Adams, drove him to meetings or to spy out potential attack targets. A special tracking device was attached to McGartland's car.

From 1989 to 1991 he provided information about planned attacks and other IRA activities to the British police force called the Special Branch . During this time he had daily contact with IRA members, both those who prepared and those who carried out attacks. Within the IRA, he was able to maintain the impression of a loyal member for two years. He also managed to keep his double life a secret from his partner, with whom he has two sons.

He worked closely with Rosena Brown, an eminent and highly educated employee with the rank of IRA Intelligence Officer . In civil life she was a Belfast actress.

During his work in the IRA Intelligence , McGartland got to know not only the command structure, but also internal processes in matters of financing, weapons procurement, reconnaissance and detailed planning of operations. He found that IRA sympathizers infiltrated various public institutions and companies and that numerous IRA members gained access to information about public figures through the acquisition of computer skills. This affected politicians, lawyers, judges, security forces, prison guards and paramilitaries on the other side.

Although McGartland's information prevented many of the planned attacks, including a bomb attack on two trucks carrying British soldiers between Stranraer and Larne , to his great regret he was unable to save the life of 21-year-old British soldier Tony Harrison. The IRA shot and killed Harrison in East Belfast in June 1991 while preparing for a wedding. McGartland drove the assassins' getaway car, but was told about the operation so late that he didn't have time to inform his police contact about the specific target person. Noel Thompson, a Republican sympathizer of the taxi driver who picked Harrison up from Belfast Airport and then informed the IRA of his whereabouts, was later sentenced to twelve years in prison for an accessory to murder.

Exposure

That same year, 1991, McGartland provided information about a planned mass shooting at Charlie Heggarty's Pub in Bangor , where British soldiers often stopped off after a soccer game between prison guards. The police then intercepted the delivery of weapons intended for the attack and arrested the two couriers. McGartland was thus exposed as a spy.

The notes of the head of the Northern Irish Police Counter-Surveillance Unit , Ian Phoenix (†), indicate that McGartland and several of his police contacts advised against stopping the arms transport. On the one hand, the IRA shooters who are supposed to carry out the attack could be warned and escape, on the other hand, McGartland's life would be endangered. It was well known that the punishment for spying on the IRA was interrogation under torture and subsequent execution. Once the suspect had made a coercive confession, he was killed by two shots in the back of the head. It did not matter whether the victim pleaded guilty or not.

After his agent work was now exposed, he was kidnapped in August 1991 by Jim McCarthy (nicknamed Boot ) and Paul Hamilton (nicknamed Chico ), two IRA men with a criminal record for paramilitary activities. McGartland was interrogated and tortured in an apartment on the Twinbrook suburb of Belfast. In an unsupervised moment, he managed to escape by jumping out the window of the apartment on the third floor, where he sustained a serious head injury. McGartland later testified that McCarthy and Hamilton were police informants based on his personal observations during his abduction. However, these claims were always vehemently denied by both men.

Life in exile

McGartland moved to England and bought a house on England's east coast with the approximately 100,000 British pounds he received from the British government. With a new identity as Martin Ashe, he began a new life in tranquil Whitley Bay with his partner Jo Asher. As a result of the torture, he suffers from mental disorders. A psychotherapeutic treatment was withdrawn from him, although a psychiatric medical officer certified an illness that required treatment. In 1992 he failed in his attempt to obtain compensation for his injuries sustained while tortured by the IRA. There is, however, an interview from 2003 in which he speaks of £ 50,000 in compensation for pain and suffering.

Three years after moving from his native Northern Ireland, his mother received a macabre condolence card lamenting Martin's death. In 1997, Northumbria Police discovered his true identity in a traffic offense (over speeding) as he was carrying multiple driver's licenses in different names for his protection. That would be his undoing two years later (see the following section). McGartland was sentenced to a fine; the allegation of misleading the judiciary was dropped due to its particular history.

In June 1997 the BBC aired a television documentary about his story. Journalist Kevin Myers recognizes McGartland as a hero and the Sunday Express newspaper calls him a "real-life James Bond ".

In 1997, McGartland published his first biography, Fifty Dead Men Walking . The title quantifies the number of lives he claims to have saved through his informant activity.

attack

Despite his new identity, IRA men tracked him down in his home and seriously wounded him six times in the chest, stomach, thigh and hand on June 17, 1999. His neighbors provided first aid on site and took him to the hospital, where he was recovering from his injuries in the intensive care unit. After it became clear that the attack was carried out by the IRA, McGartland was transferred to another clinic in an armored vehicle and guarded by twelve police officers around the clock. The total cost of medical treatment, personal protection and the search for perpetrators was £ 1.5 million. IRA member Scott Monaghan was temporarily arrested as a suspect. However, he was never charged; the DNA traces obtained at the crime scene could obviously not be assigned to him.

Since his arrival in England, McGartland has repeatedly asked the police to delete his true identity from the electronic database, but was always turned away. “The authorities always told him he was absolutely safe. Now, unfortunately, it turned out that they were wrong, ”said his lawyer Nigel Dodds. An IT specialist was dismissed from the police force after this breakdown.

A week after the assassination, the Northern Ireland Grand Committee agreed that the ceasefire enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement was broken by the IRA incident in Whitley Bay. The murders of the IRA spy Eamon Collins and two drug traffickers in the same six months also led to this assessment. The ceasefire was a condition for the early release of underground fighters from prison.

In October 2000, McGartland won his lawsuit against the newspaper publisher Associated Newspapers , which suspected in its publications that the attack on McGartland was due to conflicts with local criminal gangs. This also corresponds to the initial suspicion within the Northumbria Police Department.

Threat to his family

After the 1994 armistice, McGartland hoped to return to Belfast. When he asked Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams whether it was safe to do so, he only replied that it was a matter between him and the IRA. McGartland says his family was harassed by Republicans. His brother Joe was the victim of a brutal beating attack by an IRA thugs in 1996, which caused him to sit in a wheelchair for three months. His sister was also threatened.

Denial by the Home Office

Despite being considered one of the UK's best agents in the Northern Ireland conflict, UK Home Secretary Theresa May testified in a court in early 2014 that she could neither confirm nor deny that McGartland ever worked for MI5. Such a declaration would endanger his life and national security. McGartland reacted indignantly to this statement: “ This is one of the daftest things I have ever heard; everyone who is interested knows my past. [...] No current security interest is at stake . "(German:" This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Everyone interested in politics knows my past. There are no current security interests at stake. ") McGartland published two books about his Life as an undercover agent. One of them was filmed. There are also six television documentaries and numerous newspaper articles about him. The authorities informed the BBC in 1997 that he was under witness protection as an agent and that he had been relocated.

Letters exist in which British authorities - represented by the law firm Burton & Burton - confirm to the BBC that McGartland worked for them under the code name Agent Carol . And while MI5 admitted in a letter that McGartland's life was constantly in danger, they commented at the same time that "it is not that he urgently needs police protection or a new place to stay immediately". The agency also announced in the same letter that McGartland had agreed to assume a new identity. All of these statements were coordinated with Northumbria Police. MI5 reports to May's Ministry, and she herself approved McGartland's application for a new identity with her signature. His new identity and that of his partner will be made available by MI5. In addition, McGartland has a document in which the Northern Irish Police ( PSNI , formerly RUC) and the Northumbria Police confirm a cooperation with McGartland and which was signed by MI5 after the attack on June 17th.

Since he was not entitled to state social benefits, MI5 initially supported him financially. That aid was withdrawn after McGartland gave an interview to the Belfast Telegraph. McGartland's reaction: "Refusing to acknowledge or deny my role as an informant is just a ploy to deny the state's responsibility to someone who has risked their life for them."

Movie

In 2009 the film Fifty Dead Men Walking by Kari Skogland was released, which is roughly based on McGartland's biography. The British Jim Sturgess can be seen in the role of McGartland. McGartland himself distances himself from the work with the following words:

"The best way I can explain it in basic, blunt terms, is it's as near to the truth as Earth is to Pluto. If a film is loosely based on someone's life story, how does the audience know what's true and what's fiction? "

“To put it in simple terms: The film is as close to the truth as the earth is on the planet Pluto. If a film is loosely based on a person's life story, how can the audience know what is reality and what is fiction? "

He also criticizes the fact that the director took advice from the IRA. He fears that the IRA could have influenced the shooting. Kari Skogland denies that. In addition to former IRA members, representatives of the RUC police also advised them on the set.

Works

• Fifty Dead Men Walking. 1997, ISBN 1-85782-178-5 .
• Dead Man Running. 1999, ISBN 0-8038-2005-4 .

See also

• Denis Donaldson

Web links

• www.martinmcgartland.co (Official Website)

Remarks

1. ↑ In order to prevent the excessive accumulation of penalty points and the associated driving license withdrawal, he occasionally showed his old driver's license with his previous personal details. [1]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ About Me . MartinMcGartland.co.uk. Archived from the original on November 7, 2011. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
2. ^ Liam Clarke: Dark world of agents is not black and white. Belfast Telegraph 23 December 2011
3. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 12-13
4. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. P. 27
5. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 10-12
6. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 8-10
7. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 50-51
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} McGartland: 'A dead man walking' . BBC News. June 17, 1999. Retrieved May 31, 2014.
9. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. P. 101
10. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 108-111
11. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 124-130
12. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. P. 174
13. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 90-91
14. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 189-198
15. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. P. 215
16. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 220-221
17. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 174-177
18. ^ McGartland, Fifty Dead Men Walking , pp. 247-253
19. ^ Independent of February 9, 1993
20. ↑ Payback? Ex-Informer Shot in England , Irish Echo. June 23, 1999. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved January 25, 2007. 
21. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. P. 272
22. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 221-222
23. ↑ ^{a b} Court clears top IRA mole . May 21, 1997. Retrieved June 29, 2014.
24. ↑ Kathy Johnson: I know two Provos were RUC informers , Belfast Telegraph. March 30, 2008. 
25. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Liam Clarke: Six TV shows on him, two books and a Hollywood film ... but still they won't admit Martin McGartland was a spy . Belfast Telegraph 18 February 2014
26. ↑ Manhunt follows attack on IRA informer . In: BBC News , June 17, 1999. Retrieved May 12, 2010. 
27. ^ House of Commons Hansard Written Answers. March 19, 1997, section "Martin McGartland"
28. ↑ ^{a b c} I will help cops beat bombers writ. icNewcastle - Sunday Sun, July 6, 2003, accessed January 26, 2007
29. ↑ McGartland: Fifty Dead Men Walking. Pp. 306-307
30. ↑ ^{a b c} Informer’s sister told of threat . July 26, 2006. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
31. ↑ Homeground (BBC2, 1997-): "An exile's return" , British Film Institute, accessed May 31, 2014
32. ↑ McGartland, back cover
33. ↑ Fifty Dead Men Walking . isbndb.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 28, 2014.  
34. ↑ Fifty Dead Men Walking by Martin McGartland. Retrieved October 3, 2018 . 
35. ↑ ^{a b} Call for ^a search by the Northumbria Police ( memento of October 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
36. ↑ Joe Oliver: Informer fights for his life after shooting . In: The Examiner , June 18, 1999. Archived from the original on February 12, 2004. 
37. ↑ Pounds 1.5m to keep RUC Agent Martin Alive. The Free Library
38. ↑ John Cassady: pounds 1.5m TO KEEP ALIVE RUC AGENT MARTIN (News).. (No longer available online.) January 9, 2000, archived from the original on September 21, 2014 ; accessed on October 3, 2018 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
39. ^ Convicted terrorist wins damages . BBC News. January 26, 2006. Retrieved January 26, 2007.
40. ↑ ^{a b} The Guardian, June 20, 1999
41. ^ Northern Ireland Grand Committee . June 24, 1999. Archived from the original on October 6, 2007. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 28, 2014.  
42. ^ Trimble calls for review of IRA ceasefire , RTÉ News. June 18, 1999. 
43. ↑ "Martin McGartland v Associated Newspapers Ltd" ( Memento of 23 December 2004 at the Internet Archive ), Media Law Newsletter, October 2000
44. ^ Joe McGartland: Punishment Beating. Shared Troubles, May 30, 2009, archived from the original on March 7, 2014 ; Retrieved June 26, 2014 . 
45. ↑ Paisley blast at IRA claims The News Letter dated August 2, 2006, quotation "We have also heard how the sister of IRA informer Martin McGartland was told by police that her safety was under threat."
46. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Service-MI5-via-their-solicitors-wrote-to-the-BBC-and-confirmed-that-Martin-McGartland-aka-Agent-Carol-had-been-one- of-their-agents .
47. ↑ Tom Huddleston: Is 'Fifty Dead Men Walking' really based on truth? . TimeOut London. 2008. Archived from the original on May 4, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.