Thomas Murphy (IRA member)

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Thomas “Slab” Murphy ( Irish Tomás Mac Murchaidh ; born August 26, 1949 in Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, County Louth , Ireland ) was allegedly a leading member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) since the 1970s . Within the IRA he is 1997 and the IRA's chief of staff be (Chief of Staff), ascended.

Life

He comes from the sparsely populated border area of ​​the Irish county Louth to the northern Irish county Armagh . He owns a farm complex there that spans both sides of the inner-Irish border. At the age of 14 he left the local school in Glasdrumman. At the age of 19 he took over his father Joseph's farm when he died. In 1986 the British Army erected two watchtowers, Golf Two Zero and Golf Three Zero , in the immediate vicinity of the farm to monitor the northern part of the complex.

He and his two brothers Patrick and Francis "inherited" the nickname Slab from their father. Later only the former was associated with him. He and his five year older brother Patrick were both locally successful Gaelic football players in the 1970s .

Role within the IRA

Thomas Murphy joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the mid-1960s . In 1968 he was listed by the Irish Security Forces as a member of the IRA unit from Inneskeen, County Monaghan . After the IRA split in 1969 into politically oriented officials and purely militaristic provisional officers, he joined the later notorious Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade , which soon saw itself as the elite within the organization. South Armagh has one of the highest proportions of Catholic residents in Northern Ireland and a long Irish Republican tradition. This republican heartland is therefore a stronghold of the IRA.

It is believed that he became the brigade commander in the 1970s. In this context, Toby Harnden (correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and author of the book Bandit Country ) referred to him as the planner of the 1979 Warrenpoint attack , in which 18 British soldiers were killed. This was the British Army's greatest loss of life in a single attack during the Northern Ireland conflict . He also links him to the attack on Louis Mountbatten that same day , in which Mountbatten and three other people died, including his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas Knatchbull. In the 1980s, Murphy is said to have been elected to the mostly seven-member IRA Army Council, the IRA's governing body. There he was appointed commander of the Northern Command . This division within the IRA was responsible for all operations in Northern Ireland and the five adjacent counties of the republic. In addition, as a member of the Army Council, he is said to have helped organize the arms deliveries from Libya . He rose to the top within the Army Council, where he ultimately held the position of Chief of Staff . This is the name of the chairman of this body and commander in chief of the IRA. In the 1990s, Murphy was the British domestic intelligence service MI5 as the biggest threat to the internal security of the United Kingdom considered. In 1993 he ordered the bombing of Bishopsgate, London, and in 1996 the bomb attacks in London's Docklands and Manchester .

As early as 1985, the British newspaper Sunday Times published allegations that Murphy, as a member of the Army Council, was in charge of the Northern Command and was therefore directly responsible for the bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and previously for some of the IRA bombings on mainland England, both of which he vehemently denied . He therefore initiated a lengthy civil law suit in the Republic of Ireland in 1987 for defamation against the newspaper, which he, u. a. due to the statements of former IRA members Eamon Collins and Sean O'Callaghan as well as various customs, police and army personnel, finally lost after 12 years. Eight months later, Collins, who also published a book about his days as an IRA man in 1997, was found brutally murdered on a deserted dirt road near his hometown of Newry .

Investigations

Both the UK and Irish judiciary have been investigating him for several years. However, this is not about his paramilitary activities, but about smuggling. He is accused of smuggling cattle, cigarettes and, above all, fuel across the inner-Irish border. This would be favored by the location of his property, which is directly on the inner-Irish border.

The interest of the authorities applies the multi-million dollar network of companies that Murphy, together with his brothers, especially the company ACE Oils Ltd . On March 9, 2006, his farm was surrounded and searched in a cross-border operation. Both the PSNI from Northern Ireland and the Gardaí from the Irish Republic took part in this operation , as well as customs officers and military personnel from both countries. Large amounts of diesel, cash, and checks were seized. In the meantime, his accounts have been blocked and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) confiscated assets worth more than EUR 900,000.

The British equivalent of this agency, the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA), investigated Murphy's business activities in the north of England back in 2005, searching hundreds of properties and offices in the Manchester area . Suspicions were investigated that the IRA had invested in real estate in Great Britain.

arrest

On November 8, 2007, Murphy was arrested by Irish police officers in Dundalk . He was formally charged with not filing a tax return between 1996 and 2004. He was brought before a judge, but was released after paying a bail of € 80,000. Although Murphy has been under police surveillance for years, he has so far had no criminal record.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Toby Harnden: Bandit Country . Hodder & Stoughton, 1999, ISBN 0-340-71736-X , pp. 21-35. .
  2. ↑ Toby Harnden: Bandit Country . Hodder & Stoughton, 1999, ISBN 0-340-71736-X , pp. 21-35. .
  3. ↑ Toby Harnden: Bandit Country . Hodder & Stoughton, 1999, ISBN 0-340-71736-X , p. 244 f. .
  4. ↑ Eamon Collins with Mick McGovern: Blinder Hass , S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main , 1997 (only available in antiquarian versions).
  5. ↑ Stephen Scott: Dead man talking . The Guardian . January 30, 1999. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
personal data
SURNAME Murphy, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Slab; Mac Murchaidh, Tomás
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish IRA leader
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, County Louth , Republic of Ireland