Prime Minister fails to discuss Marks’ murder

27 April 2016

PRIME Minister David Cameron has refused to be drawn into a new row surrounding the death 25 years ago of Downpatrick IRA commander, Colum Marks.

The Attorney General, John Larkin, has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions for a review of a previous decision not to prosecute any of the police officers involved in the 1991 shooting.

Marks died after being shot three times by a member of an elite RUC unit which had deployed to Downpatrick amid concerns the IRA was planning an attack on the security forces.

As Marks set up a horizontal mortar in the driveway of a house in St Patrick’s Avenue he was surprised and then shot as he ran through nearby Dunleath Park.

The police sergeant who shot him said he twice challenged him to stop and fired warning shots in the air before shooting the terrorist as he thought his life was in danger.

Marks died on the operating table in the Downe Hospital.

A second terrorist escaped by running down St Patrick’s Drive and into the back of a pub where he calmly sat at the bar as pursuing police officers ran through. He then escaped.

The inquest into Marks’ death heard evidence from forensic officers that the mortar had been triggered but malfunctioned.

During last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, in the House of Commons, DUP MP, Nigel Dodds, told Mr Cameron that the decision to again investigate “a police officer who bravely stopped an IRA bomber, was a cause of “great concern.”

He added that “90 per cent of deaths during the Troubles were caused by the hand of terrorists, yet there is a much greater level of focus on deaths involving the State.”

The North Belfast MP added: Once again we see a police officer being investigated for putting on a uniform and working to stop terrorists wreaking havoc on Northern Ireland.

“It is particularly notable that the attack being planned by the IRA on that occasion was against police officers,” he added.

“We must get behind our security forces and all those who stood against terrorism. We should thank and support our security forces, not persecute them.”

In response Mr Cameron said that issues which surrounded acts carried out in the past “still cause a huge amount of pain and difficulty on all sides of the debate.”

“But one of the things we have to hold onto is the fact we have an independent and impartial justice system,” he added.

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