The RUC is to close its main interrogation centre at Castlereagh in East Belfast as a further step in what it says is the progressive scaling down of security measures in the North. In a separate development, a leading American lawyer has called for the resignation of the RUC Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan. This follows a report by human rights groups that accused the British government of failing to ensure the protection of the Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson, who was killed last March in a bomb explosion.
Thousands of Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries were questioned at Castlereagh over the last 30 years, and in the early 70s, it was the centre of major controversy over claims of police ill-treatment. An RUC statement said that, notwithstanding threats posed by dissidents, the decision was because of the overall improving security situation and an ongoing review of policing needs.
The Northern Secretary welcomed the closure. Peter Mandelson said it was an indication of what could be achieved when security conditions allowed. It was significant further progress towards the goal of complete normalisation. Mr Mandelson said that the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement would transform the prospects for peace and stability. In that context, he said, the British government was fully committed to normalising security arrangements and practices. However, he added, they must also take account of the need to maintain the capabilities necessary to counter what he said was the continuing threat posed by a number of groups on both sides. He said that that was the balance they must constantly have in mind.
Alex Maskey of Sinn Féin welcomed the closure. However, he said that the situation regarding other equally notorious interrogation centres, at Armagh and Derry, remained unchanged. He said that there could be no place in the modern world for institutions such as these, which were synonymous with human rights abuse. Mr Maskey said that, while the closure was a useful start, it was not enough on its own. He called for the RUC to be disbanded.
He said that many nationalists still lived with the nightmare of Castlereagh. The brutal litany of physical and psychological abuse meted out to unfortunate victims by RUC interrogators had earned the centre international notoriety, he said. Mr Maskey also said that the history of the centre stood as an indictment of the RUC and successive British governments, who, he said, had consistently turned a blind eye to what he claimed was the appalling brutality which had been served out daily in Castlereagh. Over the years, human rights groups had called for the closure of the centre.
This morning, some of the same groups repeated their call for a fully independent international judicial enquiry into the killing of Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson, who died last March after loyalists planted a bomb under her car. The Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson, who has still to study their report, said he was absolutely confident that the NI Office would be shown not to have acted in any irresponsible or inappropriate way concerning representations made about Mrs Nelson's safety in the months before she was killed.
Ed Lynch, of the American Bar Association, called for the removal of all RUC members from the investigation that is currently being undertaken by a senior British police officer. He also said that the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, should step down voluntarily.
