The Council for Civil Liberties has called for an independent police complaints mechanism, adding it's no longer acceptable that Gardaí investigate complaints against other Gardaí. Its comments follow the completion of the Garda report into the fatal shooting of John Carthy by Gardaí at Abbeylara in County Longford last Easter.
Earlier, the Garda Commissioner, Pat Byrne, announced an investigation into the leaking of the report to the media. The Commissioner has appointed a senior officer to carry out the investigation. It is understood that the report concludes that Gardaí should have done more to contact Mr Carthy's solicitor after he had asked them to do so. The report says Mr Carthy, who was 27, died after he was shot four times. A second report by FBI members into the handling of the siege is due to be completed shortly. Senior Garda sources have told RTÉ News that they would have no objection to an independent public inquiry being carried out into the circumstances surrounding the death of John Carthy. Mr Carthy's family and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties have called for such an inquiry.
The Tánaiste, Mary Harney, told the Dáil this morning that the Minister for Justice, John O'Donoghue, has not seen the Garda report into the shooting of John Carthy which has now been completed and is being studied by the Garda Commissioner. Mary Harney condemned what she said appeared to be the selective leaking of the report. She said that it was highly inappropriate that a report of this kind should be leaked in this way.
Over the past two months, more than 200 people were interviewed as part of Chief Superintendent Adrian Culligan's investigation into the fatal shooting at Abbeylara. RTÉ News has learned that the Culligan report has found that John Carthy died after he was shot four times. The first two single shots hit him in the legs, the third in the lower back, while the fourth, final and fatal shot entered his back and punctured his heart. The report says that Mr Carthy came out of the house and breached his loaded shotgun. He was called on repeatedly to put the gun down. He was shot after he had snapped the gun shut and breached the first garda cordon at the gate and continued walking up the road. It is understood that the report has vindicated the decision not to allow Mr Carthy's sister Marie into the house when he refused to take phone calls, but that the Gardaí should have done more to contact the solicitor Michael Finucane, whom Mr Carthy had asked to speak to.
