Intelligence

Blair is asked to explain why police raided Sunday Times

Jack Grimston
September 28, 2003


THE prime minister was yesterday formally asked to explain any role Downing Street played in initiating a police raid on the offices of The Sunday Times in Northern Ireland.
The move came in the wake of ruling by a Belfast court that the surprise raid — conducted by armed police officers earlier this year — was unlawful.

Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, admitted to the court on Friday that the search warrant had not been properly authorised.

A valid search of journalistic material requires the authorisation of a county court judge but instead the warrant was signed by a justice of the peace.

Orde was ordered to pay the newspaper’s costs in bringing a judicial review which forced his admission of wrongdoing.

Now Kevin McNamara, a former Labour party front-bench spokesman on Northern Ireland, has written to the prime minister to ask if he — or anyone else in office — was responsible for initiating the unlawful raid. He is backed by the Conservatives who have pledged to raise the matter in the Commons unless McNamara receives a satisfactory reply from Tony Blair.

“The sequence of events that led to the police raids would seem to any fair-minded person, including me, to be very suspicious,” said Peter Bottomley, a former Conservative Northern Ireland minister. “If he (McNamara) doesn’t get a satisfactory response I am prepared to raise it in parliament.”

The Sunday Times office was raided and papers seized shortly after Liam Clarke, the paper’s Northern Ireland editor, and his wife Kathryn Johnston published an updated version of their book From Guns to Government in April.

The book contained transcripts of tape recordings, taken from a joint police/MI5 surveillance operation known as “Narcotic 1”, which detailed bugged telephone conversations.

One was between Jonathan Powell, the prime minister’s chief of staff, and Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein MP and former IRA commander. It caught them laughing and joking about participants in the peace process, with McGuinness at one point referring to unionist MPs as “asses”.

A second transcript, taken from a tap on McGuinness’s home phone, records a conversation between Mo Mowlam, the former Northern Ireland secretary, and McGuinness in which the minister addresses the former IRA man as “babe”.

The book appeared in shops in Northern Ireland on April 28, more than three weeks before the official publication date. The transcripts were then picked up by The Times, which contacted Downing Street on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 29, to ask for comments.

Shortly after the first editions of the paper appeared in London, a police raid was launched on the home of a retired Special Branch officer who was arrested and accused of leaking the transcripts.

The next evening the Sunday Times office in Belfast was raided. The doors were battered down and files removed, although Clarke had offered officers a key.

The home of Clarke and Johnston was also searched for five hours before the pair were arrested and sacks of documents and several computers removed. Their nine-year-old daughter Alice had to be left in the care of neighbours while they were held and questioned for 24 hours.

Orde has admitted the raid on the Sunday Times office in Belfast was unlawful but he has not said who ordered that it be carried out. His only comment on the genesis of the operation has been to say that it resulted from an “allegation” being received.

Now MPs want to know who the order came from. They are interested because the leaked transcripts contained in the book posed no threat to national security.

The only threat they appeared to pose was to Downing Street itself. On one level they proved embarrassing because they revealed how cosy Powell had become with Sinn Fein. On another they suggest that the government might have breached Commons rules as, under parliamentary guidelines known as the Wilson Principles, the Commons should be told if an MP’s phone is being tapped.

The heavy-handed tactics have sparked outrage across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland and among civil liberties groups. Nationalist and unionist members of the Northern Ireland Police Board have demanded that Orde answer a series of questions about the raids and have taken legal advice on his refusal to do so.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, a statutory body, has also condemned the police tactics. Professor Brice Dickson, its chief commissioner, said he was “relieved that the unlawfulness of those operations has been established”.

British Irish Rights Watch, a human rights watchdog, has reported the matter to the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression and also demanded an explanation from Orde.

Paul Tweed, a solicitor acting for The Sunday Times, said: “My clients are still awaiting a full explanation of the improper and unlawful police action, and in particular for the totally unnecessary force employed by the police at the time.” He added that Clarke and Johnston would now be taking civil action for damages against the chief constable. Both they and the newspaper are seeking the return of all documents seized.

Last night Clarke said: “The majority of papers seized have been returned and none was regarded as of evidential value by the police.” However, they have kept a number of documents used in the defence of a libel action brought against the newspaper by Thomas “Slab” Murphy, IRA chief of staff.

Bottomley said: “Since the police admit that the action against the newspaper office was wrong they should concede that the same thing applies to the raid on the journalists’ home. The chief constable should volunteer that without waiting to have it wrung out of him in court.”

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