’Suspects maltreated’

Press, 15 June 1978, Page 9

’Suspects maltreated’

NZPA-Reuter London Amnesty International, the London-based human-rights group, has accused plainclothes policemen of maltreating suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland. It published a detailed, controversial report after long delays during which its contents hav-» already been leaked to politicians and newspapers. Mr Roy Mason, the British Government Minister responsible for Northern Ireland, told Parliament last week that he was ordering an investigation into police methods in the province. Amnesty, however, wants a public inquiry. A total of 1836 people have been killed in the Northern Ireland conflict since 1969,

British security forces have been engaged in an attempt to suppress armed insurgency and terrorism carried out both by guerrillas of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and by loyalist groups such as the Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force, Amnesty said. It condemned the use of political murder by the paramilitary groups involved. But amnesty described how it had investigated allegations by 78 people, mostly from the Republican-sym-pathising Roman Catholic community, who said they had been maltreated by plain-clothes policemen, mainly at the Castlereagh interrogation 'mtre in Belfast. The allegations were of beatings, banging heads

against the walls, exhausting procedures such as prolonged questic ’;ig or wall standing, being hit in the genitals, threats, and humiliation. “On the basis of the information available to it, Amnesty International concluded that maltreatment of suspected terrorists by the Royal Ulster Constabulary had taken place with sufficient frequency to warrant the establishment of a public inquiry to investigate it,” the report said. A large proportion of people convicted of terrorist offences in special non-jury courts were convicted solely on the basis of self-incrimin-ating statements, it said.