S.A.S. hit-men report denied

Press, 6 August 1981, Page 2

S.A.S. hit-men report denied

PA Wellington The New Zealand Army yesterday categorically denied that any soldiers, Special Air Service squadron or otherwise, have served as assassins in Northern Ireland. The Army denied a report from Sydney quoting the Sydney H Block committee, a group supporting I.R.A. hunger strikers in Belfast, that New Zealand troops were working in Northern Ireland alongside British soldiers. The H Block committee’s president, Mr Neil O'Donnell, said S.A.S. soldiers were conducting plain clothes assassinations in Northern Ireland.

“There are no serving New Zealand Army ■ personnel operating in Northern Ire-

land, nor have there ever been, said an Army spokesman, Major Michael Wickstead.

Mr O'Donnell said he would not be surprised if Australian troops too were in Northern Ireland.

“Our evidence is an S.A.S. reunion circular which was organising a N.Z.S.A.S. reunion for the Queen’s Birthday Week-end,” he said.

Parts of the circular referred to “8.T.”, a New Zealand soldier who “reckons the frequent holidays in the Emerald Isle can be just about as dangerous as a Friday night in Ponsonby Road," Mr O’Donnell said. “Frequent holidays,” he said, was a euphemism for light-ning-fast assassination jobs.