‘Devastating’ attack was planned, inquest told

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 13

‘Devastating’ attack was planned, inquest told

NZPA-Reuter Gibraltar A car bomb which three I.R.A. guerrillas had planned to explode in Gibraltar last March would have devastated the city centre, a coroner’s inquest has heard.

The guerrillas were shot dead by British commandos. The I.R.A. used Czecho-slovak-made Semtex, one of the most powerful explosives known, and 68kg packed inside a motor car would be “devastating, particularly in a crowded area,” Alan Feraday, a forensic scientist expert in explosives, said at the inquest into the deaths of the three yesterday. “It would be absolutely devastating. One of the most violent explosions ever produced in a city centre,” he said. The inquest, now in its second week, is trying to establish whether a sevenman team from the elite Special Air Service regiment was justified in killing the three unarmed

Irish Republican Army guerrillas — Mairead Far-, rell, Sean Savage and Daniel McCann. The I.R.A. acknowledges the three were on “active service” but cites the March 6 killing as evidence that Britain is carrying out a “shoot-to-kill” policy against guerrillas. The three were shot dead by plain-clothed S.A.S. men as they were walking unarmed in the streets of Gibraltar after parking what security forces believed was a car bomb. That car contained no explosives but bomb-mak-ing equipment was later found in a car in Spain. Intelligence witnesses, shielded, from public view behind a curtain screen to conceal their identity, told

the hearing they believed a bomb would be detonated in Gibraltar at a military parade on March 8. Mr Fferaday, who works at the Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment, south of London, said he examined a report written by the Spanish police on the explosives found in a Ford Fiesta in the Spanish Mediterranean resort of Marbella. Mr Feraday said he examined the timing devices and found them typical of the I.R.A. “Over the years I have looked at I.R.A. timing units... they undoubtedly were the handiwork of the Provisional 1.R.A.,” he said. The commanding

officer of the S.A.S. team, identified in court .only as Soldier F, told the inquest earlier that his men had planned to. take the guerrillas alive. He said that he believed the guerrillas were armed, had just parked a car-bomb and carried a radio-controlled detonator. The lawyer acting for the families of the guerrillas, Patrick McGrory, accused Soldier F of lying in court, suggesting that the S.A.S. had planned to kill the three from the start. Cross-examining Soldier F, Michael Hucker, representing the soldiers, asked him: “Have you been telling lies and committed perjury?” Soldier F replied: “No I have not.”