I.R.A. may have killed ‘Mr Asia’

Press, 30 May 1989, Page 6

I.R.A. may have killed ‘Mr Asia’

NZPA Sydney Speculation that the Irish Republican Army murdered the "Mr Asia” drugs syndicate boss, Terrence Clark, has been revived by the Australian judge who headed a Royal commission of inquiry into Clark’s operations. An inquest into Clark’s death in August, 1983, found that he had died of a heart attack in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight where he was serving a life sentence for murder and drug trafficking. Soon after he died it was reported that he might have been liquidated by the I.R.A. for offering information about how his operations had helped finance I.R.A. arms deals.

Speculation was fanned by the fact that Clark was a fitness fanatic who exercised regularly and therefore unlikely to have suffered s sudden heart trouble at the age of 38. The Stewart Royal Commission, having finished its in-depth report on the Mr Asia ring a few months earlier, declined to comment on Clark’s

death at the time. But six years later Judge Donald Stewart, who headed the commission and is now stepping down as chairman of Australia’s National Crime Authority, has resurrected the mystery in an interview with “Melbourne Age” journalists, Bob” Bottom and David Wilson.

They reported that Judge Stewart revealed that Clark — while in Parkhurst Prison — had arranged for his London lawyers to prepare an affidavit which, among other things, implicated the I.R.A. in activities in New Zealand. When the affidavit was taken back to the prison for Clark to sign, he changed his mind and refused to sign it. Within a few days he died. “Some people say he was murdered. I say I don’t know ... but it is possible he was murdered,” Judge Stewart is quoted as saying. “It is possible to have someone murdered and make it look like a heart attack. “There were I.R.A. people in the jail.”

Yesterday a spokesman for Judge Stewart said he would not make any extra comment, when asked if he could give further details of the affidavit prepared for Clark to sign and of the alleged I.R.A. activities in New Zealand.

When Judge Stewart met Clark in prison for an interview in .September, 1982, the New Zealander denied allegations of heroin trafficking and murder put to him. Judge Stewart, in the “Age” interview published at the week-end recalled that Clark had “quite an aura” about him.

“He murdered (Julie) Theilman, (Gregory) 01lard and Harry ‘Pommy’ Lewis — and people knew that. And he took a baseball bat to another man and broke his legs.” Apart from shooting Lewis and New Zealanders Theilman and Ollard near Sydney, Clark was found by the Stewart Royal Commission to have ordered the murder of New Zealand drug couriers - turned-inform-ants, Doug and Isobel Wilson, near Melbourne.