‘Mr Asia’ lawyer questions I.R.A. role

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 13

‘Mr Asia’ lawyer questions I.R.A. role

NZPA London The London lawyer for “Mr Asia” drugs syndicate boss, Terry Clark, has questioned a leading Australian judge’s revelation that Clark had asked for an affidavit to be drawn up implicating the Irish Republican Army in illegal activities in New Zealand. “It’s news to me and I acted for Clark from the moment he was arrested,” Mr Harry Stevens said.

Clark died in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight in August, 1983, while he was serving a life sentence for murdering the drug tycoon and fellow New Zealander, Marty Johnstone. Although the inquest found that he died from natural causes as a result of a heart attack, there was widespread speculation at the time that he might have been liquidated by the I.R.A. He was reported to be ready to “name names” and reveal how laundered money from drug sales was used to buy I.R.A. weapons.

Judge Donald Stewart, who headed a Royal Commission into Clark’s affairs in the early 1980 s,

last week-end renewed the I.R.A. murder suspicion during an interview with an Australian newspaper.

Judge Stewart was quoted as saying that Clark 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 to the prison, Clark refused to sign it and within days he was dead. Judge Stewart said he did not know whether Clark was murdered but it was possible that he was and it was made to look like a heart attack.

But Mr Stevens, of the central London solicitors Baldwin and Company, said that he was not aware of any affidavit concerning the I.R.A. “I prepared all manner of things for him but this revelation is completely new to me,” he said. “It’s possible that he (Clark) had taken on some maverick lawyer and not disclosed it to me but I find that highly unlikely.”

Mr Stevens said Clark, whose real name was Andrew Sinclair, never spoke to him about any

threats on his life by the I.R.A. “He did talk about the I.R.A. but merely to say they were fellow prisoners at Parkhurst,” he said. Mr Stevens admitted that when he was told by prison authorities that Clark had died, his first thought was that he had been “bumped off.” He was also surprised when a post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as a heart attack, "because he was one of the fittest guys I ever knew.”

Clark was found guilty of murdering Johnstone and drug trafficking after one of the longest trials — 122 days — in British legal history. He was jailed for life with the judge recommending he remain behind bars for a minimum of 20 years after the case exposed a multi-million dollar drug ring which exported narcotics throughout Asia, Europe and the Pacific. The Stewart Commission, set up by the Australian Government to investigate Clark’s activities, found that he was responsible for other drugrelated killings in Australia.