Posted By: April 14, 2024

Raymond McCord calls on Irish government to take son’s murder to European courts

Raymond McCord was murdered in 1997

Ivan Little. Sunday Life. Belfast. Sunday, April 14, 2024

Victims’ campaigner Raymond McCord has called on the Irish government to take the case of his son’s murder to the European Courts.

Mr. McCord visited Dublin to speak to a government committee set up to monitor progress on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

Speaking afterward, he said he was encouraged by the response he received.

His son Raymond Jnr, a 22-year-old former RAF man, was beaten to death before his body was dumped at a quarry outside north Belfast in November 1997.

The killing was carried out by a notorious UVF gang based in the Mount Vernon area of the city.

Mr. McCord said it would be a groundbreaking move for the Dublin government to take a unionist victim’s case to the European courts — and one the British government would not expect.

He told the committee hearing: “I remind the Good Friday Agreement committee that young Raymond’s case was the first case of collusion proven by the Police Ombudsman’s report in 2007.

“(It was) accepted by the British Government, its prime minister, secretary of state for Northern Ireland, and the chief constable that there was collusion in his murder by Special Branch and its UVF agents.”

Fergus O’Dowd, the Fine Gael chairman of the committee, said he welcomed the opportunity to meet Mr. McCord, who also reiterated his opposition to the British Government’s legacy bill, which proposes an amnesty and an end to Troubles inquests.

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Sunday World. Belfast. by Jim Mc Dowell. April 14, 2024.