Shooting Northumbria Police Lies, Dirty Tricks and Cover Up of IRA attempted murder.
We ask; WHY ARE NOTHUMBRIA POLICE STILL COVERING UP IN MARTIN MCGARTLAND CASE - The Dogs in the Street know the IRA tried to kill Martin, The News of the World and many others newspapers know it so why are Northumbria Police, after 11 long years, still covering up IRA involvement in Martin McGartland's 1999 attempted murder?
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IRA's secret Glasgow hitman
MYSTERY SCOT IS PRIME SUSPECT BEHIND ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
By Charles Lavery, 04/07/2010
THE prime suspect behind an attempt to assassinate an MI5 supergrass is a mystery Scot who masterminded the IRA hit from his Glasgow base, the News of the World can reveal.
The 52-year-old, who we can only call 'S' for legal reasons, sent a three-man team of Scottish hitmen to Newcastle to kill IRA informer Martin McGartland in 1999.
Northumbria Police last week renewed an appeal for information over the attempted murder of McGartland, who survived being blasted six times during the attack.
And last night a source at the force told how 'S' is a prime suspect.
The terror boss has organised IRA active service units on the British mainland for more than two decades and runs operations from his base in the Calton district of Glasgow.
Our source said: "This individual has come up time and time again during our investigations.
"It seems he sent the team down to Newcastle with the express instruction to carry out their hit.
"That is the line of inquiry being focused on at the moment."
'S' is well known to counter-terror officers in the UK and runs his operations from some Celtic- affiliated pubs in the Calton area, where he is a respected member of the Catholic community.
Sources claim he has been involved in EVERY IRA operation on the UK mainland for three decades.
Northumbria Police also now believe 'S' is directly connected to the attempt to murder McGartland, 40, who was shot as he sat in his car in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, on June 17, 1999.
Five people were arrested but nobody has ever been charged.
Police in Newcastle say he was targeted by Republicans, but their efforts to trace those responsible have hit a wall of silence.
McGartland, already on the run as a known IRA informer to MI5, was moved and given a new identity.
In 2008 he wrote a bestseller about his experiences in 50 Dead Men Walking, which was turned into a hit movie starring Sir Ben Kingsley and Jim Sturgess last year.
Jim Sturgess as Martin McGartland in Fifty Dead Men Walking
We can reveal the team tasked with assassinating McGartland ended up boozing with one of his pals and made a drunken pact just to wound, not kill, him.
Our source said: "S sent the team down to Newcastle. Their orders were to kill, and they did fire six bullets into McGartland - but most of them were in his lower body.
"They struck a deal with a close friend of Marty's and agreed not to kill him."
McGartland, codenamed 'Agent Carol', gave information to Special Branch between 1987 and 1991, as he rose to the centre of IRA and Sinn Féin operations. At one time he was tied up and interrogated by an IRA death squad, and only escaped by jumping from a window.
He moved to England and received almost £100,000 to buy a house and start again in Whitley Bay, using the name Martin Ashe. It was Northumbria Police who brought the IRA hit team to his door when, in 1997, his identity was revealed in court after he was caught breaking the speed limit and prosecuted for holding driving licences in different names, which he explained was a means of avoiding IRA detection. He was cleared of perverting the course of justice.
After the shooting, he was given round-the-clock armed protection and an armoured car. The man leading the hunt for the would-be killers, Det Chief Supt Chris Thomson, said: "It was a cold-blooded, calculated assassination attempt.
"McGartland's history as an agent for the then Royal Ulster Constabulary and his supplying of information about the Provisional IRA is a matter of public knowledge, documented in his bookss. Our main line of inquiry continues to be that Mr McGartland may have been shot by people with Irish Republican sympathies."
Northumbria Police are continuing to use DNA recovered from the scene to eliminate people from the investigation. Other lines of inquiry involve a van abandoned at the scene, which had been bought two days before the attack, and a pistol forensically linked to the shooting.
McGartland, who is still in hiding, declined to comment.
The hitman probe is the latest in a series of links between Glasgow and some of the IRA's worst atrocities.
Hugh Doherty, 59 - linked to 16 IRA murders - came from Toryglen in the city, while Brighton bomber Patrick Magee, 59, was arrested at a safe house in nearby Govanhill.
Story Link;- http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/scottish/scottish_news/865845/Mystery-Scot-is-Prime-suspect-behind-MI5-assassination-attempt.html
