Martin; Re:- Ronan Bennett. Martin Says; The review you are about to read was written by a Ronan Bennett and published in The Guardian newspaper on friday 3 April 2009. I had never heard of Ronan Bennett before then. I was concerned by his review and I wanted to find out more about him. A search on google (Ronan Bennett) found that Ronan Bennett had stated; "... would not hand over the Omagh bombers to the RUC. Dismissing the province’s police as a “completely discredited force”, he was forced to issue an apology to the families of the victims. This too was attacked for being half-hearted."
The Omagh bombing;
The Omagh bombing was a paramilitary car bomb attack carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), a splinter group of former Provisional Irish Republican Army members opposed to the Belfast Agreement, on Saturday 15 August 1998, in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Twenty-nine people died as a result of the attack and approximately 220 people were injured. The victims included people from many different backgrounds—Protestants, Catholics, a Mormon, nine children,a woman pregnant with twins, two Spanish tourists,and other tourists on a day trip from the Republic of Ireland.
Ronan Bennett, said a senior republican; "He has always been seen as someone who would bat for Sinn Fein,” Ronan Bennett was has also been dismissed by unionists as an IRA apologist. The Daily Telegraph refered to Ronan Bennett as; "AN Irish republican sympathiser..."
Ronan Bennett is also refer to as a friend of Gerry (I have never been in the IRA) Adams.
Marty was not going to let the Guardian newspaper or Ronan Bennett off the hook. A letter was sent to
The Guardian newspaper. However, the newspaper was standing behind Mr Bennett and were not willing to publish Martin's letter. The Guardian, including its legal team, only agreed to publish Martin McGartland's letter after he told them that he would be taking legal action against them and also Ronan Bennett.
The Guardian published the following letter on Wednesday 3 June 2009
When reviewing "Fifty Dead Men Walking" (The trouble with the Troubles, Film & Media, April 3), the film loosely based on my life as an RUC agent, Ronan Bennett discussed the cultural and political significance of informers, who, he observed, have rarely been viewed sympathetically on screen or - when he refers to criminals he met in the Old Bailey - in real life. Mr Bennett may have been commissioned on the strength of his many writings about Ireland but it would be understandable if his negative personal experience of the RUC, in that he was wrongly accused of murdering an RUC officer in the 1970s, had left its mark on him. While I have every sympathy for anyone who is mistakenly charged, I believe it would have been relevant here for the Guardian, or Mr Bennett himself, to point out this background either in the course of the review or as a footnote.
I can be distinguished from the fictional police informers, including those Ronan Bennett says were depicted in the film Battle of Algiers and the novel The Informer and to whom he compares me in this review. Unlike them, I joined the IRA only to infiltrate it, acted consistently to combat terrorism and save life, and did not betray my friends or my beliefs. On the contrary I am proud of my undercover role inside the Provisional IRA as a police agent between 1987 and 1991.
Martin McGartland
Address withheld
Link;- http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jun/03/letter-dead-men-walking
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THE RONAN BENNETT REVIEW MARTIN MCGARTLAND
The trouble with the Troubles
Fifty Dead Men Walking is based on an IRA mole's true story. So why, asks Ronan Bennett, does it rehash so many hoary old cliches?
Ronan Bennett
The Guardian, Friday 3 April 2009
Scene from Fifty Dead Men Walking Hitting a brick wall ... Fifty Dead Men Walking
A letter clarifying Martin McGartland's views in respect of this article was published on 3 June 2009.
In the subterranean warren of the Old Bailey, many years ago, I briefly shared a holding cell with two east London armed robbers who between them had just been sentenced to several decades in jail. Early in their trial, a third defendant had decided to sell them out and "gone QE" - turned Queen's Evidence - in the expectation of lighter punishment. The robbers were naturally contemptuous of their former associate - toerag, slag, grass, prick, never had the bottle, couldn't even look me in the eye - and so, to their surprise and guffawing delight, was the judge, who told their treacherous friend: "The police say you have helped convict two dangerous criminals. But as far as I am concerned you are just a sneak." The sneak got 15 years.
That is the critical problem the informer faces the world over. No one really likes him, not even the people to whose side he has defected. No one trusts him or his motives, no one can fully find it in their hearts to forgive or overlook his past, no one really finds betrayal - even betrayal of the enemy - truly admirable. Of course, the state's agents - police, special branch, military intelligence, security services - will pretend to the informer that he is very well liked, esteemed, respected, important. Once they have identified the potential asset, they will court him with the ardour of generous and infatuated lovers. In the first flourishing phase of the relationship they will praise and coddle; there will be presents. They will express tender concern for his well-being. They will be understanding, they will be family and will promise to cherish him through thick and thin.
It is all a lie. The informer's fate is to be chewed up and spat out, and he comes inevitably and bitterly to apprehend the true nature of the regard in which he is held by those for whom he has risked everything. In Ireland, the informer is an especially reviled figure. Gypo Nolan in Liam O'Flaherty's novel The Informer - personified on screen by Victor McLaglen in John Ford's 1935 Oscar-winning adaptation - is the archetype: a weak, pitiful and shameful figure, a Judas. The cowering, speechless figure in Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 masterpiece Battle of Algiers, who, at the bidding of his French masters, consigns his former comrades to torture and death, is made of the same brittle stuff as Nolan. Even Richard Harris's James McParlan, an infiltrator rather than informer in The Molly Maguires (1970), is portrayed as being less than Sean Connery's Jack Kehoe, the man he betrays.
Watch the trailer for Fifty Dead Men Walking Link to this video
The informer's standing is memorably captured in Kari Skogland's new film Fifty Dead Men Walking by a father grieving at the graveside of his executed son. "I don't blame the RUC for turning him into an informer," the father laments. "I don't blame the IRA for killing him. I blame my son for the choices that he made." The informer's acts of betrayal can only sever him from family and community.
In another early scene in Skogland's film, a joint RUC-British Army patrol confronts Skogland's protagonist, the real-life informer Martin McGartland, in the back streets of republican Belfast. McGartland, for reasons that are not entirely clear, bolts for it, leading to a thrilling and well-mounted chase. The authenticity of the sequence is somewhat undercut by the fact that in those days the pursuing soldiers and police would simply have shot the fugitive dead, but it gives the Canadian-born director the opportunity for a powerful visual metaphor. McGartland turns a corner into an alley, at the bottom of which is a door. He yanks the door open only to discover it has been bricked up. There is no escape, no way out. Over the course of the film McGartland will learn to his cost - almost to the cost of his life - that all he has ahead of him are more walls to run into.
Fifty Dead Men Walking is "inspired by" the book of the same name written by Martin McGartland, who joined the IRA in the late 80s and was exposed as an informer in 1991. The title refers to the 50 people now alive who, McGartland claims, would now be dead were it not for him. However, McGartland, who has lived in hiding for 16 years, has denounced the film as misrepresenting his career and his motives. While he admits to having been a petty criminal, selling knocked-off goods door to door, McGartland wants to be seen as more McParlan than Nolan - someone who, determined to do right, sets out on a dangerous mission to infiltrate the IRA rather than a disgruntled member who was suborned, bribed or intimidated into working for the state. The distinction may be important to McGartland's heroic self-image, but it seems unlikely that cinema-goers will make much of it.
The young English actor Jim Sturgess, whose Belfast accent has been brought to perfection by the legendary dialogue coach Brendan Gunn, plays McGartland as a nervy, lovable tearaway. Sturgess turns in a highly watchable performance, full of cocky self-assurance, backchat, conflicted loyalties, roguish charm and vulnerability. Partnering Sturgess is Ben Kingsley as McGartland's special branch handler, code-named "Fergus". The relationship between the two males leads is at the film's heart. In an extended voiceover at the start, Fergus claims to have spotted something maverick and untameable in McGartland that makes him specially suited to the role of infiltrator. McGartland's motivation is never clear. (Motivation is always fraught, always ambiguous: we persist in looking for consistency in people when experience should tell us that we are much more capricious than we imagine or would like ourselves to be.)
Nevertheless, it's hard to avoid speculating that Skogland herself, who wrote and directed the film, couldn't decide what prompted her protagonist's choices. In the film, he is shown witnessing a friend being kneecapped by the IRA for "antisocial behaviour", but Fergus also offers him money and a car, which he accepts (and which the real-life McGartland tends to downplay). Or perhaps the fuzziness is a result of McGartland's complaints after seeing the first cut? Either way, it's a smear in the film's canvas.
Once Fergus and McGartland start working together, the bond between them becomes stronger, and we are asked to be believe that a real affection springs up. Their friendship is confirmed later when Fergus reveals his real name - Dean.
Watching Kingsley, you do not hesitate for a second to believe that Fergus will do everything he can to save his informer. But it's a fabrication. In reality, after the IRA became suspicious, McGartland was abducted and brought to a flat in Belfast. He would have undoubtedly been executed had he not jumped from the toilet window and crashed three stories to the street below. Where was the real Fergus when this happened? He certainly wasn't waiting, with a gun in his hand to fight off the IRA and nurse him back to health.
And what of the IRA in this film? What of the world McGartland has smuggled himself into? In the opening sequence Fergus voices a version of recent Irish history that would not embarrass a Sinn Féin assembly member: Protestants controlled the jobs, Catholics were discriminated against, the IRA was a formidable fighting force. But once the story gets underway, context, history and political motivation are abruptly dropped. The director's palette comes straight from the gangster movie. The locations are the portable fixtures from the underworlds of London, Paris, Belgrade, New York, Moscow: pool halls, boxing clubs, warehouses, empty ruined buildings, drinking clubs.
Leather-jacketed IRA volunteers are either psychopathic or morally derelict. "IRA squad leader" Mickey is a sentimentalist, who cries when his protege is sworn into the organisation. "Intelligence officer" Grace, man-eating and ruthless - "she uses her body like Mata Hari", according to Fergus - is pure erotic fantasy.
In this sense, Fifty Dead Men Walking, so accomplished in other respects, is a disappointment. It rehashes cinematic stereotypes which, with lengthening distance and perspective, we might have expected to have been rethought. The sullen, corrupt godfathers and brutal, apolitical soldiers from Harry's Game (1982), Nothing Personal (1995) and The Boxer (1997) reappear unreconstructed in Fifty Dead Men Walking. On a basic creative and artistic level, they contrast unfavourably with the IRA hunger strikers in Steve McQueen's superb Hunger (2008) and the young UVF paramilitaries in the forthcoming BBC film Five Minutes of Heaven. In both of these, the film-makers have approached the question of the characterisation of difficult, politically contentious subjects with freshness, refusing the easy options and giving their screen characters what they need to bring them alive for audiences - real inner lives.
Skogland ends her film with a series of captions outlining the political progress made since the first IRA ceasefire of 1994. It's a clumsy device, one that may well be there to satisfy financiers worried that audiences "won't understand", and it's somewhat undermined by recent events in the north of Ireland.
But the moments preceding these have a memorable and haunting impact. The IRA track down McGartland, now in hiding. The already battered body receives yet more terrible wounds. A woman rushes to the scene to help him and asks who his family is, who should she contact? Dean, the stricken McGartland whispers, who is now the informer's only family.
• Fifty Dead Men Walking is released on 10 April.
link;- http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/apr/03/fifty-dead-men-walking
Marty Says; "A Man with such a past should not be writing reviews, stories on such issues without ensuring the readers are fully aware of his background."
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
McGartland Letter:- wholly misrepresents my career and motivation for working with the Security Services
Letter from Martin McGartland to the Evening Standard
Published 16.04.09
The film Fifty Dead Men Walking (reviewed by Derek Malcolm, 9 April) gives the impression that it is an accurate portrayal of my life.
In fact as I have already made clear it wholly misrepresents my career and motivation for working with the Security Services.
It is on public record that I was already an established Security Services agent for two years before I made contact with the IRA, having been recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate the organisation.
Martin McGartland.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin McGartland says; "The Film, Fifty Dead Men Walking, is as near to the Truth as Earth is to Pluto. Kari Skogland, film-makers were forced into, by the IRA, to make a film that suited the IRA. Why would the IRA terrorist help, protect Skogland and her crew by acting as security ... Moreover, why would Skogland, her crew, allow herself to get so close to terrorist. Skogland claims she spoke with Special Branch office. However, I understand she did not. I and my legal team ensured that Skogland, filmmakers made last minute changes to film and they had to add disclaimers to start and ending of the film, to make it clear that I was not involved with the film. The film makers were ordered to pay me compesation."
Published 16.04.09
The film Fifty Dead Men Walking (reviewed by Derek Malcolm, 9 April) gives the impression that it is an accurate portrayal of my life.
In fact as I have already made clear it wholly misrepresents my career and motivation for working with the Security Services.
It is on public record that I was already an established Security Services agent for two years before I made contact with the IRA, having been recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate the organisation.
Martin McGartland.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin McGartland says; "The Film, Fifty Dead Men Walking, is as near to the Truth as Earth is to Pluto. Kari Skogland, film-makers were forced into, by the IRA, to make a film that suited the IRA. Why would the IRA terrorist help, protect Skogland and her crew by acting as security ... Moreover, why would Skogland, her crew, allow herself to get so close to terrorist. Skogland claims she spoke with Special Branch office. However, I understand she did not. I and my legal team ensured that Skogland, filmmakers made last minute changes to film and they had to add disclaimers to start and ending of the film, to make it clear that I was not involved with the film. The film makers were ordered to pay me compesation."
Friday, April 10, 2009
Martin McGartland ... calls for a correction - Fifty Dead Men Walking
Martin McGartland of Fifty Dead Men Walking calls for a correction
Posted in Film by Hank Sartin on August 31st, 2009 at 4:04 pm
As editor of the film section, I get some pretty unusual phone calls, like a reader asking about when a movie is coming to Chicago or a guy who made a movie in his basement assuming I’ll want to write an article about him.
But today’s phone call takes the cake. Martin McGartland, in hiding from the IRA for 20 years, just called me for a correction.
Who is he? McGartland grew up in Northern Ireland in an area where the IRA held a lot of power. McGartland was approached by British Intelligence, who knew that he was of interest to the IRA. (Note my cautious phrasing here.) McGartland joined the IRA as an infiltrator and relayed information to the British. Eventually, the IRA worked it out and McGartland had to go into hiding. He has been living in hiding from the IRA for 20 years. Attempts have been made on his life. He wrote a book about his time in the IRA called Fifty Dead Men Walking.
The book was made into a film, also called Fifty Dead Men Walking. I reviewed the film last week. My review, unfortunately, starts off thusly: “As IRA terrorist and British informant Martin McGartland, [Jim] Sturgess…” You can see the problem from Martin’s point of view; I’ve made it sound like he was a terrorist who became an informant. Wrong order of events. He went in under instructions from British Intelligence.
Therefore, Martin called me to ask for a correction. Um, holy shit.
He was very pleasant and polite (”I’m not trying to make any trouble for you, but you have to see this from my point of view…” he said several times) and I was apologetic. We chatted a bit, just long enough for him to restate his point a few times and mention that he’s trying to get another book published, so any public reference to him matters, especially when it makes him sound like he was a terrorist first. Boy, did I feel bad. So, our review online will be corrected, and I’ve asked for a correction on our letters page. And if you’re still checking back, Martin, my apologies for my unclear phrasing.
By the way, Martin also did a very interesting phone interview with our colleagues at Time Out London, in case you want to read his about larger issues with the film Fifty Dead Men Walking.
Link here;- http://www3.timeoutny.com/chicago/blog/out-and-about/2009/08/martin-mcgartland-of-fifty-dead-men-walking-calls-for-a-correction/
Posted in Film by Hank Sartin on August 31st, 2009 at 4:04 pm
As editor of the film section, I get some pretty unusual phone calls, like a reader asking about when a movie is coming to Chicago or a guy who made a movie in his basement assuming I’ll want to write an article about him.
But today’s phone call takes the cake. Martin McGartland, in hiding from the IRA for 20 years, just called me for a correction.
Who is he? McGartland grew up in Northern Ireland in an area where the IRA held a lot of power. McGartland was approached by British Intelligence, who knew that he was of interest to the IRA. (Note my cautious phrasing here.) McGartland joined the IRA as an infiltrator and relayed information to the British. Eventually, the IRA worked it out and McGartland had to go into hiding. He has been living in hiding from the IRA for 20 years. Attempts have been made on his life. He wrote a book about his time in the IRA called Fifty Dead Men Walking.
The book was made into a film, also called Fifty Dead Men Walking. I reviewed the film last week. My review, unfortunately, starts off thusly: “As IRA terrorist and British informant Martin McGartland, [Jim] Sturgess…” You can see the problem from Martin’s point of view; I’ve made it sound like he was a terrorist who became an informant. Wrong order of events. He went in under instructions from British Intelligence.
Therefore, Martin called me to ask for a correction. Um, holy shit.
He was very pleasant and polite (”I’m not trying to make any trouble for you, but you have to see this from my point of view…” he said several times) and I was apologetic. We chatted a bit, just long enough for him to restate his point a few times and mention that he’s trying to get another book published, so any public reference to him matters, especially when it makes him sound like he was a terrorist first. Boy, did I feel bad. So, our review online will be corrected, and I’ve asked for a correction on our letters page. And if you’re still checking back, Martin, my apologies for my unclear phrasing.
By the way, Martin also did a very interesting phone interview with our colleagues at Time Out London, in case you want to read his about larger issues with the film Fifty Dead Men Walking.
Link here;- http://www3.timeoutny.com/chicago/blog/out-and-about/2009/08/martin-mcgartland-of-fifty-dead-men-walking-calls-for-a-correction/
Friday, April 3, 2009
British Agent Martin McGartland has been shot six times and kidnapped by ruthless killers. (NORTHUMBRIA POLICE COVER UP - MARTIN MCGARTLAND)
Message of hope ... hero Martin McGartland who saved dozens of lives
(PHOTO)
I was shot six times for spying on the IRA...but today's splinter groups will never win
By GRANT ROLLINGS
Published: 03 Apr 2009
HE'S been shot six times and kidnapped by ruthless killers intent on his torture and murder.
Agreeing to spy on the IRA also cost Martin McGartland his wife and children and led to him fleeing Northern Ireland for his life.
But while the Belfast-born Catholic's bravery in working for the British secret service has seen him pay a high price, it has also saved the lives of dozens of servicemen and RUC officers.
Now Martin explains why the surge in terrorism in Northern Ireland - when two soldiers and a policeman were killed by splinter groups the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA less than a month ago - can be defeated.
Martin, 39, who says he is still in regular contact with the secret services, said: "These dissidents are a very, very small number.
"The Real IRA and the Continuity IRA don't have the ability or expertise to launch a real threat to the British economy or establishment. I think it will all be over soon."
He says people want to be senior IRA men for the glamour.
"When they see people getting arrested, there will be a lot of people walking away."
In an exclusive interview with The Sun just days before a new edition of his hit memoir Fifty Dead Men Walking is published, Martin, recounted his remarkable exploits and revealed he doesn't regret becoming an IRA informer.
Martin, who lives in England under a new identity, said: "I have been shot, I have been kidnapped, my family have been beaten nearly to death and as bad as it seems I will never say I regret what I have done.
Misery
"I don't know exactly how many lives I saved, whether it was 30 or 50 or 70, but I know I can get up in the morning and look in the mirror and know that I never, ever did anyone any harm.
"I have never understood why anyone has wanted to support a terrorist organisation. They just bring misery and mayhem."
Back in 1987, Martin was a bit of a wheeler dealer living on the Ballymurphy Estate in Belfast, which was a virtual no-go area for the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Army.
Martin hated the Republican terrorist organisation because they would beat up or kneecap locals who stepped out of line.
He recalled: "People who I grew up with who were into petty crime were beaten, shot and virtually left for dead.
"Most of them were beaten for little or no reason. There were a couple of people I knew who were beaten up simply because they were going out with an IRA man's daughter and he didn't like them.
"When I saw this, I turned against the IRA. I had a real, deep hatred for them."
British secret services needed spies on the estate and the RUC Special Branch asked Martin, then aged just 16, if he would help them.
He said: "I did not hesitate to work for them. I knew exactly what I was doing. And I didn't just do it for the money. Any person with respect for human life would do it."
At first he was identifying IRA men for Special Branch. But after Martin got more friendly with the terrorists, he was invited to join the paramilitary organisation in 1989.
Special Branch told him he should accept the offer and for two years Martin provided information about planned attacks, such as the bombing of British forces heading from Scotland to Northern Ireland or assassinations of RUC officers.
Vigil ... tributes at Antrim base
Those murders were prevented by changing troop movements or moving RUC men to new homes. But his fellow IRA cell members grew suspicious because none of the operations Martin was on ever worked out.
When Martin's information prevented a machine-gun attack on a pub full of British squaddies in Bangor, County Down, in 1991, his time was up.
He was taken to an IRA safe house to be interrogated, but escaped by leaping through a third-storey window.
Martin said: "Felix, who was my handler, kept telling me that if they capture you they are going to torture you really, really badly - they will squeeze your balls with pliers.
"Every minute I was lying on that sofa waiting for the IRA security team to come I knew I was another minute close to death.
"When I jumped out of that window I didn't hesitate. If I stayed I would have two bullets in the head." Instead, the 40ft fall left Martin unconscious for ten days, with a fractured jaw, broken teeth and several wounds to his head and body.
Special Branch arranged for he and his partner Angela, then aged 21, and their two children Martin and Padraig - just two, and nine months old at the time - to move to England.
But his family got homesick and returned to Belfast. He has not seen them since 1992.
Martin commented: "I would love to be able to see my children again, but because of my situation, which I got myself in, I can't do that."
Even his younger brother Joseph was targeted. In 1996, aged 21, he was dragged from his Belfast home, gagged and held at gunpoint by the IRA.
Martin said: "They took him away, hung him upside down from a tree and beat him.
"They smashed all his ribs and left him in a wheelchair.
"He was so frightened he left Northern Ireland with his kids. That was because of me. They are heartless."
The reality of the risk to Martin became clear in June 1999, when an IRA hitman shot him six times in the chest and arms outside his then home in Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear.
Mafia
He has been left with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and physical disabilities.
Despite all that, Martin continues to support the peace process.
He said: "I have accepted that the people who shot me could be arrested tomorrow if the authorities wanted to. But I know it wouldn't serve any purpose and I am happy for them to walk the streets if it keeps the peace."
However he believes the Government should stop "turning a blind eye" to the punishment beatings and mafia-style operations still being carried out by the IRA.
'Naive' ... Jim Sturgess plays Martin in film
Martin claimed: "If you are a successful businessman living in an area controlled by the IRA they will say, 'we know you are making £1,000 in profits. Except, now you are not. You are only making £700. The rest of it is going to be given to us.'
"'If you don't, we are going to burn your business down, kill your kids and probably kill you as well.'"
A film "inspired" by Martin's book opens on April 10, but Martin is angry that its director Kari Skogland, radically altered the story in his book of the same title.
There are several fictionalisations of events in the film that annoy Martin.
The main one is that it suggests he was a member of the IRA before joining Special Branch's payroll and that he failed to pass on information about a planned attack.
He said: "The film is as close to the truth as Earth is to Pluto. Although, it is a good film if you are looking at it as a fictional film."
Martin is equally enraged that Surrey-born actor Jim Sturgess, who plays Martin, said the IRA men who chaperoned him while filming were some of "the nicest people" he'd ever met.
He fumed: "The IRA are not lovely people. They are still today, behind the scenes, intimidating people.
"Jim Sturgess is very naive. When his mother was putting powder on his bum, those IRA men were putting powder in their guns."
Link;- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article2357837.ece
(PHOTO)
I was shot six times for spying on the IRA...but today's splinter groups will never win
By GRANT ROLLINGS
Published: 03 Apr 2009
HE'S been shot six times and kidnapped by ruthless killers intent on his torture and murder.
Agreeing to spy on the IRA also cost Martin McGartland his wife and children and led to him fleeing Northern Ireland for his life.
But while the Belfast-born Catholic's bravery in working for the British secret service has seen him pay a high price, it has also saved the lives of dozens of servicemen and RUC officers.
Now Martin explains why the surge in terrorism in Northern Ireland - when two soldiers and a policeman were killed by splinter groups the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA less than a month ago - can be defeated.
Martin, 39, who says he is still in regular contact with the secret services, said: "These dissidents are a very, very small number.
"The Real IRA and the Continuity IRA don't have the ability or expertise to launch a real threat to the British economy or establishment. I think it will all be over soon."
He says people want to be senior IRA men for the glamour.
"When they see people getting arrested, there will be a lot of people walking away."
In an exclusive interview with The Sun just days before a new edition of his hit memoir Fifty Dead Men Walking is published, Martin, recounted his remarkable exploits and revealed he doesn't regret becoming an IRA informer.
Martin, who lives in England under a new identity, said: "I have been shot, I have been kidnapped, my family have been beaten nearly to death and as bad as it seems I will never say I regret what I have done.
Misery
"I don't know exactly how many lives I saved, whether it was 30 or 50 or 70, but I know I can get up in the morning and look in the mirror and know that I never, ever did anyone any harm.
"I have never understood why anyone has wanted to support a terrorist organisation. They just bring misery and mayhem."
Back in 1987, Martin was a bit of a wheeler dealer living on the Ballymurphy Estate in Belfast, which was a virtual no-go area for the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Army.
Martin hated the Republican terrorist organisation because they would beat up or kneecap locals who stepped out of line.
He recalled: "People who I grew up with who were into petty crime were beaten, shot and virtually left for dead.
"Most of them were beaten for little or no reason. There were a couple of people I knew who were beaten up simply because they were going out with an IRA man's daughter and he didn't like them.
"When I saw this, I turned against the IRA. I had a real, deep hatred for them."
British secret services needed spies on the estate and the RUC Special Branch asked Martin, then aged just 16, if he would help them.
He said: "I did not hesitate to work for them. I knew exactly what I was doing. And I didn't just do it for the money. Any person with respect for human life would do it."
At first he was identifying IRA men for Special Branch. But after Martin got more friendly with the terrorists, he was invited to join the paramilitary organisation in 1989.
Special Branch told him he should accept the offer and for two years Martin provided information about planned attacks, such as the bombing of British forces heading from Scotland to Northern Ireland or assassinations of RUC officers.
Vigil ... tributes at Antrim base
Those murders were prevented by changing troop movements or moving RUC men to new homes. But his fellow IRA cell members grew suspicious because none of the operations Martin was on ever worked out.
When Martin's information prevented a machine-gun attack on a pub full of British squaddies in Bangor, County Down, in 1991, his time was up.
He was taken to an IRA safe house to be interrogated, but escaped by leaping through a third-storey window.
Martin said: "Felix, who was my handler, kept telling me that if they capture you they are going to torture you really, really badly - they will squeeze your balls with pliers.
"Every minute I was lying on that sofa waiting for the IRA security team to come I knew I was another minute close to death.
"When I jumped out of that window I didn't hesitate. If I stayed I would have two bullets in the head." Instead, the 40ft fall left Martin unconscious for ten days, with a fractured jaw, broken teeth and several wounds to his head and body.
Special Branch arranged for he and his partner Angela, then aged 21, and their two children Martin and Padraig - just two, and nine months old at the time - to move to England.
But his family got homesick and returned to Belfast. He has not seen them since 1992.
Martin commented: "I would love to be able to see my children again, but because of my situation, which I got myself in, I can't do that."
Even his younger brother Joseph was targeted. In 1996, aged 21, he was dragged from his Belfast home, gagged and held at gunpoint by the IRA.
Martin said: "They took him away, hung him upside down from a tree and beat him.
"They smashed all his ribs and left him in a wheelchair.
"He was so frightened he left Northern Ireland with his kids. That was because of me. They are heartless."
The reality of the risk to Martin became clear in June 1999, when an IRA hitman shot him six times in the chest and arms outside his then home in Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear.
Mafia
He has been left with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and physical disabilities.
Despite all that, Martin continues to support the peace process.
He said: "I have accepted that the people who shot me could be arrested tomorrow if the authorities wanted to. But I know it wouldn't serve any purpose and I am happy for them to walk the streets if it keeps the peace."
However he believes the Government should stop "turning a blind eye" to the punishment beatings and mafia-style operations still being carried out by the IRA.
'Naive' ... Jim Sturgess plays Martin in film
Martin claimed: "If you are a successful businessman living in an area controlled by the IRA they will say, 'we know you are making £1,000 in profits. Except, now you are not. You are only making £700. The rest of it is going to be given to us.'
"'If you don't, we are going to burn your business down, kill your kids and probably kill you as well.'"
A film "inspired" by Martin's book opens on April 10, but Martin is angry that its director Kari Skogland, radically altered the story in his book of the same title.
There are several fictionalisations of events in the film that annoy Martin.
The main one is that it suggests he was a member of the IRA before joining Special Branch's payroll and that he failed to pass on information about a planned attack.
He said: "The film is as close to the truth as Earth is to Pluto. Although, it is a good film if you are looking at it as a fictional film."
Martin is equally enraged that Surrey-born actor Jim Sturgess, who plays Martin, said the IRA men who chaperoned him while filming were some of "the nicest people" he'd ever met.
He fumed: "The IRA are not lovely people. They are still today, behind the scenes, intimidating people.
"Jim Sturgess is very naive. When his mother was putting powder on his bum, those IRA men were putting powder in their guns."
Link;- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article2357837.ece
Friday, August 22, 2008
IRA spy takes aim at TIFF
IRA spy takes aim at TIFF
by: Etan Vlessing
Aug 22, 2008
The intended hero of Kari Skogland's upcoming feature Fifty Dead Men Walking aims to stop the film in its tracks.
The Canada/U.K. copro is scheduled to receive a Toronto International Film Festival gala world premiere on Sept. 10 at Roy Thomson Hall, with Skogland and lead actors Ben Kingsley, Jim Sturgess and Rose McGowan walking down the red carpet.
But former IRA mole Martin McGartland, whose 1998 autobiography of the same name inspired Skogland's terrorism drama, is on a mission to disrupt the TIFF bow.
"I have refused categorically to be associated, connected or related to the film. More than that, because I am the author of the book, and the subject of the film, which I have seen, I don't recognize the film," McGartland said from an undisclosed location on Britain's mainland, where he has lived on the run from the IRA since he was exposed as a plant for Britain's Special Branch in 1991.
"I, and also my solicitors, have made it very clear to all parties involved that I am reserving all my legal rights and remedies in this matter," he added.
His threat followed the Friday cancellation of a Toronto press screening of the film. TVA Films, the title's Canadian distributor, cited a "print problem," and provided no future press screening date.
As a measure of the sensitivity surrounding the movie, the distributor earlier advised that only Canadian media were to attend the Aug. 22 screening, and only capsule reviews be written.
Undeterred by threats of a cease-and-desist order to be taken out against him by the producers, McGartland insists his moral rights have been infringed upon because Skogland includes fictional scenes in her movie that, he argues, will lead people to conclude he was present during instances of torture and murder.
"It's like a bad dream. When they bought the rights for the book, they must have read it, and then they turn it upside down in the film, and I, who lived it every day, don't understand it," says McGartland, who saw the film at a private London screening in May.
The former British spy, who has absorbed bullets and attacks to stay ahead of his IRA pursuers, says his book isn't about murder and torture, but saving lives.
He takes particular exception to a fictionalized scene in which he drives an IRA bomb specialist to a location where a device is planted and later explodes, killing a British officer.
Future Films' Stephen Margolis, the film's British producer, wrote in an Aug. 13 letter to McGartland that the bomb-planting scene has been "amended" to indicate the character Marty does not know the explosive expert in his car, nor his intention.
McGartland also takes issue with another fictionalized scene in which Marty is in a room where an IRA informant is tortured and shot. Margolis in his letter concedes that the original book on which the film is based "does not make reference to you actually being present at a torture by the IRA of a suspected British informer."
At the same time, Margolis argues he cannot see how that scene could harm McGartland's honor or reputation, as he is portrayed as working for the Special Branch, and that "Marty's behavior and expressions" during the scene betray that he does not want to be in the room.
Brightlight Pictures' coproducer Shawn Williamson says that beyond a legal disclaimer attached to the film, he's not certain how McGartland can be placated.
"He gave us notes," Williamson says. "We are listening to him."
Since learning of the TIFF world premiere, McGartland has grown increasingly combative, as he maintains that the film's producers have kept him in the dark about the movie's rollout and have not shown him edits or a voice-over recently added to the movie's beginning.
Skogland had little to add about the controversy swirling around the TIFF launch, as the matter could yet tip into the courts.
"I had to make some fictionalizations of aspects of the story," says Skogland.
Behind the scenes, however, the film's producers have made hurried edits and alterations in an as-yet elusive attempt to appease the film's main subject.
At the same time, the producers take exception with McGartland's contention that Skogland touts her movie as a true story, when it contains fictionalized scenes that leave audiences potentially unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.
They further insist they had no control over a TIFF press release that refers to Skogland "exploring the true story of a young man forced to infiltrate the Irish Republican Army".
"This statement does not expressly or impliedly assert that the film itself is a true story," Margolis argues.
He adds that the movie now contains an opening statement that indicates Fifty Dead Men Walking is "inspired" by McGartland's book and "that some scenes, events and characters have been changed."
TIFF representatives were not available for comment on the potential legal entanglement surrounding the upcoming Fifty Dead Men Walking gala.
Meanwhile, McGartland is talking about possibly attending the film's gala premiere at TIFF, and coming out of hiding to hold a press conference to defend his side of the story.
Link; http://www.playbackonline.ca/articles/daily/20080822/mcgartland.html?word=canada
by: Etan Vlessing
Aug 22, 2008
The intended hero of Kari Skogland's upcoming feature Fifty Dead Men Walking aims to stop the film in its tracks.
The Canada/U.K. copro is scheduled to receive a Toronto International Film Festival gala world premiere on Sept. 10 at Roy Thomson Hall, with Skogland and lead actors Ben Kingsley, Jim Sturgess and Rose McGowan walking down the red carpet.
But former IRA mole Martin McGartland, whose 1998 autobiography of the same name inspired Skogland's terrorism drama, is on a mission to disrupt the TIFF bow.
"I have refused categorically to be associated, connected or related to the film. More than that, because I am the author of the book, and the subject of the film, which I have seen, I don't recognize the film," McGartland said from an undisclosed location on Britain's mainland, where he has lived on the run from the IRA since he was exposed as a plant for Britain's Special Branch in 1991.
"I, and also my solicitors, have made it very clear to all parties involved that I am reserving all my legal rights and remedies in this matter," he added.
His threat followed the Friday cancellation of a Toronto press screening of the film. TVA Films, the title's Canadian distributor, cited a "print problem," and provided no future press screening date.
As a measure of the sensitivity surrounding the movie, the distributor earlier advised that only Canadian media were to attend the Aug. 22 screening, and only capsule reviews be written.
Undeterred by threats of a cease-and-desist order to be taken out against him by the producers, McGartland insists his moral rights have been infringed upon because Skogland includes fictional scenes in her movie that, he argues, will lead people to conclude he was present during instances of torture and murder.
"It's like a bad dream. When they bought the rights for the book, they must have read it, and then they turn it upside down in the film, and I, who lived it every day, don't understand it," says McGartland, who saw the film at a private London screening in May.
The former British spy, who has absorbed bullets and attacks to stay ahead of his IRA pursuers, says his book isn't about murder and torture, but saving lives.
He takes particular exception to a fictionalized scene in which he drives an IRA bomb specialist to a location where a device is planted and later explodes, killing a British officer.
Future Films' Stephen Margolis, the film's British producer, wrote in an Aug. 13 letter to McGartland that the bomb-planting scene has been "amended" to indicate the character Marty does not know the explosive expert in his car, nor his intention.
McGartland also takes issue with another fictionalized scene in which Marty is in a room where an IRA informant is tortured and shot. Margolis in his letter concedes that the original book on which the film is based "does not make reference to you actually being present at a torture by the IRA of a suspected British informer."
At the same time, Margolis argues he cannot see how that scene could harm McGartland's honor or reputation, as he is portrayed as working for the Special Branch, and that "Marty's behavior and expressions" during the scene betray that he does not want to be in the room.
Brightlight Pictures' coproducer Shawn Williamson says that beyond a legal disclaimer attached to the film, he's not certain how McGartland can be placated.
"He gave us notes," Williamson says. "We are listening to him."
Since learning of the TIFF world premiere, McGartland has grown increasingly combative, as he maintains that the film's producers have kept him in the dark about the movie's rollout and have not shown him edits or a voice-over recently added to the movie's beginning.
Skogland had little to add about the controversy swirling around the TIFF launch, as the matter could yet tip into the courts.
"I had to make some fictionalizations of aspects of the story," says Skogland.
Behind the scenes, however, the film's producers have made hurried edits and alterations in an as-yet elusive attempt to appease the film's main subject.
At the same time, the producers take exception with McGartland's contention that Skogland touts her movie as a true story, when it contains fictionalized scenes that leave audiences potentially unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.
They further insist they had no control over a TIFF press release that refers to Skogland "exploring the true story of a young man forced to infiltrate the Irish Republican Army".
"This statement does not expressly or impliedly assert that the film itself is a true story," Margolis argues.
He adds that the movie now contains an opening statement that indicates Fifty Dead Men Walking is "inspired" by McGartland's book and "that some scenes, events and characters have been changed."
TIFF representatives were not available for comment on the potential legal entanglement surrounding the upcoming Fifty Dead Men Walking gala.
Meanwhile, McGartland is talking about possibly attending the film's gala premiere at TIFF, and coming out of hiding to hold a press conference to defend his side of the story.
Link; http://www.playbackonline.ca/articles/daily/20080822/mcgartland.html?word=canada
Monday, June 2, 2008
Martin McGartland says; "Kari Skogland film, Fifty Dead Men Walking, is 99% fiction. It's as Near to The Truth as Earth is To Pluto."
Martin McGartland asks; ‘If a film is loosely based on someone’s life story, how does the audience know what’s true and what’s fiction?’
Is 'Fifty Dead Men Walking' really based on truth? MARTY McGARTLAND SAY; "NO IT IS NOT. ITS AS NEAR TO THE TRUTH AS EARTH IS TO PLUTO."
Last week saw the release of the film ‘Fifty Dead Men Walking’, a thriller adapted from the book of the same name by Martin McGartland, a working class Belfast boy who became both a respected member of the IRA and an informer for the British secret service. McGartland has been living in hiding for the past two decades, during which time he has been tracked down and shot twice. So it came as something of a surprise when he contacted the Time Out offices to discuss his reactions to the film which, he asserts, crucially misrepresents some episodes from his life story.
‘The best way I can explain it in basic, blunt terms, is it’s as near to the truth as Earth is to Pluto,’ McGartland insists. ‘If a film is loosely based on someone’s life story, how does the audience know what’s true and what’s fiction?’
McGartland cites various specific incidences where the film strays from his version of the truth. ‘I have never drank in my life, I have never smoked in my life and (actor) Jim Sturgess is in pubs getting pissed all the time and smoking cigarettes. All the stuff about me getting shot in Canada, I’ve never been to Canada in my life except for a brief holiday. I never lived there. And I certainly was not present when a suspected informer was interrogated and murdered. That made me so angry.’
But for McGartland, this isn’t just a case of creative licence. ‘Not only is there sympathy for the Republican movement (in the film), but the director, Kari Skogland, has done some kind of deal with the IRA whereby she has allowed them to be consultants and also, this is on record too, they’ve actually been on set when the film was being made, which is unheard of. How can you make a film about the IRA when they’re standing watching over your shoulder?’
Director Skogland angrily refutes McGartland’s claims, though she admits she did consult ex-IRA members when researching the film, and accepts that ex-Republicans were on set during shooting. ‘But so were the army!’ she argues. ‘They were there at the same time. Everyone was getting along, it was really very important, the army was there, the RUC was there, everyone wanted me to get it right, to have a very authentic view. While I would not want to suggest the IRA had any influence on the film because they didn’t, I certainly had to go to people to make sure that if I’m portraying them I’m not portraying them from some Hollywood, ill-conceived, stereotypical perspective.’
She also asserts that she offered McGartland an advisory role on the film and held numerous conversations with him during shooting. ‘I spent hours talking to him, and recognised that he had quite a distinct agenda. I felt because he had such a passionate perspective, his intention would have been to make it a political document, that was not the intention of the movie. This was not an agenda-oriented film. I listened and I was very respectful but at the same time I couldn’t let his voice change the dynamic of the picture that I knew was a truthful story of what it is to be an informer.’
Whatever the respective merits of their conflicting views, the incident highlights the responsibility filmmakers bear when telling real-life stories, particularly when their subjects are alive and eager to speak out. McGartland is concerned that the film will now be the only way people remember his contribution to what he views as a righteous cause.
‘I’ve been kidnapped by the IRA, jumped out a window to save my own life. I’ve been through the mill and back again and I accept all those consequences as a result of what I do… I didn’t want any control over the film, I just wanted them to do it in a fair way.’
Author: Tom Huddleston
Link;- http://www.timeout.com/film/features/show-feature/7273/is-fifty-dead-men-walking-really-based-on-truth.html
Is 'Fifty Dead Men Walking' really based on truth? MARTY McGARTLAND SAY; "NO IT IS NOT. ITS AS NEAR TO THE TRUTH AS EARTH IS TO PLUTO."
Last week saw the release of the film ‘Fifty Dead Men Walking’, a thriller adapted from the book of the same name by Martin McGartland, a working class Belfast boy who became both a respected member of the IRA and an informer for the British secret service. McGartland has been living in hiding for the past two decades, during which time he has been tracked down and shot twice. So it came as something of a surprise when he contacted the Time Out offices to discuss his reactions to the film which, he asserts, crucially misrepresents some episodes from his life story.
‘The best way I can explain it in basic, blunt terms, is it’s as near to the truth as Earth is to Pluto,’ McGartland insists. ‘If a film is loosely based on someone’s life story, how does the audience know what’s true and what’s fiction?’
McGartland cites various specific incidences where the film strays from his version of the truth. ‘I have never drank in my life, I have never smoked in my life and (actor) Jim Sturgess is in pubs getting pissed all the time and smoking cigarettes. All the stuff about me getting shot in Canada, I’ve never been to Canada in my life except for a brief holiday. I never lived there. And I certainly was not present when a suspected informer was interrogated and murdered. That made me so angry.’
But for McGartland, this isn’t just a case of creative licence. ‘Not only is there sympathy for the Republican movement (in the film), but the director, Kari Skogland, has done some kind of deal with the IRA whereby she has allowed them to be consultants and also, this is on record too, they’ve actually been on set when the film was being made, which is unheard of. How can you make a film about the IRA when they’re standing watching over your shoulder?’
Director Skogland angrily refutes McGartland’s claims, though she admits she did consult ex-IRA members when researching the film, and accepts that ex-Republicans were on set during shooting. ‘But so were the army!’ she argues. ‘They were there at the same time. Everyone was getting along, it was really very important, the army was there, the RUC was there, everyone wanted me to get it right, to have a very authentic view. While I would not want to suggest the IRA had any influence on the film because they didn’t, I certainly had to go to people to make sure that if I’m portraying them I’m not portraying them from some Hollywood, ill-conceived, stereotypical perspective.’
She also asserts that she offered McGartland an advisory role on the film and held numerous conversations with him during shooting. ‘I spent hours talking to him, and recognised that he had quite a distinct agenda. I felt because he had such a passionate perspective, his intention would have been to make it a political document, that was not the intention of the movie. This was not an agenda-oriented film. I listened and I was very respectful but at the same time I couldn’t let his voice change the dynamic of the picture that I knew was a truthful story of what it is to be an informer.’
Whatever the respective merits of their conflicting views, the incident highlights the responsibility filmmakers bear when telling real-life stories, particularly when their subjects are alive and eager to speak out. McGartland is concerned that the film will now be the only way people remember his contribution to what he views as a righteous cause.
‘I’ve been kidnapped by the IRA, jumped out a window to save my own life. I’ve been through the mill and back again and I accept all those consequences as a result of what I do… I didn’t want any control over the film, I just wanted them to do it in a fair way.’
Author: Tom Huddleston
Link;- http://www.timeout.com/film/features/show-feature/7273/is-fifty-dead-men-walking-really-based-on-truth.html
Sunday, June 1, 2008
One thousand nine hundred -1,900 locals sign Martin McGartland petion - Northumbria Police MI5 Cover Up
How Jack Straw, vigilant censor of MI5 revelations, left an informer out to dry
John Ware
Monday, 29 September 1997
The Home Secretary was quick to censor the revelations of David Shayler to `ensure the lives' of MI5 agents. The safety of Martin McGartland, RUC informer, appears to have been of less concern. John Ware wants to know why
The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, says MI5 agents could die if the former MI5 officer David Shayler is allowed to disclose evidence which he claims demonstrates the incompetence of the Security Service.
Mr Straw says he has an "absolute duty to ensure agents' lives" are not put at risk. That is the basis on which he has successfully sought an injunction against The Mail on Sunday whose editor wants to publish "the facts of a case of national and international importance which would have revealed MI5's incompetence in the handling of a serious terrorist incident".
Mr Straw would have us believe that he'd agonised over so grave a step as censorship - "I have no wish to prevent legitimate debate or criticism of the Security Service" - no doubt mindful of his government's commitment to freedom of information.
"Censorship" is certainly a word that should rankle with Mr Straw. He was himself a journalist on Granada's World In Action programme. And in 1971, as a duffel-coated President of the National Union of Students, he petitioned the then Conservative Home Secretary, Reggie Maudling, against the expulsion of a German Marxist student leader Rudi Dutschke whose presence was said to be a threat to the security of the state. As Mr Shayler revealed, in those days M15 had Mr Straw down as a "communist sympathiser".
But that was then. Now as Home Secretary he is ultimately responsible for MI5. And if the MI5 Director General tells him the publication of a newspaper article could cost lives, he has to take that seriously - even if the risk is theoretical.
Why, then, in another case involving a real live agent, whose risk of being executed by the IRA is very high indeed, has the Home Secretary been playing down the threat to his life?
Martin McGartland spied for the RUC Special Branch and saved many lives. As the late Brian Fitsimons, former assistant chief constable in charge of the Special Branch, told me: "McGartland was a very productive agent."
Since 1991 the 27 year old has lived in Blyth, Northumbria as "Martin Ashe" - the identity provided for him by the RUC. Last May he was tried at Newcastle Crown Court for perverting the course of justice because he had two driving licences in the name of "Ashe" which listed two different addresses.
The police said he was trying to avoid disqualification by distributing penalty points for speeding between the two licences. McGartland denied his, insisting he needed the licences as an extra layer of protection.
In 1992 the IRA had interrogated his girlfriend and he feared they'd forced her to divulge where he was living. He says the police refused to move him: "I'll never forget what they told me:'Don't worry about it, son. You'll be OK.'" He didn't believe them. So he moved - though only half a mile away. And he took out a second licence with a fictitious address in Durham.
McGartland feared the IRA could get his address from licence records - and with good reason: Northumbria Police has already dismissed one civilian for disclosing information about his identity from their computer. The purpose of the second licence was to send the IRA off on a false trail if they came looking for him having discovered he no longer lived at his first address.
There is no doubt that McGartland was on the IRA's wanted listed. They'd broken his younger brother Joseph's legs, an arm and four ribs with iron bars. And he himself received a mass card, signed "Your friends in Connolly House [Belfast HQ of Sinn Fein], Crumlin Road and Long Kesh." It promised that the "Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered for the repose of the soul of Marty McGartland."
Before the trial McGartland warned the Crown Prosecution Service that the only way he could escape a prison sentence was to explain to the jury who he really was and why he'd taken out two licences - which involved disclosing who he really was.
The jury took 10 minutes to acquit him and even the judge said McGartland did not seem to be a criminal. But his cover was blown McGartland's real identity and address were reported in the newspapers.
McGartland asked the authorities to give him a new identity and relocate him immediately. One thousand nine hundred local residents - astonished to discover their chaotic Irish neighbour was a latter-day 007 - signed a petition supporting him. Close neighbours have been frequently wakened by his screaming nightmares: "Don't do it, don't do it." Some neighbours are pretty terrified themselves. One is having her locks changed by Northumbria Police.
At first the Crown refused to pay McGartland a penny. After many letters from his lawyer to the solicitors acting for "various Crown authorities" - which they refused to name - they agreed to pay pounds 3,000 towards his removal expenses "as a gesture of goodwill and with no admission of liability".
But McGartland's house is now blighted. Who would want to buy a property that was an IRA target? Until recently, the "authorities" have refused to even consider covering any losses. Jack Straw has told McGartland's local MP, Alan Campbell, that there is no need for him to move straightaway because there is no "immediate" threat to him. "I hope this is of some reassurance," says Mr Straw.
The small sum now being offered contrasts with the millions of pounds that McGartland's tip-offs spared the taxpayer by stopping buildings from being blown up - not to mention the many lives he saved. McGartland was also very nearly executed by the IRA because of an RUC blunder in August 1991.
For several months he had complained to his Special Branch handlers that he feared the IRA had rumbled him. His active service unit had had to abort too many operations in which he'd been involved.
Then in July 1991, McGartland's handlers learnt that his ASU was going to machine-gun a bar frequented by soldiers in Bangor. They demanded that McGartland deliver the guns that were to be used to RUC headquarters to be fitted with tracking devices.
Two IRA operatives were arrested en route to the raid. A few days later McGartland was summoned to a meeting with the head of the IRA's internal security. Although McGartland feared the game was up, his handlers persuaded him to keep his appointment, promising they would watch over him every step of the way. The Special Branch had calculated there could be a bonus if he was caught. He could lead them to other IRA terrorists as they interrogated him. He was to be used as human bait.
But the RUC's surveillance unit lost sight of McGartland before he was driven away at speed by two IRA men from his meeting. As one officer said: "I thought `Well, it's over. He's gone.' And I waited for news of his body being found."
McGartland, meanwhile, was awaiting the executioner's bullet in a third- floor flat. When he saw a bath filled up with cold water, he knew he would be tortured first. On an impulse he hurled himself headlong through the window. "I remember the glass breaking in slow motion. Then my lights went out." He sustained serious head, shoulder and back injuries, but his astonishing courage saved him. He was picked up by an army patrol.
Six weeks later he was packed off to Northumbria with a new identity. The police bought him a house for pounds 53,500 and gave him pounds 40,000 to provide him with furniture, a car, spending money and a training course for a heavy goods vehicle licence.
But McGartland had paid a heavy price. He'd left behind his family and had no friends in Newcastle. He suffered recurring nightmares, needed constant painkillers, and he became depressed. He couldn't settle into a job and he frittered away his money But the RUC who'd recruited him at 17, had cut the umbilical chord.
Like many agents McGartland wanted recognition. He tried to sell his story and began to appear on TV programmes and to give newspaper interviews. This can't have gone down too well with the authorities.
When his solicitor applied for compensation for his injuries, the RUC claimed to have no record of him. He pursued the claim in the courts. But when he asked the RUC for protection in Northern Ireland so he could attend his court case, they refused. "Any protection that was afforded you, you blew by your antics," one officer told him.
Then the RUC told the Northern Ireland Office they'd already paid McGartland pounds 120,000 which, they said, included injury compensation. His receipts showed the figure was pounds 95,000, a shortfall of pounds 25,000. Only after Tory, Labour and Unionist MPs intervened, did the NIO compromise with an offer of pounds 10,000.
Earlier this year, McGartland published a book detailing his exploits. At the same time the CPS was considering whether to prosecute him for perverting the course of justice. After consulting the RUC, it was decided there was no threat to his security. Listening to some RUC officer discussing this issue, there's a strong whiff of disdain: McGartland was recruited as a teenage petty criminal and in his attempts to hog the limelight he'd moved above his station. It's hardly surprising he came a cropper.
No doubt, running McGartland as an agent was taxing. Like most agents, he sometimes broke the rules by not telling his handlers everything in order to cover his back with the IRA. Sometimes he bartered information for money. But, as one ex-RUC officer recognises, "I would have to say that we got more out of him in a few years than we got out of many agents in 20 years. It was short - but very sweet while it lasted."
McGartland was very young to be drawn into the grown-up world of spying. By 21, he had saved many lives. But now he doesn't know how to save himself. His obsession with his string of grievances and his craving for recognition leave him incapable of building a more stable future. What burden of responsibility should the Crown now bear for trying to ensue that the rest of his life is not wasted?
Not much, seems to be the answer. As the new Home Secretary, perhaps still seeking the approval of the security and intelligence establishment that once had him down as soft and on the left, Jack speaks of this as being "very much a security matter". But it is also a human tragedy.
In his letter to McGartland's MP, Alan Campbell, Jack Straw suggests that it is his "propensity for self-publicity that has caused [him] so many of the problems he currently faces".
Mr Straw misses the point. McGartland may have raised his profile but he never once revealed that he was "Martin Ashe" in any article or TV programme. It was the Crown's decision to prosecute him that led to that. Now that he has been acquitted, he claims he is entitled to the same level of assistance a he was before the court case invalidated his protection.
The McGartland case also raises a question about double standards: in Newcastle an ex-Special Branch agent whose life is manifestly at risk is deemed by the Home Secretary not to be in any "immediate" danger. In London, a risk, perhaps theoretical, to the lives of MI5 agents is enough for him to ban publication of a matter of public interest about a secret and largely unaccountable organisation.
The one feature common to both cases is publicity. Do the intelligence services still cling to the belief that it is dangerous for light to be shed on their workings. If so, why does New Labour swallow old myths?
The story of Martin McGartland will feature in `Here and Now' , BBC1, 7.30pm tonight.
Link:- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/media-how-jack-straw-vigilant-censor-of-mi5-revelations-left-an-informer-out-to-dry-1241822.html
John Ware
Monday, 29 September 1997
The Home Secretary was quick to censor the revelations of David Shayler to `ensure the lives' of MI5 agents. The safety of Martin McGartland, RUC informer, appears to have been of less concern. John Ware wants to know why
The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, says MI5 agents could die if the former MI5 officer David Shayler is allowed to disclose evidence which he claims demonstrates the incompetence of the Security Service.
Mr Straw says he has an "absolute duty to ensure agents' lives" are not put at risk. That is the basis on which he has successfully sought an injunction against The Mail on Sunday whose editor wants to publish "the facts of a case of national and international importance which would have revealed MI5's incompetence in the handling of a serious terrorist incident".
Mr Straw would have us believe that he'd agonised over so grave a step as censorship - "I have no wish to prevent legitimate debate or criticism of the Security Service" - no doubt mindful of his government's commitment to freedom of information.
"Censorship" is certainly a word that should rankle with Mr Straw. He was himself a journalist on Granada's World In Action programme. And in 1971, as a duffel-coated President of the National Union of Students, he petitioned the then Conservative Home Secretary, Reggie Maudling, against the expulsion of a German Marxist student leader Rudi Dutschke whose presence was said to be a threat to the security of the state. As Mr Shayler revealed, in those days M15 had Mr Straw down as a "communist sympathiser".
But that was then. Now as Home Secretary he is ultimately responsible for MI5. And if the MI5 Director General tells him the publication of a newspaper article could cost lives, he has to take that seriously - even if the risk is theoretical.
Why, then, in another case involving a real live agent, whose risk of being executed by the IRA is very high indeed, has the Home Secretary been playing down the threat to his life?
Martin McGartland spied for the RUC Special Branch and saved many lives. As the late Brian Fitsimons, former assistant chief constable in charge of the Special Branch, told me: "McGartland was a very productive agent."
Since 1991 the 27 year old has lived in Blyth, Northumbria as "Martin Ashe" - the identity provided for him by the RUC. Last May he was tried at Newcastle Crown Court for perverting the course of justice because he had two driving licences in the name of "Ashe" which listed two different addresses.
The police said he was trying to avoid disqualification by distributing penalty points for speeding between the two licences. McGartland denied his, insisting he needed the licences as an extra layer of protection.
In 1992 the IRA had interrogated his girlfriend and he feared they'd forced her to divulge where he was living. He says the police refused to move him: "I'll never forget what they told me:'Don't worry about it, son. You'll be OK.'" He didn't believe them. So he moved - though only half a mile away. And he took out a second licence with a fictitious address in Durham.
McGartland feared the IRA could get his address from licence records - and with good reason: Northumbria Police has already dismissed one civilian for disclosing information about his identity from their computer. The purpose of the second licence was to send the IRA off on a false trail if they came looking for him having discovered he no longer lived at his first address.
There is no doubt that McGartland was on the IRA's wanted listed. They'd broken his younger brother Joseph's legs, an arm and four ribs with iron bars. And he himself received a mass card, signed "Your friends in Connolly House [Belfast HQ of Sinn Fein], Crumlin Road and Long Kesh." It promised that the "Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered for the repose of the soul of Marty McGartland."
Before the trial McGartland warned the Crown Prosecution Service that the only way he could escape a prison sentence was to explain to the jury who he really was and why he'd taken out two licences - which involved disclosing who he really was.
The jury took 10 minutes to acquit him and even the judge said McGartland did not seem to be a criminal. But his cover was blown McGartland's real identity and address were reported in the newspapers.
McGartland asked the authorities to give him a new identity and relocate him immediately. One thousand nine hundred local residents - astonished to discover their chaotic Irish neighbour was a latter-day 007 - signed a petition supporting him. Close neighbours have been frequently wakened by his screaming nightmares: "Don't do it, don't do it." Some neighbours are pretty terrified themselves. One is having her locks changed by Northumbria Police.
At first the Crown refused to pay McGartland a penny. After many letters from his lawyer to the solicitors acting for "various Crown authorities" - which they refused to name - they agreed to pay pounds 3,000 towards his removal expenses "as a gesture of goodwill and with no admission of liability".
But McGartland's house is now blighted. Who would want to buy a property that was an IRA target? Until recently, the "authorities" have refused to even consider covering any losses. Jack Straw has told McGartland's local MP, Alan Campbell, that there is no need for him to move straightaway because there is no "immediate" threat to him. "I hope this is of some reassurance," says Mr Straw.
The small sum now being offered contrasts with the millions of pounds that McGartland's tip-offs spared the taxpayer by stopping buildings from being blown up - not to mention the many lives he saved. McGartland was also very nearly executed by the IRA because of an RUC blunder in August 1991.
For several months he had complained to his Special Branch handlers that he feared the IRA had rumbled him. His active service unit had had to abort too many operations in which he'd been involved.
Then in July 1991, McGartland's handlers learnt that his ASU was going to machine-gun a bar frequented by soldiers in Bangor. They demanded that McGartland deliver the guns that were to be used to RUC headquarters to be fitted with tracking devices.
Two IRA operatives were arrested en route to the raid. A few days later McGartland was summoned to a meeting with the head of the IRA's internal security. Although McGartland feared the game was up, his handlers persuaded him to keep his appointment, promising they would watch over him every step of the way. The Special Branch had calculated there could be a bonus if he was caught. He could lead them to other IRA terrorists as they interrogated him. He was to be used as human bait.
But the RUC's surveillance unit lost sight of McGartland before he was driven away at speed by two IRA men from his meeting. As one officer said: "I thought `Well, it's over. He's gone.' And I waited for news of his body being found."
McGartland, meanwhile, was awaiting the executioner's bullet in a third- floor flat. When he saw a bath filled up with cold water, he knew he would be tortured first. On an impulse he hurled himself headlong through the window. "I remember the glass breaking in slow motion. Then my lights went out." He sustained serious head, shoulder and back injuries, but his astonishing courage saved him. He was picked up by an army patrol.
Six weeks later he was packed off to Northumbria with a new identity. The police bought him a house for pounds 53,500 and gave him pounds 40,000 to provide him with furniture, a car, spending money and a training course for a heavy goods vehicle licence.
But McGartland had paid a heavy price. He'd left behind his family and had no friends in Newcastle. He suffered recurring nightmares, needed constant painkillers, and he became depressed. He couldn't settle into a job and he frittered away his money But the RUC who'd recruited him at 17, had cut the umbilical chord.
Like many agents McGartland wanted recognition. He tried to sell his story and began to appear on TV programmes and to give newspaper interviews. This can't have gone down too well with the authorities.
When his solicitor applied for compensation for his injuries, the RUC claimed to have no record of him. He pursued the claim in the courts. But when he asked the RUC for protection in Northern Ireland so he could attend his court case, they refused. "Any protection that was afforded you, you blew by your antics," one officer told him.
Then the RUC told the Northern Ireland Office they'd already paid McGartland pounds 120,000 which, they said, included injury compensation. His receipts showed the figure was pounds 95,000, a shortfall of pounds 25,000. Only after Tory, Labour and Unionist MPs intervened, did the NIO compromise with an offer of pounds 10,000.
Earlier this year, McGartland published a book detailing his exploits. At the same time the CPS was considering whether to prosecute him for perverting the course of justice. After consulting the RUC, it was decided there was no threat to his security. Listening to some RUC officer discussing this issue, there's a strong whiff of disdain: McGartland was recruited as a teenage petty criminal and in his attempts to hog the limelight he'd moved above his station. It's hardly surprising he came a cropper.
No doubt, running McGartland as an agent was taxing. Like most agents, he sometimes broke the rules by not telling his handlers everything in order to cover his back with the IRA. Sometimes he bartered information for money. But, as one ex-RUC officer recognises, "I would have to say that we got more out of him in a few years than we got out of many agents in 20 years. It was short - but very sweet while it lasted."
McGartland was very young to be drawn into the grown-up world of spying. By 21, he had saved many lives. But now he doesn't know how to save himself. His obsession with his string of grievances and his craving for recognition leave him incapable of building a more stable future. What burden of responsibility should the Crown now bear for trying to ensue that the rest of his life is not wasted?
Not much, seems to be the answer. As the new Home Secretary, perhaps still seeking the approval of the security and intelligence establishment that once had him down as soft and on the left, Jack speaks of this as being "very much a security matter". But it is also a human tragedy.
In his letter to McGartland's MP, Alan Campbell, Jack Straw suggests that it is his "propensity for self-publicity that has caused [him] so many of the problems he currently faces".
Mr Straw misses the point. McGartland may have raised his profile but he never once revealed that he was "Martin Ashe" in any article or TV programme. It was the Crown's decision to prosecute him that led to that. Now that he has been acquitted, he claims he is entitled to the same level of assistance a he was before the court case invalidated his protection.
The McGartland case also raises a question about double standards: in Newcastle an ex-Special Branch agent whose life is manifestly at risk is deemed by the Home Secretary not to be in any "immediate" danger. In London, a risk, perhaps theoretical, to the lives of MI5 agents is enough for him to ban publication of a matter of public interest about a secret and largely unaccountable organisation.
The one feature common to both cases is publicity. Do the intelligence services still cling to the belief that it is dangerous for light to be shed on their workings. If so, why does New Labour swallow old myths?
The story of Martin McGartland will feature in `Here and Now' , BBC1, 7.30pm tonight.
Link:- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/media-how-jack-straw-vigilant-censor-of-mi5-revelations-left-an-informer-out-to-dry-1241822.html
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