There is some evidence to suggest that the errors in the newspaper piece were the result of deliberate official disinformation. The article appears to have been written with the co-operation of the Army and quotes Sergeant Oram’s ‘colleagues’ as saying he was ‘a special kind of guy’. Three days earlier The Times had published a photograph of Oram. Clearly neither the picture nor the quotes, if genuine, were likely to have been obtained without the co-operation of Lisburn. It would appear highly unlikely that the author of the piece linking the dead soldier with the 1981 Londonderry incident would not have checked his or her theory with an Army press officer at Lisburn, if it was indeed their own supposition, when obtaining the quote.
As Sergeant Oram is still regarded by many in the Army as a hero, what was the point of cynically using a dead man’s name in this way? The answer would seem to be that the Army had intelligence that the Derry Brigade was, even three years after the humiliation, desperate to get revenge for the Londonderry shooting. So an author of a disinformation plot might feel that linking a dead man to the incident would result in the IRA stopping its hunt for the real man who had shot his way out of the trap. The false claim that Oram was in the SAS was consistent with Lisburn’s long-term policy of disguising the activities of the surveillance unit, although the Army later issued an on-the-record denial that he was in the SAS. ‘The SAS always take the rap for 14 Company,’ says a member of the former, explaining that this practice arose to safeguard the surveillance unit’s identity and tactics.
Two days after the article in The Times, the Irish News suggested that Sergeant Oram was involved not in the 1981 McBrearty/Maguire shooting but in a fatal confrontation in Londonderry with a man called Liam McMonagle in February 1983. McMonagle, an INLA member, was killed by a plain-clothes soldier who also shot and injured Liam Duffy, another INLA member. The soldier claimed in a deposition to a later inquest that the men had been armed, but that no weapon was recovered from the scene. A CID officer at the inquest admitted that the court only had the soldier’s word as proof that the INLA men were armed. People involved with undercover warfare confirm that the soldier was a member of the Londonderry Detachment of 14 Intelligence Company. So was the confrontation with McMonagle and Duffy the occasion on which Sergeant Oram had shown ‘supreme personal courage’ and won the Military Medal? It is not possible to answer this question with certainty, but it would seem quite likely.
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In March 1984, intelligence officers were to mount a highly unusual operation. I learned of it in 1991 while talking informally at a briefing with a very senior member of the security forces. He told me that an agent high in the ranks of the Ulster Defence Association, the loyalist paramilitary group, had tipped them off about a plan in 1984 to assassinate Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader. The information ‘did not tell us the exact time and street where the attack would take place, but did give us the basic information that there would be an attempt on his life when he went to the court house’. An independent security forces contact has confirmed this version of events.
Early in the afternoon of 14 March 1984, Gerry Adams left Belfast magistrate’s court, where he had appeared on an obstruction charge. Security considerations had already prompted the republican leader’s lawyer to try to get permission for him to enter the court by a back entrance – something the authorities would not agree to. Adams was travelling along Howard Street on his way back to west Belfast in a car with four colleagues when they were overtaken by another vehicle. Two members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the UDA’s terrorist arm, opened fire. Twelve shots were fired injuring Adams and Sean Keenan, one of the other passengers, severely. Adams’ driver kept the car under control and drove to the Royal Victoria Hospital.
Very shortly after the shooting an unmarked car which had been following Adams’ vehicle intercepted the UFF vehicle. Several men in plain clothes carrying 9 mm pistols apprehended the UFF gunmen. Gerald Welsh and John Gregg, who had fired the shots, were each subsequently sentenced to eighteen years in jail. Colin Gray, the driver, was given a twelve-year term.
In the aftermath of the incident, Sinn Fein said that SAS soldiers had been responsible for following Adams. The Army Press Office said that two off-duty members of the Royal Military Police and an off-duty UDR soldier had been in the area by coincidence and had taken action. Two days later the Army modified its line saying that the military policemen had been on duty but that, ‘Their involvement in the incident was a complete coincidence.’ The police described Sinn Fein claims of SAS involvement as ‘nonsense’. These claims were maintained during the trial of Welsh, Gregg and Gray the following year.
Admitting that Int and Sy Group soldiers had indeed been there would have been very embarrassing to the Army. Why then were UFF men apprehended only after the shots were fired? Why had Adams not been made aware of the threat
