"One, honesty is not a term applicable to IRA/Sinn Fein comment"

LOL. Don't be afraid to speak your mind, or try to hide your bias or anything like that.

LOL I love it!

I appreciate you keeping us up to date on this story.

Mahons, do you get paid for each time you write that?

From what I heard, Paul Quinn was indeed a criminal; but the point is irrelevant - his brutal murder was infinitely worse than anything he may have done.

BTW, David, one reason why prosecution/investigations are so difficult in this case is that the crime was planned and committed in different jurisdictions; i.e. it was committed down south but all the evidence is up north. Remember: the border is of greater benefit to criminals on both sides than to any Unionist.

"From what I heard, Paul Quinn was indeed a criminal;"

Depends on where you heard it from? Was it from the media reporting what Conor Murphy said?

I have seen the same written on blogs/ reported in newspapers / from non-republican (even anti-republican) contributers / writers.

That doesnt make it true of course.

>>Depends on where you heard it from? Was it from the media reporting what Conor Murphy said?<<

Typhoo, no, It was from reports in the IT - aparently based on Garda sources - shortly after the murder.

Actually, I think our own Chris Gaskin also made some claims in this regard not so long ago (an ATW exclusive), but I may be wrong.

David - well done for keeping this story highlighted

Noel: Of course, times are tough. David paid me even more to name our twins David and Davina.

Frankly, I feel if I am going to take Mr. Vance to task where I disagree with him (see multiple threads of this very date where I do so quite strongly) the least I can do is thank him when I am interested in something. Writing the random "Over Here" Post has given me an appreciation for the quality and quantity of the overall site.

Incidently, what is the exchange rate on the Irish Punt? David's payoff money is in that denomination which he assures me is the value of my contributions.

Noel, in this case I agree with David, who is murphy to say who is or is not a criminal? This young man has not been charged with anything,and the only reason Sinn Fein would seek to blacken his name is to make what his murderers did look better.

If Chris Gaskin has any reason to believe PQ a criminal then Chris ought to go to the PSNI.

Other blogs, and the msn, repeatedly repeating what SF say about this young man doesn't make it true.

If he were that bad a criminal would his campaign be getting the support it is?

Mahons,

The poor old Irish punt has, like the proverbial Norwegian blue parrot, gone to meet its maker. It's the Euro now but I will accept all payments most graciously. They should be marked for the attention of Ian Paisley Jnr...sorry, I mean the ATW pension scheme for retired vast right wing conspiracists.

On a seriouse note, the IRA's behaviour is deplorable but this story gets a sanitisation job. Wouldn't want to embarrass nice Dr Paisley and his goon squad.

David: The Norwegian Blue Parrot sounds like Allan@Oslo's favorite strip club.

And it is one thing to get paid to praise you, I'll be damned (what Democrat won't) if I'll pay you to praise you.

Typhoo
Just to go back i dont think the stuff i had read on blogs was out of the SF press department -they seemed to be from people from S. Armagh who were p1ssed off with SF.

Your last sentence is on the money however.

Why such concern about the victim's background? Fixating on the question of whether he was a criminal or not runs the danger of giving the murder a grotesque kind of legitimacy if indeed it does turn out that he was a fuel smuggler. The murder was a sickening, barbaric act whether the victim was a smuggler or whether he was a choirboy.

Aoife,

Quite right. His background is neither here nor there, no one should be killed as happened to this young man. It was an evil wicked act and the issue has to be of convicting the thugs that did it. Conor Murphy seems a tad mute on that aspect of things, though given the liklihood it was the IRA, and given he was in the IRA, would he not have names he could supply to the police??? Has he done so? If not, why not?

If you say the IRA did it you will be told to produce evidence and that the provos should be considered "innocent until proven guilty".

But the same people will have no hesitation in calling Paul Quinn a criminal with no evidence whatsoever.

LOL, good Henry!

>>who is murphy to say who is or is not a criminal?<<

Typhoo, as far as I know, Conor Murphy M.P. isn't on the staff of the Irish Times yet.

Typhoo

Paul Quinn was known to police on both sides of the border before he was brutally murdered.

In relation to the criminality tag and evidence, I personally know people, including girls, who were assaulted by Paul. We also have the admission of the family.

Last time I checked being involved in diesel smuggling was a crime, maybe I am wrong? That bit has already been admitted by the family. Even Spotlight alluded to the fact that a large diesel tanker which was abandoned near Lisburn was related to Quinn.

Then we have the assault of Mr Traynor, which the family have admitted. I know the Traynor family, a serious amount of lies and bullshit has been spread about them.

Vincent Traynor is an old man. Paul Quinn didn't go up and hit Vincent. He waited in bushes under the cover of darkness until Vincent came home drunk from a wedding. He went and assaulted him from behind.

Now I was brought up never to hit an elderly person but that aside, assault and battery is still a criminal offence is it not?

Not one piece of this changes the fact that Paul Quinn should not have been murdered, and he was murdered.

Then people who carried this out should be locked up for a very long time.

The simple fact is that a large number of you on this site don't give two fiddlers fuck about Paul Quinn or the truth, your only interest is blaming the IRA.

None of you know about the personal intimidation which many people, non republicans as well, are facing at the moment because a lot of young people are being feed lies and bullshit from very sinister elements.

This new rag tag group of "South Armagh Gangsters" who are torturing people in Cross, Cullyahnna etc are being led by very sinister former members of the Republican movement.

These same sinister elements are now declaring that the have an army to take on the IRA

Then again, what matter the truth so long as you lot get your pound of political flesh.

Chris

On another thread on this topic you said,

Thus far we have not seen a single shred of evidence linking this lads brutal murder with the IRA.

Innocent until proven quilty

Is it your position that the innocent until proven guilty principle only applies to the IRA while you are free to make allegations against someone who can no longer defend himself.

Henry

I have presented evidence, even this mans family has admitted that.

The Assult of Vincent Traynor and involvement in Diesel Smuggling, both have been accepted by the family and the QSG.

Chris

Innocent until proven guilty means proven in a court of law. Paul Quinn faced no charges and self-serving allegations from South Armagh don't count as that.

And as you blacken his name do you still deny the IRA murdered him? Because if they didn't why the effort to discredit him? It's not as if criminality of the kind you allege is something new to the area after all.

The Irish government have stated that he was not a criminal and in the eyes of the law he wasn't either. The people who killed him were criminals and you know who they were if not by name then by organisation.

Nationalists need to remember at the next election that the only people the IRA kill these days are other nationalists and they are the only ones still doing it.

Chris, same old same old. First Irish men kill Irish men, then Irish men kill Britons then Irish men kill Irish men, who was it said that, was it Myers? Someone else? Who ever said it wasn't wrong, doesn't history keep repeat its self?

"The simple fact is that a large number of you on this site don't give two fiddlers fuck about Paul Quinn or the truth, your only interest is blaming the IRA."

I believe they did it, I've no political axe to grind, for the reasons that Henry states, and another, they're the only ones who could have done it and got away with it .

"Typhoo, as far as I know, Conor Murphy M.P. isn't on the staff of the Irish Times yet."

Where did I say he was Noel? *shakes head*

Typhoo,

I had said that I'd heard it in a report in the Irish Times.

You replied, addressing me by name, that Conor Murphy has no right to say anyone is a criminal

>>I've no political axe to grind,<<

Surely an exaggeration, Typhoo. You've a whole toolshed of them.

So what if Paul Quinn was involved in shady dealings?

Isn't this a little like saying a murdered prostitute somehow deserved it because she was working outside the law?

Chris what exactly are you trying to say with your allegations about Paul Quinn's criminality?
Being a great supporter of the newly sanitised SF, surely you should be encouraging all members of the RM and everyone else with any knowledge of this murder to go straight to the PSNI or Gardai, regardless of what he may or may not have done.

The fact is that if say M16 or the British army had been implicated in this fatal beating, you and everyone even remotely inclined towards republicanism would be screaming from the rooftops for justice. There would be marches, endless media appearances by SF and a deep political crisis at Stormont. But instead the silence is deafening. 'It was all criminals what done it.' Well at least we can agree on that one. The provos have been criminals for decades.

I don't personally care what the lad did -- he didn't deserve to be murdered and that goes for every single one of the victims of paramilitarism on this island.

What is most sickening is the obvious common link between the following: Paul Quinn's murder, the Omagh atrocity, the Northern Bank robbery and Denis Donaldson's murder. I'll let you work it out.

Even if Mr. Gaskin's allegations are true, it seems odd doesn't it? I mean what relevance do they have to the attack on Quinn? Isn't attacking the character of the victim a trait of the guilty or those protecting the guilty?

Lets put the cards on the table, even if Quinn was guilty of these unrelated prior acts, there is no indication that they had anything to do with his brutal murder.

Mahons,

"Isn't attacking the character of the victim a trait of the guilty or those protecting the guilty?"

It's the old thinking of the cretins who regarded the IRA as some kind of police force to dispense 'punishments', and where the punishment itself is taken to mean 'well, he probably done something to deserve it'. No matter how beyond the pale the 'punishment' itself was.

Ladies

There is no attack upon Quinn, I have called on anyone with any information to come foward and go to the police, I have condemend the attack and said that those who carried deserved to be locked up for a very long time.

The only reason why Paul Quinns dealings are mentioned is that it may suggest a different reason for his killing and a possible motive.

Though I suspect most of you knew that already

Chrissy: Your comment reads as an indictment of the deceased, plain and simple. Seems like a fallback position if it comes out that the IRA or rogue elements were to blame.

I have read a lot of reports in papers and comments on various wedsites about this dispicable murder. And running through it all, the supports of this crime and others like it consider the perpertrators have the right to blacken their victims name then play judge and jury with whoever they think fit...

>>I mean what relevance do they have to the attack on Quinn?<<

Hold on everybody. Before one of you runs off to fetch a rope for Chris, let me remind you that he is, believe it or not, merely replying to the topic of this thread.

The thread is after all not about the murder of Paul Quinn - which everyone agrees was brutal and criminal - it's about an MEP and dissident Unionist Jim McAllister's demand that Sinn Fein MP Conor Murphy withdraw his statement that Paul Quinn was a criminal. I - and Chris and probably a few others - believe that in the light of the evidence available, including Garda spokespeople shortly after the murder and many investigative journalists who said that Quinn was a criminal, Murphy is justified in his statement, although it is rather tasteless as it is introducing an irrelevant element into this man's murder.

However, this whole story reeks of hypocrisy. David, and much less Jim McAllister, would never have devoted so much time and space to this murder if there was not a likelihood of IRA involvement, or if only the RIRA were involved.

They are using the death as a political weapon. Which is fair enough, but let's not pretend it's concern for the victim.

Only those familiar with Northern Ireland will appreciate the richness of someone like Ueber-Unionist JimMcAllister - who just happens to be agaisnt the Good Friday Agreement and is now setting up his own dissident Unionist party - now finding himself Chairman of the Paul Quinn Support Group no less. They will remember the many years when this community had many victims of sectarian killings to mourn, and when someone like Jim McAllister was the last person they could go to for help and definitely the last who would offer it.

"They will remember the many years when this community "

Which community is that Noel? Yours or mine? The reason I ask is, you seem to be using the murder to justify certain things yourself, while accusing others of the same hypocrisy.....try a little less of the soap box and finger pointing.

Are you ruling out unionist concern at murder? David isn't concerned, JA isn't concerned...I'm wondering who the hell died and left you as spokesperson for anybody in the north?

Just an observation mind..no offence. I just thought I'd ask you know.

>>you seem to be using the murder to justify certain things yourself,<<

What do you mean, Typhoo?

It would appear you are using it to justify your dig at David and JA, and for a little stand on the soap box to agree with Chris that the reference to the young man as a criminal is 'an irrelevant element'.

Have you asked his mother what she thinks or feels? Her son after all, was never convicted , and it would appear that his name is blackened to suit the murderers rather than Jim Alister's agenda.

Don't you think the support group would have the family support and agreement?

Or should we all take your view of it, because Chris says so?

>>It would appear you are using (the death of Paul Quinn) to justify your dig at David and JA, <<

But that can't be true, Typhoo. I can't be using this issue to "justify my dig" at David, simply because there would be no dig to dig without it.
The same goes for JMcA.

Secondly, it was David who introduced this topic, not I. By commenting on his topic, I am no more "using" it for anything than you or anyone else on this thread. And besides, my comments on the death itself probably reflect exactly your views. Check back and you'll see.

What is the basis for the assertion that Jim Allister MEP is chairman or anything else of the Quinn Support Group?

Its website.

I can only see reference to Jim McAllister.

Noel

You seem to be confusing your Jim's here. Jim Allistor is a former DUP member and leader of the prodiban.

Jim McAllister is a former SF (Pre GFA) Sinn Féin Cllr in South Armagh. He parted company with the Republican Movement before the GFA because he didn't agree with the way the movement was going. He is the one who supported former SF MLA Davy Hyland when he stood against SF in Newry and Armagh in the last election. Hyland, McAllister and the rest of the motley crew were rightly trounced in the election by SF.

Jim has some very dodgy and sinister links within the South Armagh area. I wonder has anyone asked Jim to condemn the murder of Keith Rodgers??

It is South Armagh Jim who is the Chair of the Quinn Support Group, not former DUP Jim.

They share many qualities though, both are against republican involvement in policing, against the current political arrangement and both are using the murder of Paul Quinn for their own political agendas.

Hope this helps

Mahon

My name is Chris, not Chrissy.

It was an evil wicked act and the issue has to be of convicting the thugs that did it

I would have to agree entirely with that David.

It is sad to see people jumping on this guy's grave and calling him a criminal etc. It is cowardly and craven.The family have certainly not accepted that he was a criminal. Not at all.

The effort to criminalise this poor chap who was taken well before his time has been underway for some time and Conor Murphy is the leader of the pack. Shame on him.

I remember a comment not long ago when Chris spoke of someone smuggling "spuds or a bicycle" [I believe it was] as an innocent thing. But now someone transporting fuel [IF that was being done] makes one a "criminal".

Does this mean that the IRA friendly guys who smuggled fuel or anything else [ if that ever took place at any time ] are also "criminals"?

Or is this cold, sneering judgment reserved only for the dead, esp when the deceased may have had run ins with locals who thought they deserved to be respected more the average person?

Phantom

Attitudes change with time and with societal changes. When I endorsed our Policing motion at the Ard Fheis I did it with the full knowledge that it extended beyond just accepting the PSNI.

I am a keen fisherman and the environmental cost, not to mention the lost revenue that we need for schools and hospitals, is a large one in relation to smuggling.

What ever about smuggling years ago in order to finance the armed campaign, smuggling these days only benefits the smuggler.

It's for their own pockets

I'm not the only one who thinks this way

Stoop Councillor Geraldine Donnelly, member of the QSG, had a press release out recently giving out about the "environmental criminals" who were involved in smuggling.

As for the last comment, I have already posted on that further up.

What ever about smuggling years ago in order to finance the armed campaign, smuggling these days only benefits the smuggler

So Thomas 'Slab' Murphy shouldn't be engaged in it?

Nobody should

Okay Chris.

You are a straight talker anyway.

What the six counties needs is communism, not selling off all it's assets and stripping its services. What do you think comrade?

Yeah, a little dictatorship of the proletariat. The last capitalist and the last rope. Thats why everyone suffered all those years. To get that.

I'm a Socialist Republican DC, I believe that the means of production should be in the hands of the people. The private sector has no role in publix services IMAO.

"The last capitalist and the last rope"

Ahhhh, One can always dream Phantom ;)

So if someone owns a small manufacturing business or a construction company, with say 25 employees, the government should confiscate it, or force a sale to it?