TV programme banned/Spate of MoD Injunctions

 Two articles, from the Guardian and the Independent, on the ongoing attempts by the British Ministry of Defence to censor media coverage of illegal activities by the security forces/services. The TV programme in question, which was still set to go out as late as 6pm last night, focussed on allegations that the British Army Force Research Unit (FRU) ran agents within the IRA who were involved in illegal activities.The FRU was involved in the murder of Pat Finucane and others.

See PFC website at www.serve.com/pfc MoD blocks TV show on IRA double agent

Special report: Northern Ireland

MediaGuardian.co.uk

The Guardian website:  

Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent Wednesday April 25, 01

The Ministry of Defence last night stopped Ulster Television showing a documentary in which an ex-soldier claims his military chiefs knew he helped murder members of the security forces while working as a double agent in the IRA.

The MoD obtained a high court order banning the Insight investigation into covert military intelligence operations in Northern Ireland just four hours before it was due to be broadcast. UTV refused to comment on the injunction or the programme, but Rob Morrison, head of news and current affairs, said the channel would contest the ban and remained intent on screening the documentary as soon as possible.

UTV has been prevented from disclosing details about the methods of military intelligence. It is understood the programme features an interview with a former Royal Irish Ranger, named only as Kevin, who alleges his British handlers were aware that he took part in terrorist bombings in the 1980s and early 1990s, including the 1993 blast which decimated Portadown centre.

Kevin says: "I had to be an IRA man, not just pretend to be one. Yes, certain lives were lost. I know a lot of lives were saved, that's all I can say."

He claims he had to commit armed robberies for four years before the Provisionals accepted him. He says he worked as a double agent until the second IRA ceasefire in 1997 when the republican paramilitaries discovered he was an informer and he received death threats.

He says he has been interviewed by the team, headed by Metropolitan police chief Sir John Stevens, which is investigating allegations of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries.

An MoD spokesman said: "An order was made but because we understand UTV will be contesting it we cannot comment."

A 'Watergate' not for printing
A spate of injunctions on national papers is keeping a controversial incident in Northern Ireland's recent history out of the press

By Paul Lashmar

The Independent Newspaper 24 April 01
 
The Independent website:  
 

The Ministry of Defence is using an unprecedented campaign of secret gagging orders to stop the press investigating one of the most controversial British Army undercover units to operate in 30 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

At the centre of the scandal is the top secret British Army undercover unit called Forces Research Unit (FRU), which worked in Northern Ireland up to 1991 and is alleged to control loyalist terrorists who assassinated at least 13 people.

Sinn Fein's Republican News has called FRU's operations "the British Watergate" and claims the unit ran a secret "proxy shoot to kill policy" using loyalist terrorists for a decade up to 1990.

Over the past two years the MOD has been fighting a fierce rearguard action to keep information coming out over the Forces Research Unit. Instead of the usual threat of prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, the MOD has refined and extended the use of injunctions. Using public interest immunity certificates signed by a minister, these are sometimes obtained from a duty judge during the night. The accompanying papers have large sections blacked out.

In all cases they contain grave warnings that release of the information will cause loss of life and damage national security. Journalists feel that this extreme claim places judges in a difficult situation and lawyers for the media in an impossible one in contesting the orders.

No one knows how many injunctions have been served. It is known multiple injunctions have been served on newspapers including the Sunday Herald, The Sunday People and The Sunday Times. Former members of the Forces Research Unit have also been the subject of injunctions.

Richard Walker the deputy editor of the Sunday Herald says that the MOD's threats of injunctions have very serious implications for press freedom.

"To a paper on a tight budget like ours injunctions are a problem. We do not have the money to fight each injunction in court," he says.

"One of our principle problems is that the MOD does not have a consistent approach. It gives out different signals about what it considers to be a breach."

Remarkably, in some cases the terms of the injunctions and the fact they even exist are secret and cannot be communicated to anyone else. A newspaper can be in breach of such an injunction without being aware of its existence.

In recent weeks the war of words over FRU has hotted up. The names of key Forces Research Unit officers, banned from publication in Britain by gagging orders, have appeared on websites operated from the United States and Ireland.

The Forces Research Unit has been dogged by allegations that it was one of the British state's roughest players in the "dirty war". The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens is currently overseeing a long running inquiry into FRU.

Media attempts to name the FRU soldier who was the handler of agents alleged to run the killings, have been frustrated by threats of injunctions from the MOD. We know that the captain is a woman whom we can only identify as "Captain M" However if you access websites based outside the UK you can find out her name and role.

The Sunday Herald, which was one of the papers directly threatened with an injunction to prevent the Captain's name being made public, is campaigning against the orders.

Deputy Editor Richard Walker said that the name had already been published on an American website when they were threatened with an injunction by the MOD. "It was bizarre. It became an argument about how many "hits" that website had had and whether that constituted prior publication." The MOD maintained that it did not and the Herald could not publish the name.

The MOD stoutly defend their actions. They say that if they become aware of an imminent leak, which they fear will lead to the identification of officers and they believe will put the officers' lives at risk they make an informal approach to the individual or media organisation to desist. "In some cases there is a disagreement. Only then do we resort to injunction," said a MOD spokesman. "No responsible organisation would be willing to put someone's life at risk."

I asked for a list of injunctions but the Ministry declined, suggesting it would be counter-productive. The MOD may believe secret injunctions are the right way to protect their officers and agents, but inevitably it leads to allegations of a cover up.