28 May Press Release relating to the Peter Gallagher Murder 24.03.1993 – Police Ombudsman Report
KRW LAW LLP is instructed by Mr. Seamus Gallagher, son of Peter Gallagher (Deceased).
Forty-Four-year-old Peter Gallagher was murdered by the Ulster Freedom Fighters on 24 March 1993 at the Westlink Enterprise Centre, Distillery Street, Belfast.
On Wednesday 24 March 1993, Peter Gallagher travelled from his home in Toomebridge arriving at the Westlink Enterprise Centre shortly before 8 a.m.
The Westlink Enterprise Centre is situated in Distillery Street on the Falls Road side of the Westlink motorway that leaves Belfast. Having parked his blue Isuzu van – which he had only been using for the previous couple of days – shortly before 8 a.m., he was opening a gate to allow dumper trucks to be accessed by fellow workers in a nearby Housing Executive construction site.
As Peter Gallagher got out of the van, he was shot by a single UDA UFF gunman who was hiding in nearby bushes behind the fence that bordered the motorway. Peter Gallagher was hit in the back and the legs a number of times; though taken by ambulance to hospital, he was pronounced dead on arrival. The postmortem examination concluded that Peter was killed by the cumulative effects of 12 or 14 bullet wounds and fragments.
The gunman, according to immediate reports made his escape in the same way as he arrived to carry out the attack; on a purple mountain-bike, along the path next to the Westlink motorway. The bicycle was found abandoned some one hundred metres from the scene near the Roden Street footbridge over the motorway.
This footbridge connects to the staunchly loyalist Village area on the other side of the roadway. The assumption is that the assailant dropped the bicycle at the bottom of the footbridge and made his way across to an area where he felt safe and secure. A Browning 9mm pistol.
Today the findings of that investigation by the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland established that the murder weapon had been part of a consignment of weapons imported into Ireland under the guidance and assistance of the RUC and Military Intelligence.
Remarkably, the murder weapon had been seized and taken possession of by a member of the British military and removed to Girdwood barracks before later been returned to the RUC. No explanation was given for the removal of the murder weapon from the scene by the military.
The RUC investigation identified at least 12 persons of significant interest, yet no arrests were made despite two houses and one car seized and searched in the follow up investigation. The Police Ombudsman today identified a number of investigative failings on the part of the RUC in particular the failures to pursue relevant suspects.
The RUC Special Branch also failed to share or disseminate a number of pieces of intelligence relevant to Peter Gallagher’s murder. Special Branch had also received intelligence in late April 1993 that the UDA UFF were receiving information directly from ‘British Intelligence’ and again in late June 1993 intelligence was received that a member of the RUC was also providing information to loyalists about individuals in West Belfast. The non-dissemination of the intelligence to the RUC CID significantly impeded the ability to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The RUC investigation into the murder of Peter Gallagher was evidently linked the murder of Damien Walsh on Thursday 25 March 1993 at the Dairy Farm shopping complex on the Stewartstown Road, Belfast yet the RUC treated the two murders as separate investigations despite intelligence linking the murders to the UDA UFF C Company.
RUC surveillance of the UDA/UFF C Company had been removed on Tuesday 22 March 1993 resulting in the murders of Peter Gallagher and Damien Walsh and the attempted murder of two others. The murders were targeted operations for the UDA/UFF C Company on the basis of information provided by an officer of the RUC and a member of British Intelligence. The murders and attempted murder are strongly believed to have been a cover for the targeted attack on the Dairy Farm complex and murder of Damien Walsh.
The targeting activities of the UDA UFF, the cessation of surveillance on the UDA UFF C Company and the glaringly obvious lack of arrests in relation to the murder of Peter Gallagher and Damien Walsh are an indictment on the RUC and the grave investigative failings identified today by the Police Ombudsman.