Shoot to kill MRF Policy

Undercover soldiers 'killed
unarmed civilians in Belfast'
21 November 2013 Last updated at 10:50
Soldiers from an undercover unit used by
the British army in Northern Ireland killed
unarmed civilians, former members have
told BBC One's Panorama.
Speaking publicly for the first time, the ex-
members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF),
which was disbanded in 1973, said they had
been tasked with "hunting down" IRA members
in Belfast.
The former soldiers said they believed the unit
had saved many lives.
The Ministry of Defence said it had referred the
disclosures to police.
The details have emerged a day after Northern
Ireland's attorney general, John Larkin,
suggested ending any prosecutions over
Troubles-related killings that took place before
the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in
1998.
The soldiers appeared on Panorama on condition
their identities were disguised
The proposal has been criticised by groups
representing relatives of victims.
Panorama has been told the MRF consisted of
about 40 men handpicked from across the
British army.
Before it was disbanded 40 years ago, after 18
months, plain-clothes soldiers carried out round-
the-clock patrols of west Belfast - the heartland
of the IRA - in unmarked cars.
Three former members of the unit, who agreed to
be interviewed on condition their identities were
disguised, said they had posed as Belfast City
Council road sweepers, dustmen and even
"meths drinkers", carrying out surveillance from
street gutters.
But surveillance was just one part of their work.
One of the soldiers said they had also fired on
suspected IRA members.
He described their mission as "to draw out the
IRA and to minimise their activities... if they
needed shooting, they'd be shot".
'Targets taken down'
Another former member of the unit said: "We
never wore uniform - very few people knew what
rank anyone was anyway.
"We were hunting down hardcore baby-killers,
terrorists, people that would kill you without even
thinking about it."
A third former MRF soldier said: "If you had a
player who was a well-known shooter who
carried out quite a lot of assassinations... then
he had to be taken out.
"[They were] killers themselves, and they had no
mercy for anybody."
In 1972 there were more than 10,600 shootings in
Northern Ireland. It is not possible to say how
many the unit was involved in.
The MRF's operational records have been
destroyed and its former members refused to
incriminate themselves or their comrades in
specific incidents when interviewed by
Panorama.
But they admitted shooting and killing unarmed
civilians.
When asked if on occasion the MRF would make
an assumption that someone had a weapon,
even if they could not see one, one of the former
soldiers replied "occasionally".
"We didn't go around town blasting, shooting all
over the place like you see on the TV, we were
going down there and finding, looking for our
targets, finding them and taking them down," he
said.
Patricia McVeigh says her father Patrick was
shot in the back as he stopped to talk to men at
a checkpoint
"We may not have seen a weapon, but there
more than likely would have been weapons there
in a vigilante patrol."
Panorama has identified 10 unarmed civilians
shot, according to witnesses, by the MRF:
Brothers John and Gerry Conway, on the
way to their fruit stall in Belfast city centre
on 15 April 1972
Aiden McAloon and Eugene Devlin, in a taxi
taking them home from a disco on 12 May
1972
Joe Smith, Hugh Kenny, Patrick Murray and
Tommy Shaw, on Glen Road on 22 June
1972
Daniel Rooney and Brendan Brennan, on the
Falls Road on 27 September 1972
Patricia McVeigh told the BBC she believed her
father, Patrick McVeigh, had been shot in the
back and killed by plain clothes soldiers on 12
May 1972 and said she wanted justice for him.
"He was an innocent man, he had every right to
be on the street walking home. He didn't deserve
to die like this," she said.
Her solicitor Padraig O'Muirigh said he was
considering civil action against the Ministry of
Defence in light of Panorama's revelations.
The MoD refused to say whether soldiers
involved in specific shootings had been
members of the MRF.
'Pretty gruesome'
It said it had referred allegations that MRF
soldiers shot unarmed men to police in Northern
Ireland.
But the members of the MRF who Panorama
interviewed said their actions had ultimately
helped bring about the IRA's decision to lay
down arms.
Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the
British army, and a young paratrooper captain in
1972, said he had known little of the unit's
activities at the time, but admired the bravery of
soldiers involved in undercover work.
He said: "That takes a lot of courage and it's a
cold courage. It's not the courage of hot blood
[used by] soldiers in a firefight.
"You know if you are discovered, a pretty
gruesome fate may well await you - torture
followed by murder."
The IRA planted nearly 1,800 bombs - an
average of five a day - in 1972
Col Richard Kemp, who carried out 10 tours of
Northern Ireland between 1979 and 2001, told
BBC Radio 4's Today programme charges could
be brought if there was new evidence unarmed
civilians had been killed.
But he added: "Soldiers often speak with
bravado and I wonder how many of those
soldiers are saying that they themselves shot
and killed unarmed civilians."
Panorama has learnt a Ministry of Defence
review concluded the MRF had "no provision for
detailed command and control".
Forty years later and families and victims are still
looking for answers as to who carried out
shootings.
Former detectives are reviewing all of the deaths
in Northern Ireland during the conflict as part of
the Historical Enquiries Team set up following
the peace process.
Around 11% of the 3,260 deaths being reviewed
were the responsibility of the state.