Rosemary Nelson

Nelson obtained her law degree at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) School of Law. She worked with other solicitors for a number of years before opening her own practice in Lurgan in 1989.[1] Nelson represented clients in a number of high-profile cases, including Michael Caraher, one of the South Armagh Snipers, as well as a republican paramilitary accused of killing two RUC officers. She also represented the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition in nearby Portadown in the long-running Drumcree conflict against the Orange Order and RUC.

Nelson was posthumously awarded the Train Foundation's Civil Courage Prize, which recognises "extraordinary heroes of conscience".[2]

Nelson claimed she had received death threats from members of the RUC as a result of her legal work. Some RUC officers made abusive and threatening remarks about Nelson to her clients, which became publicly known.[3] In 1997, while approaching police lines in her capacity as legal representative of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, she was grabbed by an RUC officer and pulled into the middle of the police. Nelson reported to the Committee on the Administration of Justice that one of the officers said "Rosemary you Fenian fucker", spat in her face, and that the police pushed her around to the extent that she had bruises all over her arm, her right shoulder and her legs. The later Rosemary Nelson Inquiry concluded that her account of this incident was honest and truthful.[1]

In 1998, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Solicitors, Param Cumaraswamy, noted threats from the RUC in his annual report, and stated in a television interview that he believed Nelson’s life could be in danger. He made recommendations to the British government concerning threats from police against solicitors, which were not acted upon. Later that year, Nelson testified before a committee of the United States Congress investigating human rights in Northern Ireland, confirming that death threats had been made against her and her three children.[4]

On 15 March 1999, Nelson was killed by a bomb placed under her car outside her home in Lurgan, County Armagh. A loyalist paramilitary group calling itself the Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility for the murder.[5][6] Allegations that the British state security forces were involved in her killing led to a public inquiry.

In 2004, the Cory Collusion Inquiry recommended that the UK Government hold an inquiry into the circumstances of Nelson's death. The resulting inquiry into her assassination, chaired by retired judge Sir Michael Morland, opened at the Craigavon Civic Centre, Craigavon, County Armagh, in April 2005.[7] In September 2006 the British Security Service MI5 announced it would be represented at the inquiry. This move provoked criticism from Nelson's family, who reportedly expressed concerns that MI5 would remove sensitive or classified information.[8]

The results of the inquiry were published on 23 May 2011.[9][10] The inquiry found no evidence that state security agencies – including the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) - had "directly facilitated" her murder, but "could not exclude the possibility" that individual members of those agencies had helped the perpetrators.[3]

Furthermore, the inquiry found that Nelson had been publicly threatened and assaulted by RUC officers in 1997, and that those officers had made threatening remarks about her to her clients, which became publicly known.[3] It concluded that this helped "legitimise her as a target in the eyes of loyalist terrorists".[3] which helped legitimize her as a target.[3][11] and that some RUC intelligence about her had 'leaked'. All this, it said, increased the danger to her life.[3]

Rosemary Nelson was survived by her husband and their three children.

• Pat Finucane
• Robert Hamill
• Billy Wright

• Inquiry website
• Socialist Democracy on the inquiry