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Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 DIRTY WAR PART III THE IRISH government this week ordered an investigation of the allegations by former military intelligence officer Captain Fred Holroyd of illegal activities in the Republic. Foreign Affairs Minister Jim O’Keefe told the Dail that the allegations made by Captain Holroyd in the New Statesman were grave; ‘they were being examined by the Garda (police) authorities’. Mr O’Keefe added: ‘We have been assured by the British authorities that the British government had no knowledge of the events that took place’. Members of the Dail have been particularly concerned by accusations that Army officers planned and paid for illegal kidnap operations in the Republic in 1974; and murdered an IRA suspect there in 1975 (NS 4 and 11 May). Captain Holroyd has also alarmed Irish TDs (MPs) by revealing that certain members of the Irish Garda (police) were regarded as British agents. One particularly fruitful source — a detective ina border county — was known to the Secret Intelligence Service as ‘The Badger’. In return for his help, ‘The Badger’ was supplied with Special Branch and Army reports and information about Protestant extremist activities in the North. SPECIAL EDITION -- TERRORISM NEW STATESMAN Death threats Early in 1974, a ‘Liaison Intelligence NCO’ in the Army’s 3rd Brigade in Northern Ireland, then based in Lurgan, admitted to Captain Holroyd that he had sent a ‘death threat’ letter enclosing a bullet to a Republican activist. The practice of security personnel sending anonymous death threats was apparently common, Captain Holroyd himself admits that he sent such threat letters to Protestant extremists in Portadown, hoping to inhibit their activities. Holroyd now regrets this behaviour — but the case we have investigated and confirmed was far more serious. The target was an innocent political activist, not a con- victed terrorist and the bullet sent through the post (itself an idiotically dangerous act) led directly to charges being brought against an innocent third party. In May 1972, Mr Charles Sweeney, a civil rights activist living in Craigavon, near Lurgan, received the death threat letter. It contained a live 0.32”? round of ammunition — a type seldom used by the Army. But Staff Sergeant Bernard ‘Bunny’ Dearsley — the NCO involved — could, as an undercover operative, Mo hol qe nc” The seenrity Pores Nlith WS. We re wl qe chi 'e Vou. ata b vi Lui tr 1 5 oul signature, Rooyo WS — Gra rgavon ~~ Go hrmd a" Death threat letter: sent by the army, enclosing a bullet, to Catholic civil rights activist, Above: Captain Fred Holroyd, long-haired and bearded as undercover intelligence officer in Portadown. 61 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 26 JUNE 1984 18 May 1984 Pg. 10-11 Terror tactics Duncan Campbell with more revelations of ‘dirty t Ireland from Fred Holroyd, former British army in ricks’ in Northern telligence officer be specially issued with a small and easily concealed Walther PPK pistol, which used such specialist ammunition. ‘Get out of the area and stay out’, the letter warned Sweeney, or ‘the next bullet will not be delivered in ‘an envelope’. Although purportedly signed by the Provisional IRA, it stressed that Mr Sweeney’s alleged offence was provoking ‘serious secterian (sic) conflict’. The bullet was, rather surprisingly, dis- coverd by the Post Office during letter sorting, but was merely resealed with official tape and delivered — bullet and all — to Charles Sweeney. This strongly suggest official complicity in allowing the live ammunition to be passed on. Terrified by the letter, Sweeney turned for help to Mrs Bernadette O’ Hagan of Lurgan. A likeable and active local Republican, she was the wife of Joe B. O’Hagan, then the quarter- master of the Provisional IRA. Mrs O’Hagan put the letter in a spare handbag. After contacting her busband, she was able to assure Sweeney that the IRA was not out to get him, Sweeney was never threatened again, but in 1973 decided to leave Craigavon and return to his previous home in Scotland. In April 1974, Mrs O’Hagan’s house was raided and searched by the Army. The bullet was found; and Mrs O’Hagan and her son Kevin charged with illegal possession of ammunition. The charges covered both the 0.32” round and rifle magazines, allegedly found at the same time in the garden yard (which appear to have been planted during the search). The 0.32” round was still with the threat letter in the resealed envelope. Mrs O’Hagan and Kevin — then a student in England, who despite his family connections has never been suspected of joining the IRA — were both remanded in custody. An appeal court later freed them. Soon after Mrs O’Hagan was arrested, Holroyd was told by Dearsley that she was being held on a false charge — and that he had sent the threat letter on the instructions of the Brigade intelligence staff. The letter (see illustration) is still in the possession of the RUC, who showed it to Holroyd last May. He says he is ‘positive’ that the threat note was written by Dearsley. Holroyd was familar with Dearsley’s hand- writing — which was so bad that he wrote infrequently. Holroyd often had to copy or transcribe his written reports for him. Sergeant Dearsley’s widow confirms that Dearsley, who died in 1977, seldom wrote, and then only badly — but she is certain that the writing in the letter is not her late husband’s — ‘unless he was trying to disguise it’. Unfortun- CONTINUED NEXT PAGE