2004/08 and 2004/09, The Sovereign Nation (August/September, 2004)

              32 county sovereignty movement publications sovereign set-up stitched up and locked up justice for seamus doherty campaign rues seamus dohbhty now in the coming weeks it is imperative for republicans of all persuasions to come together and highlight the plight of derry republican seamus doherty readers of the sovereign nation will be familiar with the litany of abuses perpetrated by the renamed ruc and the british army against anti-agreement republicans in the last number of years however despite the fact that the corruption ui>c niaijjjaykiw>iw;i jiu uo has received some media coverage the practice of media censorship has been one of the defin ing factors in the various campaigns to expose the new1 police service of northern ireland a campaign to free seamus doherty was launched in derry on the 27th july and although the press conference was well attended by local repub licans only the local derry media appeared utv did do a follow up item the next day but republicans could be forgiven for thinking that the framing of an innocent man by a supposedly impartial and non political police force was only an item of local inter est the press conference was attended by members of the 32 county sovereignty movement the irpwa the irish republican socialist party as well as independent republicans and a local sinn fein councillor those in attendance were addressed by republican newry and mourne inde pendent councillor martin cunningham irpwa spokesperson marian price and aidan carlin a member of seamus doherty's legal team as well as seamus1 sister ann marie and local derry republican paddy browne who organised and chaired the event councillor cunningham spoke first explain ing the link between seamus case and two of his constituents martin brogan and mark carroll both of these men were released without charge after serving long periods on remand in connection with the discovery of two booby trap car bombs outside newry in september 2002 seamus doherty was subsequently arrested in june 2003 and has been in custody ever since it is alleged that forensic evi dence namely dna links seamus doherty to com ponents on one of the bombs it has since been revealed that the security forces conspired to frame martin brogan and mark carroll in connection with this explosives find many suggest that the charges were dropped in order to conceal the full extent of the dirty-tricks operation revelations that the ruc/psni and the british army contaminated evi fndependent forensic science laboratory and used an undercover agent to set the men up have under mined what little trust anyone had in these agencies seamus doherty is adamant that his dna was planted by an agent and/or agencies of the state shortly before seamus doherty's arrest an ruc search team entered his home using their own key seamus was then restrained while a number of the search team wandered around his flat unhin dered when seamus managed to cry for help the intruders hurriedly vacated his apartment shouting wrong flat let's go despite repeated requests from seamus doherty's solicitor the ruc/psni have yet to give an explanation for their presence in his flat the answer may lie in a letter from a foren sic science lab in england to one in carrickfergus which stated that dna found on the explosives couldn't be identified and more ominously a hand written note by a detective allen which states maybe more work needs to be done it is a cause for concern that less than 24 hours after the date on the letter a ruc/psni/fru team is rummaging around seamus doherty's flat where dna is readily available from combs toothbrushes or any number of items aidan carlin of seamus legal team then spoke outlining the special relationship between the ruc and the forensic science laboratory see spe cial report in centre pages and he speculated that given the fact that the vast majority of work under taken by the forensic science lab is commisioned by the police then it may be a case of he who pays the piper calls the tune marian price then spoke of the need to bring the case of seamus doherty on to the streets and not to allow the media to ignore such a miscarriage of jus tice in a statement released to the media martin mulholland of the irpwa commented given the recent high profile incidents of police malpraci ce/corruption and the undisputed evidence of politi cally motivated frame ups in the cases of noel abernethy martin brogan mark carroll sean dillon don mullan kevin murphy and brendan o connor we in the irpwa believe that seamus doherty ought to be released immediately it is obvi ous to anyone willing to see that the british state is involved in framing critics of it's rule in ireland and it will use any means it deems necessary not only do we demand the release of seamus doherty we also call for any cases of dna evidence that have been used to hold or convict republicans to be dis missed as untrustworthy r n a poblachta