By Mark Thompson
Today marks the 38th anniversary of the shooting dead of 20 year-old Francis Bradley by the SAS, near Toome on the county line with south Derry, where Francis lived.
I didn’t know Francis. And yet have come to know him through the circumstances of his killing and a friendship with his family and their formidable and dignified public campaign for truth and justice. He is in no way defined by his killing – Francis was a son and brother, who is much loved and much missed.
The public picture of Francis, now so familiar from reports on the media, with that beaming smile, full of youth and life, is thankfully what we think of rather than the circumstances of his killing when his life was so cruelly ended 38 years ago by a deliberate policy of ambush and assassination.
He was accosted, alone, shot, wounded, and then executed. His assailants – his assassins – scurrying off under the cloak of darkness assured of the cover of impunity.
The RUC had threatened Francis just weeks before his killing, boasting to him that he wouldn’t live to see his 21st birthday.
Human rights cleric, the late Monsignor Denis Faul, went public about the threats, which were reported in the media at the time.
Many unanswered questions still persist to this day. Justice denied. Justice still being delayed.
The British amnesty Act, the UK’s last resort and forced hand, that tries to ensure their countless murderous deeds remain unaccounted for, is now thankfully being challenged by the Irish government in Strasbourg and in the courts in Belfast by families.
This involvement of the Irish government is vindication of the cruel and inhuman denial of justice and due process of basic rights and law that this Act represents. That international inter-state legal case is in no small measure due to the tenacity of families like the Bradleys.
The family, along with the formidable Fearghal Shiels of Madden & Finucane, and supported by RFJ, were and remain determined to expose the truth. They have never given up and are never giving up.
The inquest into the killing was the very first to be reopened after the devolution of policing and criminal justice powers, with the appointment of an attorney general. And yet the delays and obfuscation continues as the British seek to run down the ticking clock to May 1, when the inquest will be legally shut down as a result of the Amnesty Act. But it will not work. It may temporarily delay matters but ultimately it will fail. Law, rights, truth, and justice with accountability will prevail.
The saddest and cruelest part is aging relatives die waiting. Francis’ father Eddie passed away recently.
In this regard the law is also vindictive. A form of collective punishment for daring to take on and challenge the British state. However, resilience has become second nature to the Bradley clann, forged in the four decade long battle it is one made of steel – one instilled in them by their late father and their wonderful mother, Rosemary.
The inquest has been moved from Derry where it initially opened last year, to Coleraine, and now to Banbridge, where it resumes tomorrow.
To keep up to date follow Madden & Finucane and Relatives for Justice.
Finally, our thoughts, prayers and hopes are with the Bradley clann this day – you all remain an inspiration.
