Great Britain: Corgi Books. p.389 Graham had also gained attention for his strong arguments publicly supporting internment, the revocation of Special Category Status for republican prisoners, and the British government's network of informers.Andrew Boyd: The Informers: A Chilling Account of the Supergrasses in Northern Ireland. Mercier (1984) pp. 85-86.
|
|
Throughout the Troubles, some members of the IRA passed information to the security forces. In the 1980s, many IRA members were arrested after being implicated by former IRA members known as "supergrasses" such as Raymond Gilmour. There have been some high-profile allegations of senior IRA figures having been British informers. In May 2003, an American website named Freddie Scappaticci as being a British spy code-named Stakeknife.
|
|
Kevin McGrady was born into a Roman Catholic family in Belfast in 1956, one of seven children. He grew up in the staunch nationalist Markets area of the city. He trained as a butcher after he left school,Steven C. Greer, Supergrasses: A Study in Anti-Terrorist Law Enforcement in Northern Ireland, p.79 and joined the IRA's Belfast Brigade in 1975 at the age of 19, due to his identification with the Republican cause and distrust of the majority Protestant community.
|
|
The Mafia used its contacts with forthcoming Sicilian DC-politicians such as Salvo Lima and the Salvo cousins to complain to former prime minister Giulio Andreotti about the behaviour of Mattarella, according to Mafia turncoat (pentito) Francesco Marino Mannoia.The Andreotti Affair: Supergrasses target Andreotti, The Independent, April 16, 1993 Andreotti contacted Mafia boss Stefano Bontade to try to prevent the Mafia from killing Piersanti Mattarella. Bontade and other Mafiosi felt betrayed by Mattarella, who used to be responsive to their interests (his father Bernardo Mattarella was rumoured to be associated with the Mafia).Dickie, Cosa Nostra, p. 423-24 Andreotti’s attempt failed.
|
|
It began on 5 May 1983 with ten defendants and 45 indictments including a conspiracy to murder the former Chief Constable of the RUC, Sir James Flanagan. It was presided over by Northern Ireland's Lord Chief Justice Robert Lowry. The trial when it ended on 26 October 1983, secured the conviction of seven out of the ten defendants named by McGrady,Steven C. Greer, Supergrasses: A Study in Anti-Terrorist Law Enforcement in Northern Ireland, p.280 despite McGrady's numerous inconsistencies and mistakes as well as Lord Lowry's description of McGrady's evidence as having been "bizarre, incredible and contradictory".
|
|
A clandestine weapons store of the Banda della Magliana was kept in the basement of a government building, it was later found to contain grenades stolen by NAR leader Valerio Fioravanti. The NAR had access to the weapon and ammunition thought likely to have come from the joint arms cache that was used to kill Carmine Pecorelli in 1979.Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy, p. 87–89 In 1993, contemporaneously with his trial for Mafia association in Palermo,The Andreotti Affair: Supergrasses target Andreotti, The Independent, April 16, 1993 former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti, Sicilian mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti and Carminati, were charged with the murder of Pecorelli by prosecutors in Perugia.
|
|
Di Lauro's grief was in no way diminished by the fact that, as several supergrasses (informers) have since claimed, he was implicated in his boss's murder.'The blood is running': Mafia wars erupt again, The Independent, December 8, 2004 He was arrested for the first time in 1982, during a Camorra summit in the Neapolitan neighbourhood of Forcella, with other members of the Giuliano clan. At the time, Di Lauro was affiliated with the so-called "Nuova Fratellanza" (New Brotherhood), a gang included in the "Nuova Famiglia" (New Family) which fought against the "Nuova Camorra Organizzata" (New Organized Camorra) of Raffaele Cutolo o prufessore ("the professor"). In 1990s the Di Lauro clan was involved in a struggle with the Ruocco Clan from Mugnano.
|
|
A clandestine weapons store of the Banda della Magliana criminal organization was kept in the basement of a government building, the NAR had access to it, and ammunition thought likely to have come from the joint arms cache was used to kill Carmine Pecorelli in 1979.Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy, p. 87-89 In 1993, contemporaneously with his trial for Mafia association in Palermo,The Andreotti Affair: Supergrasses target Andreotti, The Independent, April 16, 1993 former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti, along with Fioravanti's mobster friend Massimo Carminati, were charged with the murder of Pecorelli by prosecutors in Perugia. The case was circumstantial, and based on the word of Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta, who had not originally mentioned the allegation about Andreotti when interviewed by Giovanni FalconeNYT, April 12, 1996 Andreotti Is Back in Court, This Time on Murder ChargeIndependent, 24 September 1995 ALL THE PRIME MINISTER'S MEN Andreotti was acquitted along with his co-defendants in 1999.
|
|