In the wake of the verdict in the Aidan McAnespie case the Ancient Order of Hibernians is planning a webinar for Saturday, December 10.
“The historic guilty verdict” against a former British soldier for the 1988 fatal shooting of McAnespie was, according to an AOH statement, cheered by his family and justice campaigners but dismissed as a “witch hunt” by British Army veterans vowing to push ahead with amnesty legislation.
Said the statement: “Aidan McAnespie’s niece, Una McCabe and civil rights lawyer Niall Murphy will discuss the verdict and its wide-ranging legal implications, in a live webinar broadcast hosted by the Ancient Order of Hibernians on Saturday, December 10th, at 11 a.m. Eastern Time, 4 p.m. Irish time.
The broadcast will include an update on the British Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, “designed to take away legal channels for justice about legacy killings.”
The AOH statement said that Aidan McAnespie, twenty-three years old, had just walked through the Aughnacloy British Army checkpoint, near the County Monaghan border on February 21st 1988, when he was shot in the back by a British soldier, Michael Holden.
Holden, said the statement, was “wielding a machine gun.”
The statement added: “McAnespie, who was on his way to play Gaelic football, had just been searched and given permission to proceed.”
Family members noted that McAnespie had frequently been subjected to “threats and taunts” by British soldiers when he passed through the checkpoint, either to work at his County Monaghan job or play Gaelic sports.
The soldier, Holden, said his hand slipped. He had been later fined three hundred seventy pounds by the British Army.
The statement said that the judge in the case, Justice O’Hara, had rejected Holden’s explanation as “a deliberately false account of what happened” because of the amount of force necessary to fire the weapon.
Judge O’Hara had found Holden guilty of manslaughter.
The statement noted that British Cabinet Veterans Affairs Minister, Johnny Mercer, had pledged Holden the full support of the Ministry of Defense and “reaffirmed the Tory manifesto pledge to pass legislation to ‘tackle vexatious legal claims that undermine our armed forces.’ Northern Ireland Veterans’ spokesman Paul Young said “the witch hunt continues.”
The statement said that in the webinar Una McCabe will talk about her family’s thirty-four year campaign for justice, and the toll it took on her mother Eilish, now deceased, and other family members who did not live to see the verdict.
McCabe, said the AOH statement, will also speak about the impact on hundreds of other families who have also been fighting for truth about the murder of loved ones, “but now fear British amnesty legislation will take away legal rights to get prosecutions, inquests, Ombudsman reports or civil suits.”
Niall Murphy, said the statement, is one of the civil rights lawyers “who are being vilified for efforts to get justice in legacy cases derided as ‘lawfare.’ He will give a legal overview of why it took 34 years to get justice for Aidan McAnespie, and what the implications of the amnesty bill would be.”
The statement concluded that American politicians and members of Irish-American organizations, including the Irish American Unity Conference, Brehons, Irish Northern Aid, and Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, have been invited to join the webinar.
The links for the webinar are: Zoom registration:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GZaf9aX1T6aZtHPLbluhtw
