David Mottershead

💥 Taken Alive for the Sake of the Talks 💥 A former SAS operator has now confirmed what many in our community long suspected. In 1997, when the Regiment finally cornered Bernard McGinn, the imperative was to take him alive. Not because it was the safest tactical option in every circumstance, but because killing him risked jeopardising the secret political negotiations then under way. McGinn was no bit player. He was part of the South Armagh sniper team that had killed multiple members of the security forces. He was linked to the murder of Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick — the last British soldier killed by the IRA before the Agreement. He had a role in the major mainland bombing campaign, including the Docklands attack that killed two people and caused enormous destruction. When the SAS moved on the farm near Crossmaglen, they were dealing with a man who had left a trail of blood and wreckage. Yet the political track took priority. The operator’s account makes clear that the mission parameters were shaped by the need not to disrupt the talks. Capture was the requirement. The peace process, still fragile and largely conducted behind closed doors, could not afford a high-profile lethal outcome that republicans might exploit. This is the reality that is too often airbrushed. While the IRA continued to kill and bomb, the state’s most effective operators were operating under political constraints designed to keep the negotiations alive. The same organisation that was murdering soldiers and bombing London was being treated as a party that could not be pressed too hard for fear of collapsing the process. McGinn was eventually captured, confessed to a string of serious offences, and received a sentence measured in centuries. He was free again within a short time under the terms of the Agreement. That sequence — constrained operations, early release, and the elevation of those who directed the campaign into the political mainstream — is the settlement our community was asked to accept. The SAS did its job within the rules it was given. The question that remains is whether those rules properly reflected the threat or whether they reflected a political calculation that the process mattered more than maximum pressure on active terrorists. The operator’s account suggests the latter. For those who lost family members to the sniper teams and the mainland bombs, the knowledge that the priority was to keep a man like McGinn alive for the sake of the talks is not a footnote. It is a measure of the imbalance that ran through the final years of the conflict. The process was protected. The victims were expected to understand. That is the price that was paid. It should not be forgotten. #SAS #BernardMcGinn #PeaceProcess #RuleOfLaw #Troubles #PUL #NorthernIreland #NeverForget