'The law is an ass!'
Tory MP Alex Burghart voices his disgust over findings that soldiers had been unjustified in shooting four IRA men who were returning from an attack on a polce station - the Clonoe ambush of 1992.
Tory MP Alex Burghart voices his disgust over findings that soldiers had been unjustified in shooting four IRA men who were returning from an attack on a polce station - the Clonoe ambush of 1992.
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00:00On a February night in 1992, four men, known terrorists, armed with semi-automatic weapons
00:08and a Dushka machine gun capable of firing 600 rounds a minute at a range of 1,100 yards,
00:14had already attacked an IUC police station and were planning further attacks.
00:20These terrorists called themselves an army, they carried weapons of war,
00:26they sought to kill, and they operated entirely outside the bounds of the law.
00:30And yet, we are being asked to believe that the use of lethal force was not justified upon them.
00:37Mr Speaker, I am not a lawyer, but if this is the state of the law,
00:40then the law is an ass and it is up to Parliament to change it.
00:44What if this had not been on the streets of Tyrone?
00:47What if it had been on the streets of Birmingham?
00:50What if it had been in Parliament Square?
00:52Would we be asking why those men had not been arrested?
00:55Would we find it acceptable that the courts subsequently sought to punish those forces
01:00that had risked their lives for ours?
01:02The consequences of this ruling are potentially very severe.
01:05Military morale weakened, military recruitment reduced,
01:09military effectiveness diminished,
01:12more retired servicemen in their declining years dragged before the courts
01:15for trying to protect their countrymen from terrorists.
01:18And Mr Speaker, for the record, no MOD minister on the bench today to hear this.