/2012

APPLICANT: A McINTYRE: 1st 27-06-12

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND QUEENS BENCH DIVISION (JUDICIAL REVIEW)

IN THE MATTER OF AN APPLICATION BY ANTHONY McINTYRE FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW AND IN THE MATTER OF A DECISION OF THE POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND TO REQUEST THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO SEEK ON ITS BEHALF CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL HELD BY BOSTON COLLEGE, MASSACHUSETTS, USA, PURSUANT TO THE TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM ON MUTUAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS

FIRST AFFIDAVIT OF ED MOLONEY

I, Ed Moloney, aged 18 years and upwards make oath and say as follows: 1. I am a journalist, writer and film-maker. I was Northern Editor of the Irish Times and subsequently Northern editor of the Sunday Tribune, both leading newspapers based in Dublin. I am also the author of several books about the political conflict in Northern Ireland. I now live and work in New York City.

2. I make this affidavit in support of the Application of Anthony McIntyre for Judicial Review in the matter of a decision of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to request the United States Government to seek on its behalf confidential material held by Boston College, Massachusetts, USA, pursuant to the Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom on Mutual Assistance In Criminal Matters.

3. Along with Anthony McIntyre, I was a putative intervenor in the action brought by the Trustees of Boston College in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to quash the subpoenas at issue, but our request to intervene was denied. See In re: Request from the U.K., 831 F. Supp. 2d 435 (D. Mass. 2011). I was also co-plaintiff in an original complaint in the same District Court concerning the same matter, D. Mass. No. 11-cv-12331, which was dismissed on January 25, 2012. Mr. McIntyre and myself appealed from those decisions to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. See In The Matter Of Dolours Price, 685 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 7-6-2012). I further incorporate by reference the Affidavit of Ed Moloney filed in support of the Motion of the Trustees of Boston College to Quash Subpoenas in Case Number 11-mc-91078, and in our original complaint in D. Mass. No. 11-cv-12331.

4. From 2001 until 2006 I was the director of the Belfast oral history project (the Belfast Project), sponsored by Boston College, which was a project dedicated to collecting the life stories of protagonists involved in both paramilitary and security forces during the Troubles period of conflict in Northern Ireland from 1969 onwards.

5. There is no doubt in my mind that if any of the oral history archives of the Belfast Project at Boston College are handed over to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the peace process in Northern Ireland will incur destabilizing and irreparable damage. In addition to my participation in the Belfast Project, my opinion is based on my lengthy experience as a reporter covering the Troubles in Ireland for the Irish Times, as well covering for the Sunday Tribune the peace process from its inception in the 1990s through to its successful culmination. My book A Secret History of the IRA is regarded widely as the most authoritative account of how and why the Irish Republican Army (IRA) took the path of the peace process.

6. When the research project at Boston College (BC) began, I as project director, and Anthony McIntyre as researcher, gave interviewees a pledge that nothing of what they said would be revealed until their deaths. I intend to keep that promise.

7. However, I believe the time is apposite to reveal what the interviewees did not disclose.

8. I now wish to make the following facts public: in her interviews with BC researcher, Anthony McIntyre, Dolours Price did not once mention the name Jean McConville. The subject of that unfortunate womans disappearance was never mentioned, not even once. Nor so were the allegations that Dolours Price was involved in any other disappearance carried out by the IRA in Belfast, nor that she received orders to disappear people from Gerry Adams or from any other IRA figure. None of this subject matter was disclosed in her taped interviews with Anthony McIntyre. 9. The truth is that the interviews that Anthony McIntyre conducted with Dolours Price are notable for the absence of any material that could ever have justified the subpoenas. In this respect it is worth noting that, when she was interviewed by Anthony McIntyre, Dolours Price was given the same confidentiality assurances as other interviewees, which was that whatever she said would not be revealed until her death. As the interviews with Brendan Hughes, later published in the book Voices From The Grave, graphically demonstrate, this enabled interviewees to speak freely, fully and candidly and to talk honestly about their lives in the IRA. 10. The subpoenas served in May 2011 by the United States Attorney General on behalf of the PSNI seeking the interviews with Dolours Price, which was followed in August by other subpoenas seeking further information relating to murder of Jean McConville from the BC archive, was based upon false information emanating from a newspaper report in Northern Ireland published in February 2010 suggesting that Dolours Price had recorded details about the disappearance of Jean McConville during her interview with Anthony McIntyre for the BC project. She did not.

11. The McIntyre-Price-BC interviews are the wellspring for this extensive legal action carried out by the U.K. and U.S. governments in legal actions that could do irreparable harm to the peace process in Northern Ireland, irretrievably reduce academic and media freedoms in the United States and imperil the lives of researchers and interviewees alike.

12. Specifically, the newspaper report that began the saga of the BC subpoenas appeared in The Sunday Life on February 21st, 2010 under the by-line of Ciaran Barnes. The report, splashed on the front page and continued inside, alleged that Dolours Price had been involved in the McConville disappearance and several other similar events and had admitted all this in a tape recorded interview.

13. The article went on to claim that Dolours Price had given taped interviews to what Barnes called Boston University and he told his readers that he had heard tape recordings in which Dolours Price confessed her role. It is submitted that the piece was written in such a way as to lead the average reader to conclude that she had made these admissions on tape to BC and that Ciaran Barnes had listened to them.

14. To quote Ciaran Barnes report: Price recently gave a series of interviews to academics from Boston University (sic) about her role in the IRA. These include admissions about her role in transporting some of the disappeared to their deaths. The interviews were given on the basis that they will not be published until after her death, and Price, who has made taped confessions of her role in the abductions to academics at Boston University, will relay this information to Independent Commission for Location of Victims Remains (ICLVR) investigators later this week. He further stated that Sunday Life has heard tape recordings made by Price in which she details the allegations against Adams and confesses her own involvement in a series of murders and secret burials.

15. Ciaran Barnes report featured centrally in the U.S. governments subpoena requests when the action was challenged in the U.S. District Court by BC. Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts in her July 2011 submission stated as follows: Ms Prices interviews by BC were the subjects of news reports published in Northern Ireland in 2010, in which Ms Price admitted her involvement in the murder and disappearances of at least four persons which the IRA targeted: Jean McConville, Joe Lynskey, Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee. See Exhibits 1 and 2. Moreover, according to one news report, the reporter was permitted to listen to portions of Ms Prices BC interviews.

I beg to refer to a true copy thereof upon which pinned together and which marked with the letters and number EM1 I have signed my name prior the swearing hereof. 16. It appears that the U.S. Government was convinced was that The Sunday Life reporter, Ciaran Barnes, had listened to Dolours Prices interview with BC and had heard her oral confession to the disappearance of Jean McConville and others. I do not know whether or not this assertion is reflected in the supporting information under seal.

17. Three days before his report appeared, on February 18th 2010, The Irish News, had published a lengthy series of articles based on an interview with Dolours Price conducted in Dublin earlier that week by one of the papers senior reporters, Allison Morris. The front page lead carried the headline: Dolours Prices trauma over IRA disappeared. I say and believe that this interview was tape recorded and it has been my consistent belief throughout this affair that the tape recording that Ciaran Barnes listened to and upon which he based his Sunday Life article was Allison Morris tape for the Irish News. It certainly could not have been the tape recording lodged with BC.

18. The reasons for my belief that it was Allison Morris tape is based on the admission of Irish News editor Noel Doran who stated that Morris had taped Dolours Price in the course of a lengthy debate with myself carried out in the columns of the Irish-American website, TheWildGeese.com during 2011. (See: http://thewildgeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/moloney-vs-irish-news-final-word.html ) I beg to refer to a true copy thereof upon which pinned together and which marked with the letters and number EM2 I have signed my name prior the searing thereof.

19. He wrote: As I have pointed out, Moloney himself could have solved this mystery through one simple telephone call. We would have been happy to tell him that PSNI detectives did attempt to obtain the Irish News tape but were informed that we were no longer in possession of any such material.

20. As regards the failure of the PSNI to ascertain the source of the evidence until long after the subpoenas had issued, Allison Morris wrote the following in the Irish News on October 19th, 2011: Moloney has suggested there is some sort of mystery as to whether the PSNI has attempted to obtain material from the Irish News. In fact the Irish News was approached by the PSNI in June this year. The police were informed I had not retaied any material in relation to my discussion with Ms Price and had nothing further to add to what had appeared in the Irish News in February 2010.

21. I believe and I am advised that, before the PSNI sought legal assistance under the MLAT, it was under an obligation to exhaust domestic resources, as well as to have due regard to Mr. McIntyres right to life under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and to the right to freedom of expression as set forth at Article 10 of the ECHR.

22. I am advised further that there is a responsibility on a police force in such circumstances to seek the evidence sought from less sensitive sources before seeking assistance under the MLAT, and that the PSNI failed in these obligations.

23. I say and believe that the PSNI failed in its basic duty to establish the reliability and credibility of the false newspaper report until more than fifteen months after publication of the article and long after the subpoenas had been served on BC.

24. I say and believe that the PSNI only moved to check the Irish News material or gather evidence after I submitted an affidavit to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts setting forth my belief that the basis for the subpoena was flawed and that the taped interview referred to was not the tape deposited with BC but was recorded instead for The Irish News.

25. As the documentation supporting the request for legal assistance under the MLAT has been sealed, I do not have the means to

scrutinize the representations made by the PSNI to the United States Department of Justice and to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, but I can only assume that any representations made by the PSNI were accepted in good faith by the U.S. authorities.

26. However, if the PSNI had not carried out due diligence to exhaust its evidence gathering before enlisting the assistance of the United States, then the U.S. authorities may have been misled. For this and for many other reasons, the actions of the PSNI may well amount to an abuse of process.

27. Under the terms of the MLAT, myself and Anthony McIntyre were precluded from challenging the actions of the Attorney General in providing legal assistance to the PSNI. Accordingly, the Honourable Court is in a unique position in that it is the only judicial authority which can review the actions and omissions of the PSNI in light of its obligations under the ECHR and its adherence to due process under the MLAT, and I pray that the Honourable Court grant Mr. McIntyre the relief requested.

Dated:

September 12, 2012 Bronx, New York

Ed Moloney State of New York ) )SS:

County of Bronx

On this, the________day of September, 2012, before me a notary public, the undersigned, personally appeared Ed Moloney, known to me (or satisfactorily proven) to be the person whose name is subscribed to the within instrument, and acknowledged that he executed the same for the purposes therein contained. In witness hereof, I hereunto set my hand and official seal. ___________________________ Notary Public

This affidavit is filed on behalf of the Applicant by Kevin R Winters and Co Solicitors.