Martin O’Hagan and a twenty year wait for justice

Twenty years ago today, journalist Martin O’Hagan was murdered as he walked home in the company of his wife.

The killing was claimed by the Red Hand Defenders, a cover name for the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

As they say in the Six Counties, “the dogs on the street” know who pulled the trigger.

In the weeks before his death, Martin had expressed concerns that members of the LVF were following him.

He had angered them by reporting their crimes.

The loyalist splinter group were particularly incensed at Martin’s relentless reporting of their campaign of nakedly sectarian assassinations against Catholics and their illegal drugs distribution network.

A week before his death, he had been intimidated by a well-known loyalist in Lurgan, who told him that the journalist was under surveillance.

Yet today, two decades on, they are still at liberty and have never spent a day in prison for Marty’s murder.

Today the National Union of Journalists staged a vigil outside of the Police Ombudsman’s Office.

A decade ago, I attended an NUJ event in Belfast to mark the 10^th anniversary of the killing of our brother.

Now another decade has passed, and the British state is still stonewalling the calls for justice.

Those same canines on the highways and byways of Portadown know fine well that British securocrats protect Marty’s killers to this day.

In my time on the Irish Executive Council of the NUJ, news of yet another threat to one of our colleagues in Northern Ireland was a regular agenda item.

The originator of the intimation will usually be an active paramilitary who seems to live a charmed life and will rarely be brought to book by the authorities.

The accepted euphemism among my colleagues is these…ahem…lucky paramilitaries are members of a “protected species”.

That means that they are a state asset providing intelligence to the spooks and the cops.

One of the NUJ members holding the banner in the featured image is my branch colleague Trish Devlin.

Regular readers will know that I have been covering the story of her intimidation by a Loyalist.

Like Marty, she is a fearless investigative reporter who delves into the dark criminal underworld of the paramilitaries.

This led one of Ulster’s defenders to threaten her one-year-old child with rape.

Yes, dear reader, you read that correctly.

She reported this crime to the PSNI, and their response was less than stellar.

Earlier this month, the Police Ombudsman upheld her complaint.

I raise Trish’s case to point out that the policing landscape had not markedly changed since Marty’s murder twenty years ago.

An attack on a journalist is an attack on journalism.

An attack on journalism is an attack on democracy.

However, when those perpetrating the assault on the Fourth Estate are themselves, agents of the state, then it is clear that there is something rotten in the statelet of Narne Arne.

Martin O’Hagan left behind his wife Mairi and their three daughters Cara, Niamh, and Tina.

They’re in my thoughts today.