IRA apologizes for killing teen in 1973 -- Irish Media Watch Message Board

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Date Posted: 06:35:41 10/19/04 Tue GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: IRA apologizes for killing teen in 1973

IRA Apologizes for Killing Teen in 1973
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press Writer

October 15 2004, 6:53 AM EDT

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The Irish Republican Army apologized for abducting and killing a Belfast teenager 31 years ago, a gesture that might signal the outlawed group's willingness to tell the truth about other murders.
Politicians have debated whether Northern Ireland would benefit from establishing a South African-style truth commission, in which killers could confess their crimes in exchange for immunity from prosecution. More than half of 3,600 killings committed during Northern Ireland's conflict remain unsolved.
Bernard Teggart, a Catholic from west Belfast, was just 15 when the IRA abducted him and his twin brother in November 1973.
The twin was freed -- the IRA supplied him a coat and bus fare home -- but a British army patrol found Bernard mortally wounded with a bullet wound to the head. The IRA had pinned a sign reading "tout," meaning informer, on his chest.
The killing disgusted many Catholics then and continues to earn the IRA scorn from its own brethern today: Earlier this year a group of paroled IRA veterans joined Bernard's sister Alice in demanding the truth.
The apology was published Thursday in the weekly edition of An Phoblacht-Republican News, the newspaper of the Sinn Fein-IRA movement.
"At the time, no formal claim of responsibility for his death was issued. We can now confirm that Bernard Teggart was shot by the IRA," the IRA statement said. "We offer our sincere apologies to the Teggart family for the pain and grief we have caused. The killing of Bernard Teggart should not have happened."
The Teggart family accepted the apology as overdue proof that Bernard was innocent. In its statement, the family also recalled that Bernard's father, Daniel, had been fatally shot by a British army sniper during riots in 1971.
"Bernard was an innocent child subject to a horrendous ordeal that culminated in his killing," it said.
The IRA killed about 1,800 people from 1970 to 1997, when it called an open-ended truce as part of a peace process that culminated in Northern Ireland's Good Friday accord of 1998.
In 2002, the IRA issued a broad apology for killing what it called "noncombatants" but insisted that most of its victims -- including police officers and soldiers targeted while off-duty in their homes or private cars -- were "legitimate targets."
IRA critics said the group has much, much more apologizing to do.
"They need to face up to the fact that not only was Bernard Teggart's killing wrong, but also their whole campaign was wrong, both politically and morally," said Alban Maginness, justice spokesman for the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which represents moderate Catholic opinion. "It is time that the IRA and the republican movement admitted that their campaign of violence was a waste of so many people's lives."

Copyright 2004 Associated Press
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