Details of terror attack released

The main street in Claudy. New details about one of Northern Ireland's worst terrorist atrocities
12 April 2012

New details about one of Northern Ireland's worst terrorist atrocities, the 1972 bombing of Claudy, are expected to be revealed on Tuesday.

Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson's report into the IRA bombing which left nine people dead and 30 injured followed claims that the British Government and the Roman Catholic Church were involved in a cover-up to protect the man suspected of masterminding the attack.

Father James Chesney, a priest, was transferred to a parish in the Irish Republic, which is outside the UK criminal jurisdiction. He died of cancer in 1980 aged 46.

Nobody was ever convicted. Three car bombs went off in the village, 11 miles from Londonderry where six months earlier British Paratroopers shot and killed 13 unarmed men attending a civil rights march on Bloody Sunday.

A nine-year-old girl, Kathryn Eakin, was among the Claudy dead.

The IRA never admitted responsibility for the outrage, but the bombs were left in the village on the same day as the British Army launched Operation Motorman to remove barricades set up in so-called republican no-go areas of Londonderry.

Sean MacStiofain, who was the IRA's chief of staff at the time, later wrote: "My heart and everything I had inside me just seemed to tighten up in a knot and sink slowly to the bottom of my stomach. 'Holy Mother of God', I thought. 'Who is responsible for this?'"

Mr Hutchinson is due in Claudy on Tuesday to brief relatives about the contents of his report of the investigation before details are publicly announced.

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