The Five Demands

Massacre ‘was purely sectarian’ (News Letter)

THE murders of 10 Protestant workmen in 1976 at Kingsmills was a “purely sectarian” premeditated attack carried out by the Provisional IRA, a PSNI review concluded.

The PSNI Historical Enquiries Team report, released last summer, recounted how the 10 Protestant workmen were travelling home from work when they were stopped by up to a dozen armed men on the Kingsmills Road in Co Armagh on January 5, 1976.

The men murdered were Robert Walker, 46; Joseph Lemmon, 49; brothers Reginald Chapman, 29, and 35-year-old Walter; Kenneth Worton, 24; James McWhirter, 63; Robert Chambers, 18; John McConville, 20; John Bryans, 50, and Robert Freeburn, 56.

One of the armed men called for the Catholic amongst the passengers, Richard Hughes, to identify himself. The Protestants on the minibus bravely tried to shield his identity, fearing he was to be the victim.

The gunman got the men out of the bus and lined them up, facing the vehicle. Mr Hughes was told to run down the road.

The armed men then “mercilessly” shot the group using 11 firearms before releasing another burst into the men as they lay dying on the ground.

One Protestant, Alan Black, survived to tell what happened, despite being hit with 18 bullets.

The HET report concluded that “the motive was purely sectarian”.

The day before the Kingsmills attack the three Reavey brothers were gunned down by the UVF in Whitecross and three members of the O’Dowd family were murdered in Lurgan, again by the UVF.

The report said: “It [Kingsmills] was clearly a pre-planned attack on a target that had been pre-selected and researched some time before.

“The murderous attacks on the Reavey and O’Dowd families [by the UVF the day before] were simply the catalyst for the pre-meditated and calculated slaughter of these innocent and defenceless men.”

The police wanted to make arrests but the IRA suspects stayed in the Republic and there were no grounds for extradition, the HET report said.