Derry
knife killer, shaven headed Bart Fisher, filmed
walking from a court appearance, could easily have
passed for any neo-Nazi skinhead on his way to one
of the many gatherings of racist gangs that infest
modern Germany. His conviction for stabbing to death
a young Derry man, Jimmy 'DeDe' McGinley in October
2003 further reinforces the view that Fisher is
a pathological skin head thug who gets his kicks
from plunging knives into the hearts of men twenty
years his junior. Last week one newspaper report
under the emblazoned headline 'Caged Brute had Killed
Before' detailed the death of Mark Robinson in April
2001.
22-year-old Mark 'Mousey' Robinson was making
his way home to the Shantallow district of Derry
when he was set upon by Fisher and his IRA pals.
Fisher had previously called at Robinson's home
with an IRA punishment squad to administer a beating
to Robinson after accusing the young man of being
involved in petty crime. Robinson was lucky but
he wasn't so lucky two weeks later when he met Fisher
and his pals by chance in a dark laneway in Shantallow.
The IRA men seized upon Robinson, and Fisher rammed
a dagger with a twelve-inch blade into his hip.
Fisher also hit Robinson over the head with a scaffolding
pole and then stabbed him another nine times before
running off into the night.
Like
something conjured up from One Million Years BC,
Fisher exudes the demeanour of a cretinous Neanderthal
thug whose knuckles trail the ground and who derives
immense pleasure from grunting, 'me Bart, you dead.'
Whatever
mental images are generated by the Derry stabber's
likeness to right wing German skinheads, they quickly
give way to the realisation that this particularly
vile and predatory threat to young men exists in
our midst and does not need Jewish victims to vent
his hate upon. Bart the Butcher does not spell his
name 'Fischer', does not speak in guttural Germanic
tones, and does not openly boast of the instinctive
fascism that so pervades his personality. No, Bart
the Butcher goes as one of our protectors and in
recent years has taken to protecting young men from
the threat of old age. Worried about penurious pensions,
Alzheimer's or any of the other maladies that afflict
the aged? Send for Bart. With a few Lenny Murphy-like
surgical strikes he'll ensure you never get there.
If
not everybody spotted that the killers of Robert
McCartney in Belfast had 'comrades' who liked to
murder their defenceless nationalist victims with
knives, someone posting on the Derry IRSP internet
board certainly made the connection. Having attended
a vigil for Robert in the Short Strand days after
his murder, I penned an article under the title
Burdens Unbearable.
By way of response came this:
The
following article by Anthony McIntyre certainly
strikes a chord with those in Derry affected by
similar instances. Particularly the RELATED stabbings
of Mark Robinson and DeDe McGinley, carried out
by PIRA members who were then given full PIRA protection
and support.
The
post was drawn to my attention by a friend who said
something to the effect that the IRA must be like
this everywhere. Because the poster was anonymous
I paid little attention to it, tending to shun the
abusive and irresponsible freedom that comes with
anonymity. Although in this case, I could see that
people would anticipate fatal consequences if they
were to speak openly. Sometime later the Blanket
was contacted by people in the North West and asked
would it meet with the families of the two men mentioned
in the post. They had drawn inspiration from the
actions of Robert McCartney's family and now wanted
to speak publicly about their ordeal.
Fisher's
slaying of DeDe McGinley has shot to prominence
in recent days because of his conviction for manslaughter
and subsequent disclosures about his disgraceful
role as a steward in last month's Bloody Sunday
anniversary march, which was also attended by some
of those who would later the same evening hack Robert
McCartney to death. In Derry the irony has not escaped
some that there are quite a few in the Parachute
regiment who have not butchered as many Derry nationalists
as Bart Fisher. The family of DeDe McGinley are
now making some progress in their bid to bring public
pressure to bear on the Provisional movement to
disown Fisher. The family of Mark Robinson, however,
don't even have the satisfaction of knowing that
the wider public is aware that a member of the Provisionals
murdered their son.
When
I arrived in Derry City I was met by a former republican
prisoner and then by two relatives of Mark Robinson.
The picture the relatives painted of Fisher was
one that would have had pride of place in the IPLO
gallery. The Irish People's Liberation Organisation
was a small republican body that had broken with
the INLA and later morphed into a criminal gang.
It was finally forced to shut up shop in 1992 by
the Provisional IRA who disabled the group in a
night of the long knives. Fisher was described as
post-ceasefire thug, with a penchant for violence
whose sole contribution to the armed struggle was
beating local kids. Sheila Holden, an aunt of DeDe
McGinley, was very forthright in her view of the
man who knifed her nephew: 'Bart Fisher is a ceasefire
IRA man; he never fired a shot. He is a man with
a baseball bat.'
Since
his conviction Fisher has denied being a member
of the Provisional IRA. His denial carries as much
weight as Paratrooper denials of culpability on
Bloody Sunday. Although Mitchel McLaughlin of Sinn
Fein stated on Friday's Good Morning Ulster
that Fisher was not a member of his party, many
Derry denizens openly state that he was an election
worker for the party and could often be seen in
election count centres.
Fisher
has never been charged in relation to the murder
of Mark 'Mousey' Robinson, but according to the
family of the dead man, the police have questioned
him about it. The PSNI have since informed the family
that the same type of weapon used to kill DeDe McGinley
was also plunged into the thigh of Mark Robinson
on the night of his murder. Commenting on the circumstances
of Mark's death the family state:
In
the early hours of April 27th 2001, a four man PIRA
unit, at least one was drunk, travelled on foot
from within Galliagh, through the tunnel into Collon
Lane and proceeded to College Glen where they burned
a car belonging to a criminal. With their mission
complete they were making their way back when they
met Mark on the pathway near the tunnel. It was
an opportunistic meeting and for the killers it
gave them the chance to get Mark on the quiet. They
then proceeded to attack Mark with an iron bar ramming
it into his skull. They then left him to die.
Beaten,
battered with an iron bar and stabbed, the twenty
two year old man's heart was later used to save
the life of his uncle, himself a matter of mere
hours from death. Before Mark was even buried, his
young friends had been putting it about that his
killer was Fisher. An eyewitness with crucial evidence
of the moments leading up to the murder later approached
the family and identified Fisher as having been
one of the people responsible. Yet the terror she
expressed being in the grip of prohibited her from
going to the police.
Mark
Robinson according to his family 'was no angel.'
But they strongly refute Sinn Fein and the Provisional
IRA, who in a whispering campaign in the wake of
the murder disseminated 'disinformation' aimed at
creating a posthumous image of Mark Robinson as
a drug dealer. Sinn Fein further suggested that
a local family with criminal connections had been
responsible for the murder. The party alluded to
a bar of dope that it said Mark had stolen from
this family. But his sister Clare claims that his
one crime was not to lie down in front of the thugs
who strut the streets meting out punishment to those
much less in need of punishment than those who make
up the punishment squads. Moreover the family, stung
by the drug related allegations, made a point of
pursuing the matter and could find nothing that
would lend itself to a belief that Mark was in any
way involved in the drugs trade. His parents feel
hurt enough that members of the Provisional movement
would murder their son, but to suffer the added
indignity of seeing their child malignly labelled
as a part of a smear-assisted cover up campaign
intensified their grief immensely.
Some
time after the killing, Bart Fisher was taunted
by a crowd of Mark Robinson's young friends at his
own front door, where he was given verbal abuse
about having 'murdered Mousey.' Fisher ran into
his house and remerged with a large knife. The following
account is provided by an eyewitness, Margaret Devine,
wife of the deceased INLA hunger striker Mickey.
I
came home from work and Bart Fisher was running
around with a dagger and he came as far as my front
window and he was shouting to young ones. He waved
the knife in the air and then stabbed it into the
grass in front of him. He shouted at the young fellas,
'this is what I did to Mousey and I will do the
same to you. He was crying for his mammy when I
was sticking it into him. You will scream for your
ma when I stab you too.' … I saw Bart Fisher
with a young fella on the ground so I walked up
as far as the corner. He looked as if he was drunk
and he had another couple with him. I went over
to him and tried to calm him down and get him to
return to his own home. They were going to stab
the young fella with a knife and I went over and
pushed them away. They had no masks. Bart Fisher
said he was throwing stones at his window. Then
his friends came from the IRA and put a gun to my
head and told me to mind my own business. I later
found out it was imitation but I didn't know this
at the time … I am a republican and I don't
want to see the Provos brought down but as far as
I am concerned they shouldn't be letting scumbags
into the Provos. This isn't what people fought and
died for - scumbags. I vote Sinn Fein and I still
support the Provos no matter what.
Sinn
Fein, when asked about this by the family, stated
that Fisher only admitted to having killed Mark
Robinson because he was being accused of it so much.
That is hardly the prevailing mode within the party
where it seems that denying everything is the order
of the day regardless of how often accusations are
made.
When
I spoke to Marian Robinson, Mousey's mother, she
told me her family were terrified to speak out publicly
and had restricted themselves to raising questions
privately where and when they could. Nobody would
listen to public protestations and it would all
be in vain. Now that the McCartney family have grasped
the nettle, the Robinson family feel that their
voices will not be drowned out by someone saying
'don't be unhelpful to the peace process.' The McCartneys
have shown that pressure to have murderous thugs
rejected by the communities they hide in can pay
dividends.
This
is the first time that we have publicly stated who
killed Mark and the reason for this is that we have
been inspired by the family of Robert McCartney
in their quest for justice. We believed that there
would never be justice for our family given the
circumstances surrounding Mark's killing and the
protection afforded to his killers by their comrades
in the Provisional IRA and by the Special Branch.
We believe that one of the murderers of Mark has
been protected by Special Branch. One of the killers,
Bart Fisher, killed another young person with a
knife following a confrontation about Mark's killing.
Looking
at the parents of Mark Robinson, I knew I was staring
at people who had a light switched off. Something
dies within parents when they lose their children
and that deadness stares out from deep within the
eyes. Marian cannot go out, doesn't visit her friends
or family. Jim, the father, says that since the
murder of his son his life has been a nightmare.
What sickens him most, he claims, are the lies.
He wants the three men who murdered his son including
Fisher brought to justice. He also wants the IRA
to acknowledge that three of its members carried
out an unauthorised attack and that the organisation
should cough them up.
The
family feels that there are other people who witnessed
the murder but who are too frightened to give their
information to the police. They want the Provisional
IRA to state clearly that the same conditions apply
as in the case of Robert McCartney - there should
be no intimidation of witnesses who want to give
information.
The
family have four questions they seek to put to the
republican leadership
-
Was the murder of our son Mark a crime?
-
If
so have the people involved besmirched the noble
struggle of the 1981 hunger strikers in their
fight against criminalisation? Have the IRA criminalised
themselves without the intervention of securocrats
or any other apparatus of the British or Irish
states?
-
Is
there a threat against anyone coming forward with
evidence?
-
Is
there a threat against this family?
The
murder of Mark Robinson raises a number of serious
questions. While many people were previously prepared
to accept that the Provisional IRA body in the Short
Strand and Markets was an unrepresentative rogue
element, evidence, previously suppressed, now suggests
otherwise. Arguably, the phenomenon of wanton violence
and bullying is so widespread, that it is no longer
sufficient to explain it as having its roots in
the character defects of some individuals within
a localised geographic republican area, where an
abnormal IRA culture of contempt has taken grip.
It is currently being implied by a growing body
of people that the character of the Provisional
IRA has been so transformed by the peace process
that the entire organisation, and not merely its
Short Strand contingent, is no longer an army but
a militia rapidly heading towards becoming a gang.
Not only do IRA volunteers feel free to knife nationalists
to death whenever the notion takes them, they do
so in the knowledge that the leadership will cover
up for them when it can.
In
this respect it is significant that after Fisher's
conviction for the killing of DeDe McGinley, he
was released on bail to await sentence. The following
evening at a bar across the border in Donegal, the
Derry butcher was given a send off party. A witness
stated that the Provisionals who packed the bar
stood up and gave him a standing ovation while singing
'there is only one Bart Fisher.' Aren't the young
male population of Derry just glad for that - how
many more would lie in graves if there were two
Bart Fishers? Or a regiment of them with whom even
British Paratroopers would find difficulty competing?
On
Friday prison authorities placed Bart Fisher on
the segregated republican wing in Maghaberry much
to the anger of the prisoners already there. They
find it demeaning that a 'thug and a criminal' should
be permitted to avail of conditions republican prisoners
had suffered and protested to achieve. It was precisely
types like him republican prisoners wanted separated
from.
Earlier
the family of DeDe McGinley had been summoned by
the Provisional IRA and told bluntly that Fisher
was one of their members and would be under their
protection. A brother of the dead man, Eugene McGinley
recalled: 'They told me that when Bart Fisher gets
out for him not to be touched in any way or at any
time as they are claiming him as a republican. They
told me that he is a member of the IRA.'
The
Sinn Fein leadership has a duty to deal with the
concerns of the family of Mark Robinson. Yet, if
the experience of the relatives of Robert McCartney
is instructive, it means that the only way the Robinson
family will move forward is by dragging Sinn Fein
out from the dark corners and forcing the party
to submit itself to democratic scrutiny. There the
muttering and mumbling that serve the party so well
in the netherworld in which it prefers to conduct
its business can be challenged. Under democratic
scrutiny if it fails to behave justly it runs the
risk of appearing ridiculous. If widespread public
ridicule is the price of saving Private Fisher,
the butcher of Derry might just be made pay for
his own crimes.
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