Purpose

The purpose of operation Flavius was to prevent the bombing of the military band and the purpose of the PIRA cell in Gibraltar, was to place a bomb in a public place to effect that.  Hiding that is a distortion of both the official IRA statement that they were on 'active service' and the inquest verdict.

Its highly regretable that people are shot on our streets, and unlike some places, its not an everyday occurance. Indeed nobody has been shot since - but although there is no crime of 'being Irish in Gibraltar' it remains the position that terrorists can, and will be shot. Although we do not anticipate any more visits from Ireland, due to the proximity to North Africa there are new threats.

One of the NYT articles cited says that the position with Britain is complicated because it does not have a written constitution - this is sloppy journalism because Gibraltar has one and despite a subsequent version, the section which deals with this incident remains 'as was'.