page_title: Loughinisland massacre
section_title: Investigation and campaign by victims' families
hierarchical_section_title: Loughinisland massacre / Investigation and campaign by victims' families
caption_attribution_description: English: New Cathedral Buildings, Police Ombudsman's Office, Writer's Square, Donegall Street, belfast, Northern Ireland, July 2010
context_page_description: The Loughinisland massacre took place on 18 June 1994 in the small village of Loughinisland, County Down, Northern Ireland. Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary group, burst into a pub with assault rifles and fired on the customers, killing six civilians and wounding five. The pub was targeted because it was frequented mainly by Catholics, and was crowded with people watching the Republic of Ireland play against Italy in the 1994 FIFA World Cup. It is thus sometimes called the "World Cup massacre". The UVF claimed the attack was retaliation for the killing of three UVF members by the Irish National Liberation Army.
  There have been allegations that police double agents or informers in the UVF were linked to the massacre and that police protected those informers by destroying evidence and failing to carry out a proper investigation. At the request of the victims' families, the Police Ombudsman investigated the police. In 2011 the Ombudsman concluded that there were major failings in the police investigation, but no evidence that police colluded with the UVF. The Ombudsman did not investigate the role of informers and the report was branded a whitewash.
context_section_description: The morning after the attack, the getaway car—a red Triumph Acclaim—was found abandoned in a field near Crossgar. On 4 August, the assault rifle used in the attack was found hidden at a bridge near Saintfield along with a holdall containing boiler suits, balaclavas, gloves, three handguns and ammunition.
  The first arrests were made on 18 July 1994, a month after the attack, when six men were arrested as suspects under the terrorism laws. Two of them were re-arrested on 22 August, along with a further suspect. All were released without charge for lack of evidence.
  In 2006, following claims that "an RUC agent" had supplied the getaway car to the gunmen, the victims' families lodged an official complaint about the investigation with the Police Ombudsman. The complaint included allegations "that the investigation had not been efficiently or properly carried out; no earnest effort was made to identify those responsible; and there were suspicions of state collusion in the murders". It was alleged that police agents or informers within the UVF were linked to the attack, and that the police's investigation was hindered by its desire to protect those informers. The victims' families also alleged that the police had failed to keep in contact with them about the investigation, even about significant developments.
  It was revealed that the police had destroyed key evidence and documents. The car had been disposed of in April 1995, ten months into the investigation. In 1998, police documents related to the investigation were destroyed at Gough Barracks RUC station, allegedly because of fears they were contaminated by asbestos. It is believed they included the original notes, made during interviews of suspects in 1994 and 1995. A hair follicle had been recovered from the car but nobody had yet been charged, while the other items (balaclavas, gloves, etc.) had not been subjected to new tests made possible by advances in forensic science. It was alleged that the rifle used in the attack had been part of a shipment smuggled into Northern Ireland for loyalists by British agent Brian Nelson.
  A key eyewitness claimed she gave police a description of the getaway driver within hours of the massacre, but that police failed to record important information she gave them and never asked her to identify suspects. A serving policeman later gave the woman's personal details to a relative of the suspected getaway driver. Police then visited her and advised her to increase her security for fear she could be shot.
  In 2008 it was revealed that, since the shootings, up to 20 people had been arrested for questioning but none had ever been charged. In January 2010 a reserve Police Service of Northern Ireland officer (formerly an RUC officer) was arrested by detectives from the Police Ombudsman's Office and questioned over "perverting the course of justice" and "aiding the killers' escape". Later that year, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) concluded there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute. In reply, the Ombudsman's Office said it would consider disciplinary action against the officer.
caption: The Office of the Police Ombudsman, which investigated the police over the massacre
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