DUP Leader Gavin Robinson MP said
“We welcome the Government’s decision to challenge the inquest findings relating to the 1992 Clonoe operation, in which four armed Provisional IRA members were killed by the SAS following a gun attack on Coalisland police station.
To portray this operation as an unjustified killing is a grave distortion of both the facts and the moral context of that time. We reject the coroner’s findings and support all lawful efforts to have them overturned.
Those who served in the fight against terrorism must not be criminalised for doing their duty. The soldiers involved in this operation took an anti-aircraft machine gun from Republican terrorists. We should also remember whilst four of the ten terrorists were killed, three were arrested and three escaped.
The notion that these highly dangerous individuals posed no threat is absurd. Only minutes earlier this heavily armed IRA unit fired 60 rounds at a police station and were travelling in a hijacked vehicle equipped with the mounted 50calibre machine gun.
We fully support the Ministry of Defence’s judicial review and commend the decision to also fund a parallel legal challenge on behalf of the veterans involved. This is a critical step in pushing back against what many see as a one-sided legacy process, where those who stood against terrorism face relentless legal pursuit.
Clonoe was not a peaceful protest, it was an active terror operation by armed IRA members who had just attacked a police station and were prepared for further violence. The SAS intervention, removing the IRA’s most powerful gun from our streets, undoubtedly also prevented further loss of life.
The soldiers should be commended, not vilified.”