The Ombudsman gave families who have been waiting two generations for the truth and over four years for this long overdue report, just one day to read it before it was released to the public.
It was not enough that they were treated so disrespectfully when they were railroaded into this release, but then they were handed an ill-prepared and factually incorrect whitewash. Thankfully, it is so weak, transparent and littered with errors that it will never stand up to scrutiny. The few hours that the families have had it and the demolition exercises they have executed even before its release, means that the Ombudsman report has expired before it has seen the light of day. No slick PR will revive it.
There are many untruths but I shall leave you with one before we have studied it thoroughly:
The Ombudsman states categorically that John Taylor, the minister for Home Affairs at the time, was not debriefed by the RUC with disinformation. The police report that the families released was lodged in the ministry of Home Affairs and records the first instance of the bomb-in-transit lie. Have the Ombudsman not made the connection?
We have another chapter in control of the media and information mismanagement, it seems.
