17 July 2012
Gerard Lawlor Community Inquiry
Saturday 21st July 2012
1230 at St Enda’s GAC
Gerard Lawlor, a member of St Enda's GAC, was the last Catholic to be shot dead as a result of the Troubles. His death was one of the first sectarian murders to be investigated by the PSNI, which assumed its powers the previous November. His 10th Anniversary occurs this weekend.
His family and friends have invited a panel of internationally respected, independent jurists to assess the evidence and the complaints of Gerard’s family with regards to the ineffectiveness of the state’s
response to Gerard’s murder, and specifically their complaint that his murder was preventable. The family are frustrated and demoralised at the fact that there has been no one charged with any offence connected to Gerard’s murder, and that as such there has been no trial, a complaint to the Police Ombudsman lodged in January 2007 has still not been resolved, and furthermore that the most perfunctory of legal processes in the sudden death of any citizen, his Inquest has yet to be heard, by the Coroners Court.
The panel will include Jane Winter (British Irish Rights Watch), Gemma McKeown (Committee for the Administration of Justice) and Professor Bill Rolston from the Transitional Justice Institute, at UUJ. The event is being co-hosted by Relatives for Justice, St Enda’s GAC and Kevin R Winters and Co Solicitors.
