A chara, - In Michael Farrell's excellent review of Patsy McGarry's stimulating book, While Justice Slept, the True Story of Nicky Kelly and the Sallins Train Robbery (Book Reviews, January 6th), he points out that Kelly and the other accused had been convicted "on the basis of false confessions beaten out of them". Let us call it for what it was: torture.
The Irish State stands accused, nationally and internationally, of torture. The torturers must now be charged, brought before a court, national or international, and made to pay for their crimes against humanity. Otherwise, please face it, the story goes out to an increasingly amoral society that the easy, quick way to promotion in An Garda is to be ready to break the law, using torture and lies under oath, when considered "necessary" by the State to secure a conviction. Once again, "the end justifies the means".
For Ireland's sake, these guilty persons must be punished. Will one of our human rights defenders please come forward and get the case started, nationally or internationally? Indeed, Michael Farrell has the means to that end, as a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission, if the Irish State refuses to act as required by justice.
Incidentally, in Patsy McGarry's work the surname of one of the three tortured, Osgur, my son, appears as "Breathnach". When signing the false confession, and in a desperate effort to indicate before a court that the confession was false, Osgur deliberately put in the "h" in the centre. There is plenty of evidence to prove that we have been particularly insistent in having the surname appearing without that "h".
But now: Who or what will take the first step in having those torturers charged? - Yours, etc,
DEASÚN BREATNACH,
Baile an Chnoic,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.