Bid to serve writ on McGuinness
William Frazer tried to serve a writ on Martin McGuinness at Stormont
Tuesday March 09 2010
A leading victims campaigner attempted to serve a High Court writ on Martin McGuinness for his alleged part in IRA violence during a break from the heated justice debate at Stormont.
Willie Frazer, who lost five relatives at the hands of republican paramilitaries during the Troubles, confronted the Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister in the Great Hall of Parliament Buildings with the legal papers accusing him of membership of the IRA army council that ordered the murder of his father.
But Mr McGuinness, a self-confessed member of the IRA during the conflict, refused to accept the document, prompting Mr Frazer to throw it at him. A Sinn Fein spokesman later denied that a writ had been officially served.
The well-known campaigner, who fronts the group Fair (Families Acting for Innocent Relatives), is trying to take a civil case against Mr McGuinness in Belfast High Court.
"When challenged to his face, Mr McGuinness turned and walked away, unable to face the victims that he had helped create," said Mr Frazer, who has run for elected office on a number of occasions without success.
"On a day when the issue of policing and justice was being discussed, victims chose their time well to raise this matter."
A spokesman for Mr McGuinness dismissed the significance of the incident.
"Martin McGuinness received no writ from Willie Frazer," he said.
"The only writ Martin McGuinness has received is the one from the Irish people who vote for him. Willie Frazer's involvement in politics is akin to the Monster Raving Loony party. He is a political failure."
Mr Frazer's father James, a soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment, was shot dead by the IRA in Co Armagh in August 1975.
