Man charged with 1977 murder of undercover army officer
A man was charged today with the murder of undercover British Army officer Robert Nairac in the North more than 30 years ago.
Kevin Crilly, 59, from Lower Foughill Road, Jonesborough, Co Armagh, is already facing charges of kidnapping and falsely imprisoning the 29-year-old Grenadier Guardsman near the Border in 1977.
The captain, originally from Gloucestershire, was interrogated, tortured and then shot dead by the IRA after being snatched from a pub car park near Jonesborough and driven to a field at Ravensdale, Co Louth. His body has never been found.
Prosecutors laid the murder charge before Crilly as he appeared at Newry Magistrates’ Court for a routine bail hearing on the two lesser counts, with which he was charged last year.
District Judge Austin Kennedy granted Crilly bail; however, he ordered him to remain in custody after Crown lawyers indicated that they may seek to appeal against the decision in the High Court in Belfast.
In the years after Capt Nairac’s disappearance, three men were convicted of his murder, but police have always said they were looking for more suspects.
Crilly was interviewed by detectives in the weeks after the incident but fled to the United States before officers could arrest him on suspicion of murder.
Judge Kennedy was told today that the suspect had remained in the US for almost 30 years.
Investigating officer Detective Sergeant Barry Graham said that, when he returned, he took another name, explaining that Crilly was adopted as a child and had assumed his birth name of Declan Parr.
“The only reason he returned to Northern Ireland was because he was in a long-term relationship in America and that relationship had broken down,” he said.
The officer told the judge that he could connect Crilly with the murder charge and the two other counts of kidnapping and false imprisonment.
Crilly, dressed in a black leather jacket, white check shirt and blue jeans, spoke only to acknowledge that he understood the charges that he was facing.
His defence team objected that the prosecution had given them no prior warning that the murder charge would be put to their client or that they would be objecting to his bail.
Noting that Crilly had complied with all bail requirements since his original arrest 18 months ago and pointing out that, at that point, the defendant was aware that the Public Prosecution Service was examining whether there were grounds for charging him with murder, Judge Kennedy rejected the prosecution objection to bail.
The magistrate said any appeal against his decision would have to be lodged within two hours. He ordered that Crilly was held in the cells until the PPS signalled its intentions.
Medal
Capt Nairac was posthumously awarded the George Cross after reportedly refusing to break under intensive IRA interrogation despite being subjected to torture.
The young officer had been abducted from outside the Three Steps Inn at Drumintee outside Jonesborough.
His remains have never been located amid claims from former IRA members that the body was disposed of at a local meat processing plant to hide the injuries he suffered before death.
Three men have previously been convicted of the murder, another of manslaughter and two others were found guilty of the lesser charges of kidnap and withholding information.
Crilly was arrested last May and charged on counts of kidnapping and assault and false imprisonment after a BBC documentary team unearthed fresh evidence.
He denied those charges but admitted in court to driving one of the killers to the murder scene.
Police said hair from the victim had been discovered in a car used by Crilly.
Two others sought
During the half-hour hearing, Mr Graham said two other suspects in the murder case had fled across the Atlantic at the same time as Crilly.
He said detectives were still attempting to track them down.
“Two others fled at the same time and we are actively pursuing them in America at the moment,” he said.
Asked why the PPS had decided to pursue the murder charge 18 months after Crilly was accused on the two lesser counts, the officer explained that new clues had been discovered.
“Since that time, police have continued to investigate and more evidence has been uncovered and the PPS decided the threshold for a murder charge has now been reached,” he said.
Recounting some of the background to the original murder probe, Mr Graham said Crilly’s car was seized two weeks after the undercover soldier went missing.
A forensic examination found hair matching Capt Nairac’s inside, he added.
In applying for bail, the accused’s lawyer claimed that Crilly had been living openly in the North for four years prior to his arrest 18 months ago and that he had actually contacted, through his solicitor, detectives re-examining Troubles killings to tell them how to reach him.
His representative had rung the police’s Historical Enquiries Team after the BBC documentary, in which Crilly was interviewed, was aired in 2007.
The prosecution barrister said that, in the programme, Crilly had admitted being in the Three Steps Inn on the night Capt Nairac disappeared and of driving one of the men subsequently convicted of the soldier’s murder to the isolated field where it is believed he was eventually executed.
