We
wish to put on public record our view that the family
of Bart Fisher have suffered as a result of his
actions and the recent media coverage involving
their son and brother but their anguish pales into
insignificance compared to the hurt that our family
has suffered in the
four years since Mark's brutal killing on a dark
pathway in the dead of night.
It
gives us no pleasure to issue this statement but
we feel we have a duty to fight for justice for
our son and brother. We have remained silent for
too long and it is our desire to get justice for
Mark. It is not our desire to, in any way, put any
further strain on the Fisher family. We haven't
done that in four years and we do not intend to
do it in the future.
The
person responsible for bringing this media attention
is Bart himself, not the families of his victims.
Bart
Fisher is a convicted killer who has openly boasted
of killing our son and brother Mark. This begs the
question, why would an innocent person do something
like this? We received the following answer when
members of our wider family circle asked members
of the Provisional movement: we were told that because
Bart was being accused of it so much, he admitted
it. Some logic?
If
Bart felt he was being accused in the wrong then
why didn't he contact our family, even through intermediaries,
to discuss the allegations against him? He didn't.
Instead
he openly boasted in the street about how he plunged
a knife into Mark. In fact he shouted it out for
all to hear, he didn't care who heard. His admission
of guilt was heard by Margarate Devine, wife of
Derry hungerstriker Micky, who has already described
what she was confronted with when she returned from
work one evening and even had a gun put to her head
by Bart's comrades in the PIRA.
The
Provisional IRA has so far failed to contact the
family to discuss our concerns despite it being
public knowledge for four years that rogue members
of their organization were being accused of this
brutal knife killing within weeks of the killing
happening.
Our
family has suffered the indignity of a whispering
campaign of innuendo that was engineered by people
associated with Bart and the PIRA in a vain and
desperate attempt to cover up and divert attention
away from his crimes. The clean-up operation, similar
to the clean-up in the McCartney case, began immediately.
Evidence was destroyed and witnesses threatened.
Mark's
killers and their associates launched a vicious
character assassination campaign against a dead
youth who could not defend himself. This campaign
of lies and innuendo is not going away lightly but
we as a family have the will and desire to bring
this to an end and for the truth to be brought to
light.
There
was a lot of talk at yesterday's Fisher family press
conference about due process and the courts; no
such luxury was afforded to Mark. Instead he suffered
the indignity of being attacked from behind whilst
walking home from a friend's home late at night.
He, like DeDe McGinley and Robert McCartney, was
killed in a knife attack by criminals.
We
welcome the statement
from the IRPWA that criminals should not be
housed in the segregated wing of Maghaberry prison.
Bart Fisher is a criminal, convicted of a criminal
offence, he was tried and convicted in a criminal
court and it is an affront to the men and women
inside and on the outside who campaigned for political
status that the prisoners are being forced into
an unacceptable situation.
Members
of our family stood on the pickets during the last
number of years in support of the prisoners in their
fight for political recognition and for seperate
accomadation within the prison. It is unfortunate
that criminals such as Bart Fisher have been able
to twist the system within Maghaberry and discredit
that hard fought campaign. Bart Fisher should immediately
be removed to the criminal section of Maghaberry
prison to serve out the remainder of his meagre
sentence.
Bart's
family, despite being fully aware of the allegations
against him for the last four years since May 2001,
have never once shown any concern for our family
and our plight. Do they even know the details of
what happened to Mark on the night he was attacked?
He was attacked from behind in the dead of night.
He had an iron bar rammed into the back of his head
and had a twelve inch dagger plunged into his leg
with such force that it actually broke his thigh
bone. This knife was brought down on Mark's leg
from a height as Mark was
lying on the ground after being attacked from behind
with an iron bar as he walked home on a dark lane.
He was then left to die in a dark pathway in the
dead of night. These certainly weren't the actions
of upstanding pillars of the community.
One
member of our family was told by a representative
of the Republican Movement, a former Blanketman
who is now involved in the security industry, in
the days following the attack on Mark and before
there was any evidence of PIRA involvement, that
the PIRA had indeed launched an investigation into
his brutal knife killing. Indeed so repulsed by
the attack on Mark that this person actually said
that whoever killed Mark, in his words, "should
be put down a hole".
We
are now calling on the PIRA to furnish our family
with the results of their own investigation into
the killing.
Yesterday's
claims that there is CCTV footage exonerating Bart
from being near the scene of Mark's killing is a
lie. We are aware of information that proves otherwise.
The PSNI have informed us that they are not aware
of CCTV footage exonerating Bart being in existence.
Dodgy CCTV evidence, mentioned after four years,
is the latest desperate attempt by those associated
with Bart Fisher to cover up for his vile crimes
against Mark and against this community.
