------------------------------
CHAPTER TWO - HIDING THE TRUTH
------------------------------

The effort which the British government put into preventing Stalker
from discovering the truth about shoot-to-kill was minor in comparison
with their efforts in Gibraltar. Because it was the only form of
inquiry to take place, these efforts were concentrated on the inquest
itself.

Long before it opened, the Gibraltar Coroner, Mr Felix Pizzarello,
indicated his unhappiness that the inquest was to be the sole inquiry
into the killings. The inquest, he said, was likely to be 'flawed'.
This proved to be the understatement of the century. A telling
indication of just how flawed it was to be, came after Pizzarello
announced a date for the inquest - 27 June. Two weeks later, the
British government announced that the Coroner had decided to postpone
the inquest. However, Mr Pizzarello was unaware of this decision! The
inquest and the preparations for it were effectively in the hands of
the British government. The press was muzzled. The witnesses to the
killings were subjected to a relentless campaign to discredit and
frighten them.

Mr Pizzarello's 'flaws' were, in reality, gaping holes. But the
biggest hole of all was the one through which the British government
made its escape. Public Interest Immunity Certificates (PICs) meant
that no questions about the background of the SAS operation and the
decision to use the SAS could be raised. Instead the inquest was to be
locked into a minute inquiry into events lasting less than four hours
- from the time Sean Savage arrived in Gibraltar to the time the three
lay lifeless in their own blood.

Yet it was precisely the excluded intelligence background which would
have been central to revealing the truth. Firstly it was this
'intelligence' that led the SAS to be so sure (and so wrong) that the
three were armed and had a remote controlled bomb on 6 March. This
provided the SAS with their stated reason for shooting the three. The
PIICs meant that no questions could be asked about the basis on which
the British believed the three to be armed or to have a bomb.
Secondly, the question of what surveillance the three were under in
Spain and why, nevertheless, they were allowed to cross into Gibraltar
could not be properly pursued. By its use of PICs the British
government ensured that there could be no serious inquiry into the
Gibraltar operation.

Instead the British government presented an elaborately-rehearsed,
two-stage cover story. Stage One was 'for reasons which we cannot
divulge we mistakenly let three IRA members into Gibraltar and
mistakenly thought they were armed and had a bomb'. This led neatly to
Stage Two: the SAS 'saw threatening gestures by the three which led us
to believe they were going to detonate the (non-existent) bomb so we
shot them' - Stage One led inexorably to Stage Two, but Stage One
could never be questioned. It was designed as a neat, circular and
impenetrable cover.


THE COVER STORY - STAGE ONE
---------------------------

O - WHAT A LIAR

The first stage in the cover story was given by O, a senior M15
officer responsible for the investigation of terrorism. He had briefed
all those involved in the Gibraltar operation - the Gibraltar police,
British military officers and the British government. His briefing
was, he said, based on hard intelligence' which enabled British
security to know the names of the three and of their plan to plant a
car bomb at the soldiers' assembly point for the changing of the guard
ceremony in Gibraltar on 8 March.

For the British to have this level of detailed foreknowledge is
extremely unusual. Armed with such intelligence it would be a
reasonable assumption that the three could have been kept under
surveillance and arrested fairly easily. But this is where 0 and the
rest of the British operation fell apart. Or so we are told.

O asked the inquest to believe that, despite knowledge of their
intentions, three identified IRA suspects were allowed to roam freely
around Spain without surveillance. Then they were able, despite the
fact that British intelligence had been expecting them, to bring a car
bomb across the border and drive into Gibraltar without even being
seen. O stressed this: 'The car was not seen to cross the
border...neither the people nor the car were under surveillance at the
time they crossed the border'. Paddy McGrory, the barrister for the
families, challenged O on this point. Immediately the government
barrister objected that the question contravened the PIIC. McGrory
then asked O why the three were not under surveillance 'given that
their movements were known to the security services'. To prevent this
question being answered, the PIIC was used for a second time. It was
clearly a point of great sensitivity.

O's briefing included the assumptions that the three would be armed
and would use a remote controlled time device. O told the inquest:

    'The three areas where we were not correct were: on March 6 when
    the incident took place the three were not armed. The car parked
    on that occasion was a blocking car. When the car bomb was
    eventually discovered it did not contain a remote controlled
    device but a timing device.'

Whilst O managed to be right about so much, he not only missed the car
crossing the border but also managed, crucially, to be wrong about the
very factors which gave the SAS the opportunity and the justification
to shoot the three dead. As Ian Jack, writing in the Observer,
pointedly remarked: 'We are being asked to believe, in effect, that
when O was good he was very, very good but when he was bad he was
awful'. O's 'mistakes' provided the SAS with their cover story: they
could say that they believed the three were armed and would have a
remote controlled device on them to trigger a car bomb in the area.
This, as soldiers A to D were continually to stress, was what made
them shoot the three when they allegedly made movements.

The British case for shooting the three could only be disproved by two
methods. Firstly, if it could be shown that the three were under
surveillance in Spain and allowed into Gibraltar. This would point
strongly to a conspiracy to get them onto British territory, where the
operation to murder them could be conducted more easily. It is now
known that they were indeed under surveillance in Spain and were
handed over to Britain at the Gibraltar border. The extent of
surveillance and the detailed information which the British possessed
indicates that the three were not only expected on 6 March but also
known not to be planting a bomb on that date. They were known to be on
a preliminary visit.

Even without the testimony of Spanish surveillance, the British
govemment's own story was that they believed the date for the bombing
was going to be Tuesday 8 March. Why they should suddenly assume the
three were going to plant a bomb on a Sunday when the alleged target,
Army bandsmen, were not present was never explained. Neither was O's
confident, and wrong, belief that a remote controlled device would be
used, satisfactorily explained. Given that the IRA has never exploded
such a device out of sight of the target, the assumption that they
would go to Gibraltar and detonate the device and then have to try to
re-cross the only border after a major explosion, defies belief. In
fact the British must have known that the three were on a preliminary
visit on the day they were killed. Hence the government 5 use of PIICs
to prevent any questioning about the surveillance aspect of the
British operation. For it was in this area that they were vulnerable.
The only other method of disproving the British case relied on eye
witnesses contradicting the SAS testimony of the shooting itself.
Hence, as we shall see later, the campaign to discredit the witnesses.


THE COVER GETS BLOWN...A LITTLE

Other testimony at the inquest put O's evidence in a different light.
First was the question of how a suspected (but actually non-existent)
car bomb was driven across the border by a known IRA man, allegedly
without being noticed.

All of the senior British and Gibraltar witnesses agreed with O's
story of no surveillance. Soldier F, the SAS commander, confirmed O's
story that there was no surveillance in Spain and said that this lack
of advance warning ruled out arresting them either as they crossed the
border or as they parked the car in Gibraltar. M, in charge of the M15
surveillance team, also said that no security personnel were checking
passports and that there was no cooperation from immigration
officials. Gibraltar Police Commissioner Canapa said that the aliases
of the three were not known, implying that this, too, would have made
it difficult for the police to stop them at the border.

It was not until day eleven of the inquest that this particularly
tangled web started to unravel. As soon as Special Branch Detective
Constable Charles Huart appeared, things immediately started to look
very odd. He confirmed that on 6 March he spent seven hours on the
Spanish side of the border checking passports. This was the first time
the inquest had heard of any such surveillance, and it not only
contradicted previous testimony of no surveillance, but it also
undermined the British story that they had no idea when the three
would enter Gibraltar.

The inquest was supposed to believe that with Gibraltar literally
crawling with SAS, police and M15, poor old DC Huart was the only
border surveillance organised. And he managed to miss them. He said
that the Spanish authorities had provided him with a video terminal
and fed details to him of photographs from suspect passports. This is
where he got into a mess with his evidence. The aliases being used by
Savage and McCann were known to the British at the time but Huart
claimed he was looking out for the three in their real names! Pressed
by barrister Paddy McGrory, however, he admitted that he had been
given a list of possible aliases: 'At the time, I knew'. When asked
how he still managed to miss Savage driving across the border using a
known alias, Huart blamed the Spanish police.

After Huart's evidence a different picture had emerged. The British
knew enough about when the three would cross the border to have a man
checking passports there. They also knew the aliases and had
photographs of the three. Later witnesses from the SAS were to admit
that they recognised the three without difficulty once they were in
Gibraltar. How then did they still manage get across the border
undetected?
	
Gibraltar Special Branch Detective Chief Inspector Joe Ullger gave
some of the game away. Whilst stoutly maintaining that the three had
crossed the border unnoticed, he admitted that the plan all along was
to let them into Gibraltar in order, he said, to arrest them. Now we
can understand why Huart and Co managed to miss' Savage crossing the
horder. Either they were meant to 'miss' him whilst other more
sophisticated British surveillance was on his tail or Huart actually
did spot him. Either way the British knew when Savage crossed the
border. This was the plan. Ullger was clear: 'The only way for the
operation to succeed was to allow the terrorists to come in.' Compare
this with O: when asked 'if the primary concern was the protection of
people against the bombing, why was the suspect car allowed into
Gibraltar at all?', he answered, 'The answer is very simple: the car
was not seen to cross the border'. The implication was that had the
British spotted them they would have arrested them on the border. O is
flatly contradicted by Ullger's evidence. O has a great deal more
reason to lie about this point than Ullger.

With Ullger's evidence we start to get nearer to the truth. The plan
was, all along, to allow them in to Gibraltar. This is an
extraordinary admission. For if we take it on face value, it means
that the British plan (after months of preparation) was to allow an
Active Service Unit (ASU) to wander around Spain, bring a car bomb
through Spain, across the border, and then... and only then...arrest
them. This simply does not fit in with normal British practices
against the IRA. For it means that even if this so-called British plan
had proceeded without a hitch and the three had been spotted entering
Gibraltar, it would still have meant challenging three known IRA
members on a street even though they were thought to be armed and in
possession of a remote controlled bomb. It is simply unbelievable that
an official plan containing such a risk would be the one chosen after
months of preparation.

The 'let them in' plan admitted by Ullger only holds water if the
British knew that the three were not armed and did not have a bomb.
Why was it not planned to arrest them on the border, Detective Ullger
was asked. Because it 'would have spoiled the operation' - indeed it
would.


SPAIN PUTS THE COVERS BACK ON

Whilst Huart and Ullger unwittingly dented the British story there was
one source of evidence which could have destroyed it. It is known
beyond all doubt that Spanish police had been watching the three since
November 1987. Not only have the Spanish authorities admitted this and
given details but so has the Ministry of Defence (MOD). For some weeks
after the shootings the MOD continued to brief journalists about
Spanish surveillance. This fitted in with Geoffrey Howe's first
statement to the House of Commons on 7 March:

    'confident that the House will wish me to extend our gratitude to
    the Spanish authorities, without whose invaluable assistance the
    outcome might have been very different.'

And:

    'Shortly before 1pm yesterday afternoon, one of those subsequently
    shot brought a white Renault car into Gibraltar and was seen to
    park it in the area where the band for the guard mounting ceremony
    assembles.'

And:

    'An hour and a half later, the two others subsequently shot were
    seen to enter Gibraltar on foot.'

How could all this have been seen unless surveillance on the Spanish
side of the border had handed the three over to the British? However,
some weeks after the shooting the government story changed
dramatically. Presumably they had realised that the shootings would
look too much like the ambush they were, if it was admitted that the
three were seen entering Gibraltar. So Spanish surveillance had to
disappear. The official story then became that the Spanish police had
lost the three in Malaga and that they were not seen again until they
surfaced in Gibraltar.

This was a very important lie. For, with their evidence of detailed
surveillance of the three right up to the border, it would have been
clear that the British knew exactly when the three were arriving in
Gibraltar. Also that they knew the three were not on a bombing mission
on 6 March hut on a preparatory mission. In other words the British
would have known that they had no bomb. Spanish evidence would have
made it possible to pose the crucial questions: if the British knew
they were armed and had a bomb, why let them in? If they knew they
were unarmed and had no bomb, why shoot them?

In the weeks before the inquest, and even during the inquest itself,
the Spanish police were asked to testify. According to numerous press
reports the Spanish police were willing to do so and indeed angry at
the British claim that there was no surveillance on the three in
Spain. However, they did not turn up to the inquest.

Why did they fail to attend the inquest) The reported reason was a
political one, that the Spanish government would not give diplomatic
ground to Britain's claim to Gibraltar by having Spanish police appear
in a 'British' court. This is plainly nonsense. If the Spanish had
wanted to emphasise the point that Britain was unfit to rule Gibraltar
they had merely to turn up in court and show that the British
officials had committed perjury in order to cover up murder.

The Independent hinted at the real reason: 'the (Spanish) government,
according to diplomatic sources, seems to have realised that no
political gains could be made by nettling Mrs Thatcher on this
sensitive issue.' In fact (by sheer coincidence, no doubt) Mrs
Thatcher was in Spain on an official visit on 21 September, during the
inquest itself. She met with Prime Minister Gonzalez and had the
opportunity to persuade him not to complain about the British lie that
Spanish police had lost the three at Malaga, and to agree that his
police and intelligence officers would not give evidence to the
inquest. What did Thatcher offer in return? Private Eye has suggested
the following explanation. Spain has been trying to join the Western
European Union for some time. The Union is a defence alliance whose
members are given useful military information and equipment. Reagan
and Thatcher had previously opposed Spain's entry because of the
Spanish government's opposition to nuclear bases in Spain. However,
after Thatcher's meeting with Gonzalez, Spain suddenly and
inexplicably gained entry to the Union. That may be why the Spanish
evidence, so crucial to disproving the British story, was never heard
at the inquest. Additionally the British government's announcement in
February 1989 of a substantial reduction in its armed forces on
Gibraltar may have been another pay-off. Rarely has the nature of
imperialist diplomacy been so nakedly exposed.

Before this deal, anxious to uphold the reputation of its police
force, Spanish government and police sources did supply ample
information to the press about the surveillance operation in Spain.
Spanish police began their surveillance operation, at British request,
in November 1987. British security personnel worked with the police in
Spain on this operation. Spanish police closely watched and even
eavesdropped on the three during their preparatory visits to Spain.
Daniel McCann was followed as he entered Spain on 4 March. He and Sean
Savage were then kept under constant surveillance as they met Mairead
Farrell and drove to Gibraltar. Using sophisticated tailing techniques
and a helicopter the movements of the three were relayed minute by
minute to British intelligence officials in Gibraltar. Sean Savage was
handed over to British surveillance as he crossed by car as were the
other two as they crossed by foot into Gibraltar. The spokesman for
the Spanish Interior Ministry, Augustin Valladolid, confirmed these
details soon after the killings and added that British intelligence
officers were based in Malaga working with the Spanish pol- ice
operation. Additionally, the Spanish police provided cars and drivers
for the Death on the Rock programme to show exactly how they did it.

Further confirmation of Spanish surveillance came in March 1989 when
senior sources in Spain's Foreign Intelligence Brigade revealed that
on the day of the killings, Spanish security followed the three not
only to the Gibraltar border but actually into Gibraltar. They
reported the movements of the three to the British authorities.
Furthermore, crucially, they told the British authorities that the
three had no explosives with them. The British government immediately
called these allegations 'untrue' - But the only evidence cited by the
British that the three were 'lost' on 4 March is an unsworn statement
by a Chief Inspector in Malaga which he denies making. Against this
fragile piece of evidence must be weighed the over- whelming evidence
from several senior Spanish officials of Spanish surveillance right
into Gibraltar. Moreover, Spain has publicly honoured 22 of the
policemen involved in the surveillance operation, which they would
hardly have done if the three had been lost.

From this two things are clear: the British knew exactly when the
three arrived in Gibraltar; O and other senior British figures at the
inquest committed perjury.


A CAREFULLY PREPARED AMBUSH

The Death on the Rock programme gave an additional piece of evidence.
The British knew of the IRA plan in November 1987. In December the
venue for the alleged IRA target, the changing of the guard ceremony
in Gibraltar, was suddenly closed - for a 'facelift'. It was not
re-opened until 23 February. The trap baited, the British then merely
had to wait for the IRA unit to return to Spain which they did in
early March.

In total opposition to the British story we have now established this
sequence of events:

*	In November the British receive information that the IRA is
    planning an attack in Gibraltar. Ministry of Defence officials
    have told journalists that by late November Mrs Thatcher had on
    her desk details of the suspected IRA unit operating in Spain. On
    9 December Home Secretary Douglas Hurd attends a meeting of the
    EEC Trevi group on terrorism and warns them that the IRA are
    preparing to attack British targets in Europe.

*	The three are under close surveillance from November 1987 and are
    allowed in and out of Spain to make preparations for the operation.

*   The British learn that the target is to be the changing of the
    guard ceremony in Gibraltar. They close the venue in December.

*   They re-open the venue on 23 February and announce that the ceremony
    will take place as usual on subsequent Tuesdays.

*   The three are allowed to re-enter Spain in early March. The SAS,
    MI5 watchers and other British agents are taken into Gibraltar,
    the three are watched closely as they travel from Spain to
    Gibraltar on Sunday 6 March and are handed over to British
    surveillance at the border.

*	The British let the three and their car into Gibraltar in the full
    knowledge that the bombing operation is not planned to take place
    until two days later and that they do not have a car bomb with
    them.

It is clear that the British could have stopped the three on the
border but chose not to. To complete the picture of what the real
British plan was, there is one more piece of evidence. The British
story is that Sean Savage was seen parking his car in Gibraltar at
12.50pm on the day of the shootings and was positively identified at
around 2pm. Officer G, an SAS officer, claimed to have examined the
car at around 3.30pm and to have reported it to be a suspect car bomb.
So, from 12.50pm there was a car parked in a public street which the
British suspected might be a car bomb. But there was no effort to
evacuate the area of the suspect car until after the three were dead.
A Gibraltar police officer, Chief Inspector Lopez, had been put in
charge of evacuating the area during the planning stages of the
British operation. But on 6 March he was not even informed that there
was a suspicious car until 3.40pm. Not until he heard the shootings
did he try to cordon off the area of the bomb but found that he did
not have the manpower to do so.

If the authorities really thought there was a car bomb why did SAS
Soldier G boldly approach the car and examine it - hardly standard
behaviour for dealing with a car bomb! So we have the strange
situation where the British took the bomb threat seriously enough to
shoot three people dead but not seriously enough to clear the area or
indeed do anything about the so-called bomb.

The British had prepared this operation since November 1987. The three
were watched throughout their time in Spain and handed to British
surveillance as they crossed the border. Their plans were known in
detail. No effort was made to stop them as they crossed the border and
the parked car was left in place with no effort to evacuate the area.
Add to this the fact that the British had set up the three by closing
the target in December and re-opening it in February. Add to this the
fact that the changing of the guard happened not on a Sunday (the day
of the killings) but a Tuesday.

Add it all up and what do you have? You have the British, for once,
with detailed information of an IRA plan and its date and target. You
have the British carefully baiting the trap and having their forces in
place. You have the British knowing full well that the three are
without a bomb on 6 March and are in fact in the final stages of
preparing for an operation the following week. You have this: a
carefully planned ambush sanctioned by the British government and
prepared for four months. You have murder, plain and simple. The
British government is hell-bent on wiping out IRA members. What better
opportunity would they have? To shoot three people dead on the street
in broad daylight - it was to be a terrifying display of arrogance and
force.


THE COVER STORY - STAGE TWO
---------------------------

WHO DARES...LIES

Having made sure that its high-level preparations for murder could not be
discovered at the inquest, the British had then only to present Stage Two
of the cover. This could safely be left to those who do the killing on the
ground - the SAS. All the SAS had to do was to stick to one story: that they
believed the three were armed and had the remote controlled device for a
bomb and that they made threatening movements.

SAS soldiers are trained and professional killers. In general they
take neither chances nor prisoners; once they open fire they shoot to
kill and once they have killed they invent a 'threat' which will
justify their actions in the unlikely event that they are questioned.
When the British government - in fact, Mrs Thatcher - decided to use
the SAS in Gibraltar it was making sure that the final murderous part
of the ambush would be carried out as efficiently as the early parts.
Thatcher's decision to use the SAS leaves no doubt or ambiguity about
the plan: the three would be murdered.

The evidence for this is clear. A high proportion of those who come
face to face with the SAS do not live to tell the tale. When six
people took over the Iranian Embassy in 1980, five of them were
killed. The sixth was saved because hostages, horrified at the
slaughter of the others, took pity on him and protected him. In
Loughgall in 1987 eight IRA volunteers were ambushed while on a
bombing operation. Eyewitnesses saw four of them surrender but all
eight were shot dead. Two civilians in a car were caught in the ambush
and one died as the car was raked by the SAS gunfire.

According to the Defence Correspondent of The independent:

    'The SAS is normally committed only when there is hard
    intelligence of a terrorist operation. This 'hard int', as it is
    referred to by men of the regiment, is as good as a death sentence
    for the terrorists involved ... Normal army training defines a
    successful ambush as one in which all the enemy soldiers involved
    are killed. SAS soldiers apply this basic principle with greater
    skill and precision than other troops.

	'According to a source formerly in a key position at the Army's HQ
    in Northern Ireland, when the SAS is committed there is normally
    an understanding that no prisoners will be taken. The source says
    this is done partly to prevent members of the regiment from having
    to give account for their actions, or details of their methods in
    court.

Father Raymond Murray, who is researching a book into the SAS, has
found that since 1976 there has been SAS involvement in 47 killings in the
Six Counties. He has not come across any 'arrests' by the SAS. But he has
noticed that SAS statements about the killings invariably foHow the same
pattern - that they fired because they believed their lives were in danger.
It is clear that after such operations the SAS are briefed with a cover story
which gives their actions legal justification. This was the case in Gibraltar.

The SAS stuck to their cover story with monotonous predictability:

Soldier A:
    'He looked at me, then all of sudden, his right arm, right elbow,
    actually moved aggressively across the front of his body sir...I
    thought the man McCann was definitely going to go for the
    button...I fired at McCann one round into his back'.

    '...Farrell had a bag under her left armpit at this stage. She had
    actually moved to the right and was grabbing the bag... I thought
    she also was going for the button so I shot Farrell in the back
    once sir...'

Soldier B:
    'Farrell made a sharp movement to her right. She made all the
    actions to carry out the detonation of a radio-controlled bomb.'

Soldier C:
    'Savage spun round very fast. I shouted stop. At the same time I
    shouted, he went down to the right area of his jacket.'

Soldier D:
    'Savage was turning. He spun round. When he was ordered to stop,
    he didn't stop. His arm had gone down, and it was around the hip
    area of his right-hand side, towards his jacket or his hip area...
    I drew my pistol and I fired at Savage.'

These threatening movements were not seen by any of the civilian eye
witnesses. It is simply unbelievable that three experienced IRA
members - all unarmed and without a remote controlled device - should
have made identical threatening gestures. The reason for the SAS men
all seeing these inexplicable gestures lies not in any fault in their
perception. It lies with the SAS rules of engagement.

The rules of engagement for the Gibraltar operation were based on
standard British Army Rules of Engagement. The rules were:

*	The SAS were not to use force unless requested to do so by the
    Gibraltar Police Commissioner or in order to protect life.

*	They were not to use more force than was necessary.

*	They could open fire if they had reasonable grounds for believing
    that an action was about to be committed which would endanger
    life.

*	A warning was to be given before firing, this to be as clear as
    possible and to include a direction to surrender.

*	However they could fire without warning if a warning was 'clearly
    impracticable' or likely to cause a delay in firing which could
    lead to death or injury to themselves or other people.

In the case of McCann and Farrell the soldiers admitted that their
warning shout was useless. No civilian witnesses heard any warnings
shouted. Having riddled the three with bullets without warning the SAS
then simply constructed a story that would fit in with the rules of
engagement - they had fired because they reasonably believed an action
was going to be taken that would endanger life. Hence the importance
of the SAS being able to claim that they believed the three had a
remote controlled device. Hence also the threatening movements
invisible to others.

The SAS and the British government were clearly aware that murdering
people on a public street might present some small legal difficulties.
The SAS even had a lawyer with them when they did their killings in
Gibraltar to deal with any difficulties which might arise on the spot.
But they were not questioned in Gibraltar and in fact left the area on
the night of the shootings. They had plenty of time and advice in
order to construct a scenario which fitted the rules of engagement.
They did not make their first statements until 15 March in London.
Before the inquest they had another six months in which to rehearse
and coordinate their story.


MINIMUM FORCE?

The SAS soldiers who testified also laid great stress on the fact that
they had used 'minimum force'. That the facts - three people literally
cut to pieces by bullets - appeared to belie 'minimum force' did not
worry them. They merely had to say that they fired until the three no
longer presented a threat - until they stopped moving. As with the
other part of their story they had to say this in order to fit in with
their rules of engagement.

These were the injuries sustained by the three after the SAS had used
'minimum force'.

Mairead Farrell

    Shot five times, twice in the head, three times in the body. The
    bullets to the head were fired into her face and exited under her
    left ear and at the back of her neck. The three bullets that were
    fired into the middle of her back exited in the region of her left
    breast. Her heart and liver were pulped, her spinal column
    fractured and her chest cavity was awash with two litres of blood.

Daniel McCann

    Shot four times, twice in the head and twice in the back. The two
    shots to his back caused damage to his liver, heart and left lung.
    The two shots to his head caused multiple fractures, laceration of
    the left cerebral hemisphere and extensive brain damage.

Sean Savage

    Shot at least sixteen times. He suffered 29 separate injuries. His
    arm was broken and he had various wounds on his torso. Five
    bullets entered his back and his lung was severely damaged. Four
    bullets entered his head and he had multiple damage to the brain
    and skull.

Only the twisted logic of the British government and its servants
could seriously hold that these injuries were the product of minimum
force. However it is not merely the extent of the injuries which prove
that the SAS were lying. Whilst Stage One of the cover, its
intelligence side, was impenetrable, Stage Two, the SAS story, was
not. There were witnesses on 6 March. In the early days after the
shooting and in the Death on the Rock programme these witnesses came
forward with testimony which could have proved to be the undoing of
the British government. Some had seen the three shot without warning,
two with their hands in the air, and being finished off whilst lying
injured on the ground. In fabricating its Gibraltar cover story, the
British government had faced two possible dangers: the Spanish
government and the eyewitnesses. If it could manage to nobble a
government - which it did - civilian witnesses should prove a
pushover. It unleashed a relentless campaign to frighten or discredit
the witnesses.

