Kingsmills Massacre Inquiry Denied

The families of 10 Protestant workmen gunned down by IRA killers in the Kingsmills massacre in 1976 have gone away empty handed after they met with the Secretary of State this morning.

The families had called for a 'Bloody Sunday' massacre-style public inquiry into the killings shortly after a report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) last month ruled the obvious - that the IRA was behind the shootings in the south Armagh village - despite supposedly being on a 'ceasefire' at the time.

Ten men were forced at gunpoint to reveal their religion after their bus was hijacked as they went home from work, before being lined up and killed.

Now, Owen Paterson, as the UK's Secretary of State for NI has told a representative group of the relatives that he is not prepared to intervene politically.

Mr Paterson said he would not call on the PSNI to re-open their investigation into the murders either.

This has disappointed the local Ulster Unionist MLA Danny Kennedy who also met Mr Paterson who said the meeting fell short of what the families had hoped for after he said it would be "quite wrong of me to raise their hopes" that he could some how overrule the whole system and impose.

In one of the worst incidents of the Troubles, the ten victims were lined up with flasks and lunchboxes still in their hands and shot dead by 11 gunmen.

The HET also found that the weapons used could be linked to up to 100 other killings, included the murders of RUC Chief Superintendent Harold Breen and Superintendent Raymond Buchanan in South Armagh in 1989.

It said the motive was sectarian with each man murdered because he was a Protestant.

The group also wants to meet Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, to highlight the views of the Kingsmills relatives.

See: IRA 'Killed 10 Because Of Religion'

(BMcC/GK)