Video of Real IRA shooting dead soldiers is shown to murder trial

Published on Tuesday 8 November 2011 12:32

Chilling video footage showing the moment two servicemen were gunned down by masked attackers has been played at the trial of two men accused of murdering the soldiers.

Sappers Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, and Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham, were ambushed by the dissident republican Real IRA outside the Massereene Army barracks in Antrim, Northern Ireland, in March 2009.

High-profile republican Colin Duffy, 43, from Lurgan, Co Armagh, and Brian Shivers, 46, from Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, deny charges of murder and attempted murder. Their trial opened at Antrim Crown Court yesterday and the packed room fell silent as CCTV images of the murders were played.

As Terence Mooney QC opened the Crown’s case, he told how the habit of collecting pizzas at the gates of the base had left the troops vulnerable to attack.

He played the footage which showed five soldiers, wearing desert combat gear and only hours from being deployed to Afghanistan, walk out of the base to meet pizza delivery cars.

Two masked men then appeared, opening fire on the soldiers and the fast-food workers, before pausing to aim at what the prosecution said were wounded men who lay on the ground.

Mr Mooney later played an audio clip of a voice message said to have been accidentally left on a mobile phone found in a green Vauxhall car, believed to have been the getaway vehicle.

“The message is chilling and self-explanatory,” he told the judge, Mr Justice Anthony Hart.

The court then heard an audio clip of a male voice: “There were a few dead all right.”

A later excerpt added: “Have to say boys you were as cool as f***.”

The troops from the 38 Engineer Regiment were about to begin a tour of duty in Afghanistan when they were gunned down by the Real IRA group, which opposes the Good Friday peace deal of 1998.

The parents of the murdered men were in court and wore Remembrance poppies.

As the hearing opened, Mrs Azimkar and a tearful Mrs Quinsey comforted each other.

The grieving families sat on one side of the accused men. On the opposite side sat relatives of the defendants.

Shivers, who is on bail because he suffers from cystic fibrosis, wore jeans and a dark coat.

Prison officers escorted Duffy into the court. He is being held on remand at Maghaberry prison in Co Antrim where he is involved in a so-called “no wash” protest.

Duffy, who wore a long beard as a result, smiled and gave a thumbs-up to his family as proceedings began.

Mr Mooney suggested to the court that relatives of the murdered soldiers might wish to leave prior to the screening of the footage of the shootings. Both grieving mothers left just before the images were shown.

Mr Mooney said: “The evidence will show that an ad hoc and rather disorganised system for delivering food to the barracks had evolved over time. This system exposed the soldiers at the main gates for some time.”

He added that security at the camp had become relaxed. The lawyer said soldiers at the base phoned around 20 orders a week But there were often disputes over food orders when they arrived, and the troops would be outside the base for some time talking to delivery staff.

On the night of the killings Mr Mooney said the masked gunmen approached the troops as they discussed their pizza order with two delivery men who had arrived in their own cars.

The killers fired 65 rounds in an attack that CCTV pictures showed lasted for around one minute.

Mr Mooney said: “Chillingly, the gunmen moved in and shot some of their victims as they lay on the ground.”

He said a pathologist’s report showed the soldiers killed in the shootings suffered multiple bullet and shrapnel wounds.

Those injured included the other three soldiers, a security guard and the pizza delivery men.

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Raymond

Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 12:05 AM

When will this stupid unnecessary killing ever stop?

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