Mercenary aids Scots Guards
By Sean O'Tuama
The case of the two Scots Guards who were jailed for murdering
Belfast teenager Peter McBride in 1992 took an ominous turn this
week.
The guards' commanding officer at the time, the now infamous Lt
Col Timothy Spicer, has been trying to pull a few strings behind
the scenes to get them released.
In February 1995 he wrote to the London Times stating that his
men, Fisher and Wright, had acted ``in good faith'' when they shot
Peter McBride in the back.
It was Spicer's gang of mercenaries who overthrew the regime in
the former British colony of Sierra Leone last year, murdering
scores of innocent civilians in the process.
His company, Sandline International, supplied 30 tonnes of
weaponry for the £7 million operation in defiance of UN
sanctions.
Last week MPs George Foulkes and Andrew Welsh met the two Guards
in prison. Afterwards Foulkes said, ``the purpose of the visit was
to reassure them that everything that we could do as constituency
MPs to secure an early release for them was being done.''
Later the MPs met Peter McBride's father, also called Peter. The
family described the meeting as ``useful'' and added that ``the MPs
made it clear that they do not contest the conviction, as opposed
to those who are officially campaigning for their release on the
basis that they are innocent.'' The family said they were
``extremely angry'' over the smear campaign against Peter by those
wanting the Guards released.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)