The British defence ministry has refused to give information about the body of Robert Nairac, the murdered soldier, to the commission set up to find the Disappeared.
Geoff Knupfer, of the Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (CLVR), said that the decision not to provide details on the captain’s whereabouts was “unfortunate” after unfounded rumours surfaced about his activities in Northern Ireland.
The CLVR has been searching for the three remaining bodies of the 16 “disappeared” by republicans. It accepts information anonymously and is barred from passing it on to any other body so it cannot be used for criminal investigations. Nairac was 28 when he was shot dead after being abducted from the Three Steps pub in Dromintee in May 1977 by a group of local republican sympathisers. He had been posing as Danny McErlaine, a mechanic and member of the Official IRA to gather intelligence.
“We have not received any information in his case at all. We guess this might be because he was a British soldier and of course because of the damaging allegations that have been made or connected with his name in more recent years,” Mr Knupfer told the Oireachtas committee on the implementation of the Good Friday agreement.
“This is not about Robert Nairac, it is about his loved ones, it is too late to show any compassion for Robert Nairac . . . this is about his family.”
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Since his death a number of rumours and conspiracy theories about him have circulated. It has been claimed that republicans are also withholding information because of a suspicion that he was working for the SAS, which is linked to the killings of several republicans. Nairac was an officer with the Grenadier Guards but worked in an intelligence role.
The British Ministry of Defence last year told an inquest into the shooting dead of ten Protestant workmen by republicans at Kingsmill in South Armagh that it was “inconceivable” he was at the scene, debunking a story peddled by some republicans.
Mr Knupfer said: “I am pretty satisfied that he was a junior officer. He had not got the freedom to roam around and run riot.” He dismissed rumours that the soldier’s body had been destroyed in a meat processing plant as a distraction. Mr Knupfer also appealed for more information about Columba McVeigh and Joe Lynskey.