Paul Thompson was shot dead while being driven home in a taxi through Belfast in April 1994. He was murdered in a sectarian attack by loyalist paramilitaries who had set out to kill Catholics.
The taxi driver was a friend who was collecting a fare at another address in the Springfield Park area in the west of the city. But no one at the address had rung the taxi firm.
The call is suspected to have been a deliberate decoy by the killers who wanted to lure a taxi as prey. Paul was not specifically targeted. They could not have known he would ask for a lift or be in the area.
One resident described hearing a heavy burst of gunfire after 23:00, running to the car and finding Paul.
Members of a banned loyalist terror group, the Ulster Defence Association, using the cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters, claimed responsibility for the killing. During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the group repeatedly murdered Catholic civilians like Paul.
On the morning of the day that Paul was killed, locals had told police about a hole in a barrier – known as the 'Peace Line' – which separated the largely Catholic Springfield Park area from a largely Protestant neighbouring area. The residents were concerned the breach could give loyalist paramilitaries access to launch an attack.
The hole was not fixed. After the murder, those responsible escaped through it.
An inquest into Paul's death was opened in 1995 but never concluded. No-one has ever been held to account. There has never been a full investigation.
Left by themselves to fight for answers, his mother Margaret and brother Eugene, both now dead, came to suspect collusion between British security forces and informants – meaning state agents - in the group responsible.
In 2024, a coroner decided to release to the family a summary of secret information held by the police. This was said by the coroner to be of central relevance to the case and the police supported the move. But the British government and MI5 argued this would prejudice national security and mounted a legal challenge.
The case, which centred on who had the power to decide to release the information, reached the Supreme Court last summer, with Paul Thompson's brother, Eugene, tuning in to hearings from a hospice, as he neared death from cancer.
The case is widely viewed as a major test of the state's policy of neither confirming nor denying (NCND) information involving national security.
The NCND policy is a position adopted by the government and security services when responding to questions about sensitive matters. It means there will be no confirmation, no denial, and no acknowledgement that the information requested is true, false, or even exists.
Eugene Thompson's barrister, Monye Anyadike-Danes KC, said the family had concluded the murder happened because the authorities were colluding with the very group that actually perpetrated the killing.
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