A CAMPAIGNER for the families of victims of the IRA pub bombings in Birmingham in 1974 has spoken about her opposition to a new law that will pardon IRA terrorists for historic crimes if they admit to them.
Julie Hambleton of Justice 4 the 21 told GB News: “Most soldiers that I am aware of are opposed to this.
“The soldiers say that if there is a case to be brought against them, then they are happy to go to court to face the prosecution, because there is no honour in amnesty, and there is no honour in this.
“This Conservative Government is trying to railroad this obscene piece of legislation through into the law books that will pardon murderers like the cowards, who came to our city, killed with impunity, and then ran away.
On the 1974 attacks she continued: “They planned, prepped and planted bombs in two packed pubs. In 1974 people would get paid every week or every fortnight and they’d get paid on a Thursday. The Provisional IRA always claimed that no one was meant to get killed.
“Really? I mean, who do they think they’re kidding?”
In her interview with Arlene Foster, she said: “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to rewrite history of their past.
“This goes much broader than that, because that is exactly what this bill is doing. Conservative governments are trying to bury their own dirty, dark past of their own collusion.”
“My mum, who will be watching, she had to identify Maxine [Hambleton], she was only 18, on a cold, hard slab amongst all these other bodies.
“There are thousands of families like ours and everybody wants this bill to be scrapped. What the Government is saying is that this is to stop soldiers from being prosecuted. What a load of rubbish.
“We had a meeting with Brandon Lewis earlier this year, when he was still Northern Ireland Secretary of State, and George Jones, who lost his father in the Mulberry Bush and had to identify him.
“Be put it to Brandon Lewis and said, ‘how many soldiers is this meant to be protecting?’ and he said I can’t find more than a handful, so I think there’s three.
“Well, Brandon Lewis couldn’t give him an answer. He said, ‘I don’t have those sorts of figures at hand’.
“He’s one of the ones who were railroading this in. He’s one of the architects of this bill…
“This bill would give all of those terrorists and paramilitaries on both sides a green card to just continue on with their lives without ever facing justice.”
