Human rights groups Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have renewed calls for an investigation into the unsolved murder of Irish journalist Martin O’Hagan, who was killed in Northern Ireland on September 28, 2001.
Mr O’Hagan was a staff of Sunday World and had written exposés detailing the criminal underworld operations of Ireland’s paramilitary groups.
He was walking home with his wife when he was shot dead in September 2001, and his murder had gone unsolved for decades.
Twelve years after his death, the director of public prosecutions urged the police ombudsman to investigate the murder in 2013, but the probe has, so far, yielded no result.
The Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI) told Amnesty International that it is “not in a position to provide specific timeframes.”
Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s head of nations and regions, condemned the slow investigation, which has spanned 25 years.
“The brutal murder of Martin O’Hagan continues to cast a dark shadow across press freedom in Northern Ireland,” Mr Corrigan said. “His public execution was a deliberate attempt to intimidate the media and signal that no journalist is safe.”
“It is utterly unacceptable that a quarter of a century has passed without anyone being held accountable. This prolonged state failure has fostered a dangerous culture of impunity, directly endangering journalists who continue to face paramilitary death threats today,” he added.
Mr Corrigan called for an “urgent, independent investigation into the assassination itself to finally bring Martin O’Hagan’s killers to justice and end 25 years of impunity.”
Fiona O’Brien, regional director for Europe and Central Asia at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the group was “tired of excuses” and that lack of justice would only embolden his killers and others who attack journalists.
“It’s shameful that 25 years have passed and we are still waiting for justice for Martin O’Hagan,” Ms O’Brien said. “He was killed to silence his reporting on paramilitary crime, and the failure to punish his killers is not only crushing for those who knew him, but also fuels the unacceptable level of threat and violence which journalists in Northern Ireland continue to face today.”
Ms O’Brien called for a fresh enquiry into the matter to shed light on how the police handled the murder.
“We therefore renew our call for a fresh investigation into Martin O’Hagan’s death, and for transparency from the Police Ombudsman as to how police originally handled the case,” she added.