Family to trace brother's last steps

Sam Marshall was murdered 20 years ago on March 7.

The family say that the anniversary event will follow the journey which the dead man took after leaving his home in March 1990.

Mr Marshall was shot dead only minutes after he and another two men had left Lurgan's police barracks, where they had to sign in as part of bail conditions. The shooting took place within a short distance of the barracks.

It was claimed the three were followed to the police station by a red Maestro and ambushed on their way home.

A Channel Four Dispatches TV documentary broadcast in 1991, revealed that a British military surveillance camera was found facing the home of one of the men who had been with Sam Marshall when he was murdered.

During a court case in the United States in 1994, a senior police officer based in Lurgan admitted that one of three unmarked cars in the area at the time of the murder, the red Maestro, was in fact an undercover surveillance vehicle.

The officer declined to explain the reason for its presence on the grounds of 'national security'.

The dead man’s older brother, John said, “On Sunday March 7, it is our intention to retrace Sam’s last footsteps on that fateful and final journey which took him from Kilwilke to Lurgan barracks and then to Kilmaine Street where he was gunned down. We are inviting all those who are interested in truth and justice to join with us.

“We intend the theme of the day’s events to focus on the whole unanswered questions which still remain into Sam’s murder, particularly the whole aspect of state forces’ collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. The family’s view is very firmly that the commemoration should be non-party political.

“Twenty years on from our brother’s murder, there still has been no inquest. Nor has there ever been any public explanation given as to what three unmarked security force vehicles were doing in the vicinity of the murder scene that night immediately before the attack.

"In the absence of any other explanation, the only conclusion that we, as a family, can come to, is that those vehicles and the personnel in them were there to assist and to provide cover for those who murdered our brother.”

Another brother, Gary, said: “We are also conscious that there are many other families in the same position as our own, who are still suffering from the pain and grief of their loss, and who still have not known truth or justice during the long years since the deaths of their own loved ones. We are inviting them to join with us in highlighting those unexplained deaths and to demand that the truth be finally told.”

The commemoration will assemble on Sunday, March 7, at 2.30pm at the junction of Levin Road and Deeny Drive in Lurgan, and proceed along North Street, passing the police station in Church Place before returning along North Street to end at the location where Sam Marshall died at Kilmaine Street.

The Parades Commission has ordered no music be played in the vicinity of Shankill Church. They also revealed an objection had been received from a unionist politician.