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Rosemary Nelson ( née Magee; 4 September 1958 – 15 March 1999) was a Northern Irish solicitor from Lurgan, County Armagh. She was killed in a car bomb planted by an Ulster loyalism paramilitary group, the Red Hand Defenders – a covername used on this occasion by the Loyalist Volunteer Force, in 1999. Nelson was posthumously awarded the Train Foundation's Civil Courage Prize, which recognises "extraordinary heroes of conscience".
In 1998, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Solicitors, Param Cumaraswamy, noted threats from the RUC in his annual report, and stated in a television interview that he believed Nelson's life could be in danger. He made recommendations to the British government concerning threats from police against solicitors, which were not acted upon. Later that year, Nelson testified before a committee of the United States Congress investigating human rights in Northern Ireland, confirming that death threats had been made against her and her three children.
On 15 March 1999, Nelson was killed by a sophisticated bomb placed under her car outside her home in Lurgan.Martin Breen, 'Rosemary Nelson: "There were some rogue police officers who would have been quite happy for her not to be around"' (19.30). Belfast Telegraph, 14 March 2025. Retrieved 14 March 2025 A Ulster loyalism paramilitary group calling itself the Red Hand Defenders – a flag of convenience – claimed responsibility for the murder. Journalists soon learnt that the murder had been carried out by the Loyalist Volunteer Force, specifically that its commander Mark Fulton had sanctioned it when on compassionate release from prison and that Thomas Ewing was the bombmaker. Allegations that the British state security forces were involved in her killing led to a public inquiry.
The results of the inquiry were published on 23 May 2011. The inquiry found no evidence that state security agencies—including the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)—had "directly facilitated" her murder, but "could not exclude the possibility" that individual members of those agencies had helped the perpetrators.
Furthermore, the inquiry found that Nelson had been publicly threatened and assaulted by RUC officers in 1997, and that those officers had made threatening remarks about her to her clients, which became publicly known. It concluded that this helped "legitimise her as a target in the eyes of loyalist terrorists", The Rosemary Nelson Inquiry Report (2011). pp.465-466 and that some RUC intelligence about her had 'leaked'. All this, it said, increased the danger to her life.
Rosemary Nelson was survived by her husband and their three children.
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Categories: 1958 Births, 1999 Deaths, People From Lurgan, Alumni Of Queen's University Belfast, Solicitors From Northern Ireland, Human Rights Activists From Northern Ireland, Deaths By Car Bomb In Northern Ireland, People Killed By Loyalist Paramilitaries, British Women Lawyers, Assassinated Lawyers, 20th-century Women Lawyers, 1999 Murders In The United Kingdom, 1990s Murders In Northern Ireland, Lawyers From Belfast, Lawyers From County Armagh, 1999 Murders In Ireland, People Murdered In Northern Ireland
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