THE SON OF murdered prison guard Brian Stack has said he believes he knows the identity of a former IRA commander whom he said has information about his father’s killing.
Speaking last night on RTÉ’s Prime Time, Austin Stack said that he had passed on what he believed was the name of the man to gardaí.
Austin Stack’s father Brian died 18 months after was shot in the neck as he left a boxing match in Dublin in 1983. The Provisional IRA later claimed responsibility for shooting, but no one has ever been brought to justice.
Austin has been involved in a long campaign to try get justice for what happened to his father.
In 2013 he travelled with Gerry Adams to meet a former IRA commander who said that members of the IRA had killed his father. The man said that the killing wasn’t sanctioned by the leadership and that the people involved had been disciplined.
Stack – along with the heads of various political parties – is calling on Gerry Adams to give the name of this former IRA commander to gardaí, and has accused Adams of lying in the Dáil about what he knows.
Adams has said that names previously provided by him to the garda commissioner in connection with the case were given to him by Stack. Austin Stack denies this.
He yesterday confronted Adams at a party press conference in Dublin to call on him to hand over all of the information to gardaí.
‘Information’
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning, Adams refused to say whether he would pass on the name of the former IRA commander to gardaí.
“I don’t have information on a crime,” said Adams.
The only information I had is that that was given to me by Austin Stack.
Adams said his job was to provide information to the Stacks regarding the death of their father, and that he had done that.
“The job that I had to do was to bring closure to this family on a very specific brief which they had given me which I delivered to them,” he said.
He said said the commander had never said that he knew who killed Brian Stack but that he had information “that the IRA were involved”.
He said he never questioned the former IRA commander directly about who carried out the murder.
Adams has said previously that the meeting he facilitated between Austin Stack, his brother and the former IRA commander was done on the basis of confidentiality.
He accused other political parties of using the murder investigation for political gain.
The fact is this should not be a party political issue or part of the debate in Leinster House that we have seen over the last number of weeks.
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